April 07, 2003 -- HM -- Vienna Log Out | Topics | Search
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M
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Username: mjm

Post Number: 4158
Registered: 11-1998
Posted on Wednesday, July 20, 2005 - 9:48 pm:   Edit Post Delete Post View Post/Check IP Print Post    Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Honorable Mention
Dinner in Stalag 5
Vienna (Carole Barley)

My fathers hands told me nothing
of cutting wood for coffins,
slicing forbidden steaks from cattle
that had a cleaner death than his
fixed bayonet friends in the desert.

Request boots three sizes too big
to walk you to the slaughterhouse
each bare morning.
Slice a steak for each sole,
walk back with wind dried blood
on your face,
food under your feet.

In a certain East Coast Town
mother waited in a flattened city.
Traded toffeee with Yanks and saw her first
real Black Man.
Folded letters to you,
watched sun turn to snow again.

And you cut down comrades;
sliced the ropes that freed them
from too many days of cage.
Loosened the knots that silenced them
with ridged nails, calloused skin.

Your hands touched me softly,
lifted me, cradled the head
of my dying horse like a god
who assisted safe passage to eternity.
Your hands invited my mother to dance.

And now I look at a photograph
taken by someone long dead.
You are making, providing,
your hands and eyes, confident.
Escape would come soon.

Dresden burned.
You amongst the madness, the fox
that got home free.
Sailed back to love and home made banners,
Hiding bread under your pillow for years.

One man wrote a book, others were
wept over or stood pround with their medals.
You came home, your hands around your love
once more.
I stand as your sculpture, you are the man
who made and moulded me.

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