As The 100th Anniversary Of The First Year Of World War I (Remember The War To End All Wars) Continues ... Some Remembrances-Poet’s Corner-German Jewish Poets   

ERNST TOLLER (1893-1939)

THE ROAD TO THE TRENCHES

Through grenade furrows

And filthy puddles

They walk.

Over soldiers

Freezing in a hole in the ground

They stagger.

Rats dart squeaking over their path

Stormy rain knocks with fingers of death

On decaying doors

Signal rockets

Plague lanterns…

From trench to trench.

Translated by Peter Appelbaum

CORPSES IN THE PRIESTER WOODS

A dung heap of rotting corpses:

Glazed eyes, bloodshot,

Brains split, guts spewed out

The air poisoned  by the stink of corpses

A single awful cry of madness

Oh women of  France,

Women of Germany

Regard your menfolk!

They fumble with torn hands

For the swollen bodies of their enemies,

Gestures, stiff in death, become the touch of brotherhood,

Yes they embrace each other,

Oh, horrible embrace!

I see and see and am struck dumb

Am I a beast, a murderous dog?

Men violated….

Murdered….

Ernst Toller -  Translated by Peter Appelbaum

NIGHTMARE

On a pole, rotten and foul

Squats the  conscience of nations,

Three childrens’ bones dance around the pole

Broken from a young mother’s body.

A sheep bleats the rhythm bäh bäh.

Ernst Toller -  Translated by Peter Appelbaum