Nachbesprechung*
*Debriefing
After a mission at the Hammelburg Banhof
February 1945
+H+
The boy could have been my brother, really.
Fair hair, pink cheeks, wild eyes.
Rounded up from school, he was. Schultz said so.
Farewell to algebra.
Half a day's training with a bayonet,
And he's off to the war,
Swapping knee socks and books to dig trenches.
Fifteen years old, if that.
Perhaps he thought it was a bleeding game.
+H+
Them lads went marching by, must have been, oh,
Thirty of them at least.
Smiling and grinning, shouldering their guns,
Queuing for their troop train.
Heading off to God knows where. Eastern Front?
Lord, their poor mums. The shock.
This is different, even if they are Krauts,
Them boys is kids, ain't they?
They got no business fighting in this mess.
+H+
But back to this one boy, see,
What looks like my brother.
No smiling, no laughing.
Like he knows fate awaits
And won't be kind to him.
Standing on the platform
Like he lost his way home,
Peers over his shoulder,
He mouths the word "Mutti,"
And the tears run right down.
+H+
No, not my tears, you git.
I don't cry for Nazis.
Though if you'd seen them lads yourself, Andrew,
You might choke up a little bit, like me.
He wasn't no fanatic, just a kid.
Dressed up, playing soldier.
+H+
Sir, you don't think our boys will have to go?
Not the younger laddies like my brother?
He's just gone sixteen. Don't reckon, do you?
No? Not our side? Well, that's a blessing, Guv.
I'll take it. Five years in this stinking pit.
I'd stay ten more to leave them boys alone.
+H+
+H+
+H+
+H+
+H+
Author's note:
If you're wondering what makes it a poem, since it's rhymeless, I was concentrating on the meter.
It's blank verse, with a mix of pentameter and trimeter.
Ten-syllable lines and six-syllable lines are alternating at first.
Then it's just six-syllable lines when the words come tumbling out.
Then the narrator slows down to a jumble of sixes and tens, trying to show control again.
Then he frets and metaphorically wrings his hands in all ten-syllable lines.
Curious to know if it works...