Poetry from Peter Jacob Streitz

COMPLETE CONCENTRATION

Treblinka forever lies over my U.S. hills
Where trains do roll through my childhood still
Day skies darken and night skies glow
Fertilized grass, green and grows
Over the dead and dying souls
Stuffed headfirst in living holes

All-American Boy Born 19__

My skull-white moon shines above
While whore-forced Jew makes camp-time love
Death is sought as end of whole
Not so when my cattle train rolls
Across stone bridges the boxcars slide
Clickity-clack buries star-crossed sighs

All-American Boy Born 1__

Beyond dry creeks my train flies past
Drunken driver blows a final blast
Our Polish vodka kills the pain
Shots drown screams in snow and rain
Trains connect from miles around
To dump their load in my hometown

All-American Boy Born

Childhood recalls trains as fun
Now they warn to forget its run
The train returns, swift with lightened load
And travels back to the deadman’s road
Cars all packed with skintight bone
I don’t listen to those alone

All-American Boy Bo

Sidetracked screams waif about my fears
Fresh smoked flesh distilled my tears
I’ve a drunken knowledge of what I’ve done
I know it all, yet told no one

All-American Boy

Like the Hitler’s mid-wife in Braunau
I knew of horror, then and now
Rosa Horl delivered our devil’s kin
I knew him well and let him in

All-American

My heart raved against the bastard’s “murderous race!”
Yet the Hebrew, a queer, any “ist” could take my place
Christian screams rang in my ears
But nothing took, nothing near
I knew of torture, yet told no one
Never admit what I had done

All-America

“They,” occupied us from within
“We,” decreed it their deadly sin
Our Headmen ordered and turned their backs
While I laid the state-run tracks
Trooped in lines towards well-scrubbed shacks
Freed ash rose from store bought stacks

All-Americ

Red embers swirled in a dull black night
Kike crazed communist on gypsied flight
Fires raged hotter and my time grew short
Still I had nothing to report

All Ame

Cremains flew higher than I could go
Condemned to silence for what I know

All A

Their smell no longer spreads earthbound
Its stench became my sacred ground
Blood-dried trails line the path I plod
I dare not touch the blistered sod
From this soiled earth, truth could grow
With seeds of hate from what I know

All

Now my stifled screams ring mountain peaks
I lived gagged, I cannot speak
My tribe once sung “Fight till our new man comes”
But I fear him like my father’s son

A

For I am that old man whose mind does reek
I wait silently, never once I speak

 

PURE VANITY
 
Infection
Scabies
Typhus
The truncheon
A whip
That burns
The flesh
In gas ovens
Ended
When we ripped
The guard apart
And fed Its heart
To the shepherd
Who . . .
we then bludgeoned
To death
And heaped its carcass
On the ash
Of our mothers
And sisters
Some three weeks ago
Today
When we staggered
And crawled
On the knees
Of animals
Towards the commandant
And his soon to be—
executioner
Who handed us
Chocolate and crackers
And the bread of life
A smile
Topped with the warmest
Of garnishes
A hug, maybe
If our stink
And depravity
Wasn’t too strong
Leading us like desiccated
Cows
To barns
Where they powdered
Our noses
With DDT
Stripping us
Of our pearl necklaces
Of well-fed lice
But no need for a mirror
We were all reflections
Of the other
The spitting image
Of our starvation diet
But slowly we took food
And water
And our scarecrow forms
Began to take shape
But stalled
No matter . . .
the amount of medicine
Or rest
When a doctor
In a medical gown
Took note
Of rouge red
No longer
Rimming
Only the wounds
But tinting the lips
And cheeks
Of the feline queens
Distributing
. . . sequestered clothes
And shoes
Plus a trinket
Or two of whimsy
Of fashion
Humming
Like inmates
Awaiting release
If not, a full pardon
Excited yet tremulous
At the thought
Of redressing
A general population
As a whole
While rewriting
A timeless prescription
—once destroyed—
To adorn thyself
Remake thyself
In a beauty . . .
so radiant
That the deathlessness
Of our spirit
Becomes a feast
For the eye