Adorno said there could be no poetry after Auschwitz. Did he wonder how it survived Mezre?
I used to wonder why they bathed in blood;
what seductive charm those dark pools held,
and how they found enough fluid to fill
the desert troughs that drowned a million.
Those gated waves lapped in Der el Zor:
the human flood, the desert soak. Stark shots
of men and children, their fatless corpses
stacked, skin dripped like wax on ragged bone.
Not like the early photos: Her dad and mum
relaxed in Western fashions. Siblings smile,
dogs sleep beside them. And uncles strum
kanoon and tar. These images beguile;
she names them, then repeats an epitaph,
of sorts, for each face shown: “Killed in Bloodbath.”
I used to wonder why they bathed in blood;
what seductive charm those dark pools held,
and how they found enough fluid to fill
the desert troughs that drowned a million.
Those gated waves lapped in Der el Zor:
the human flood, the desert soak. Stark shots
of men and children, their fatless corpses
stacked, skin dripped like wax on ragged bone.
Not like the early photos: Her dad and mum
relaxed in Western fashions. Siblings smile,
dogs sleep beside them. And uncles strum
kanoon and tar. These images beguile;
she names them, then repeats an epitaph,
of sorts, for each face shown: “Killed in Bloodbath.”