If I Can't Cry Can I Borrow A Tear?
If I Can't Cry Can I Borrow a Tear?
http://members.iinet.net.au/~gduncan/disto03.jpg
June 10, 1944
Four days after the Allied invasion of Normandy
[ Massacre at Distomo:
A most despicable atrocity took place in the village Distomo, a province of Boeotia in Central Greece. A unit of the SS Police Panzergrenadier Regiment No 7, on an anti-partisan sweep, massacred 218 Greek civilians in the village.]
Through the eyes of a survivor...
For my village I can shed no tears
…trust that I’ve tried for years
instead I write my story in hopes,
…to borrow some of yours!
The tree-lined main street whispered in the painful tongue of these tortured souls
Blood drips in thick globes off those left swinging in the wind like orchard rows
Butchered displays of freshly torn flesh hung from the village trees and rooftops
A thousand new mops could never sop up all the life spilt fresh here on this spot
My eyes singed from the blinding images in binding scrimmages of mans wrath
Finding limitless the depths of wickedness as I sulk down this blood beaten path
House after house and shop after shop mutilated limbs lay scattered and chopped
Lopped-off like basket displays on guillotines I bask in dismay at killing scenes
Feeling green I hurl the contents of an empty stomach gone days without bread
I flirt w/insanity, all the while trapped in this tragedy as I hurt deep for the dead
I saw a woman stripped naked, by her side was an infant still suckled to breast
White-knuckled I buckled when I noticed the nipple was detached from the rest!
When you have seen the evils that men do
…the devil offends you,
& nothing defends you, from the wicked or cruel
…the system is crude,
& never expect to see these types of pictures
…ever painted in News,
& slated for spools to be broadcasted by fools
…so chose what you chew,
& hold on to a few memories that fuel the fires
…that brew deep within,
& hold your head higher when faced
…with such dire straights,
Because life is a lesson, & you might as well
…lesson the take!
They took everything from me, friends, family and in a sense my innocence
Gutted like the entrails of victims they left, my existence’s a mess ever since
Haunted by despicable acts of men driven mad frothing at the jugular of war
Corrupt to the core bloodshed erupts and disrupts the flow of life ever more
I endured more pain & washed more stains from blood caked walls than most
I’m a ghost of the man I once was touched by the icy fingers of an evil host
They killed every essence of my being, left me numb defenseless and fleeing
The dark corners, subjected to seeing the devils work through human beings
Men, women & children young and old fired upon, raped, beaten and stoned
By the maggot soldiers of symbolism in an era referenced as The Hemoclysm
I could hardly breathe for life let alone shed any tears from these sunken eyes
Drunken cries from a machine called war left me butchered & dried my eyes
so I can cry no more…
For my village I can shed no tears
…trust that I’ve tried for years
instead I write my story in hopes,
…to borrow some of yours!
[ The unit commander, SS Hauptstrumführer Lautenbach, was later charged with falsifying a military report on the massacre but the charges were dropped as the massacre was judged a 'military necessity'. Today, the skulls and bones of the victims are displayed in the Mausoleum of Distomo. In 1960, Germany paid the Greek government 115 million marks as compensation for the suffering of its citizens during the German occupation but as yet no payment is forthcoming for the victims of Distomo. ]
If I can’t cry can I borrow a tear?
By: Bounce
