No Rancour

3/05/2014

I have been in the gold of marital bliss.
I‘ve cringed and trembled in the chill of discord.
Now I am old and any touch of hands
Bespeaks not passion nor the rise of rancour.

 

Mankind Believed

17/04/2014

Mankind believed – and I was a believer,
That on your death a band of angels would
Conduct your soul to paradise there to
Enjoy a life of pious luxury.

The other possibility, endorsed
By me and many others, did envisage
A rowdy crowd of devils dragging me
Through fires searing sinful, wicked flesh.

I think that age has taught me an alternative.
To wit there are no angels and no devils.
And life is nothing but a one-way street,
A towering unresponsive wall stands at the end.

Business of dying

18/2/2014

Business of dying.

This business of dying has its funny side,
Apart from causing grief to the survivors
I like to speculate like all religions do
Just where we’ll go when we are dead.

This speculation has an apriori:
Life after death exists! This is not only
My firm belief, but every creed since Moses
Created paradise and hell and in between.

The catch is that there seems to be no choice
Which railway station will be at the end.
The track is laid, the rails in perfect order.
You are invited to a first class seat.

A Letter from Paul

1/1/2014

 
Oh, John

Men can do anything and in a small way
it does happen again today that men
become animals or unfeelingly regard the brutal behaviour
(vide Croatia, Serbia, and Kosovo). But this
rather “massproduction style attempt” of pursuit
and annihilation of a complete group of men will never happen
again in Europe and in the non-islamic countries.
Here the young men have changed, and we all
who know through our parents and friends
what really happened, must pass it on daily,
that is our duty. I myself learnt from my father only on the eve
of his death what he had to suffer in 1933 in the torturecellars 
of the SA (Berlin Columbiahaus), in 1934 in the concentration
Camp Sachsenhausen and later in Wokurka (1944-
1949), this was Stalin’s camp in Siberia). He
should have talked earlier, it would have given me a different
view of the world. Not knowing that on
the following day he will die I promised him never
again fascism, never again war, never again cruelty
and for that do everything that I can.
Paul