Panzer Leader
The panzer leader pale blond more old than young
At twenty-one a four year veteran
Imagines himself the last defense against barbarism
His face is a map of blood-stained terrain
Contours of unnamed ridges the contours
Translate into numbers numbers noting elevation
Numbers counting deaths and wounds the tank begins to move
Frozen mud cracks beneath the steel tracks
Patches of brown in a world all white and black
Through dark hours dawn has seemed to wait and now
Thin light barely cuts smoke rancid fog
The gods speak with voices loud as guns
Announcing deaths our history does not regret
Yet in a bleak bomb ravished town
A woman puts her sewing down and cries
Desolate without knowing just exactly why
While clean snow builds her love a burial mound
by Jess C. Henderson
... who is educated in creative writing, a former newspaper and
trade journal editor, now writing freelance poems and essays; as
an amateur historian, he writes the Posted
Muster column in this literary magazine.
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