My Only Treasures

My Only Treasures

The morning sun brings upon us,
not golden light but death.

Death is such a one-sided argument,
we have no choice but to listen
to its shadow-thickened voice
while it lures us into its grasp.

What must we do,
to earn back our innocence,
our happiness, our faith?
Stripped of our names and identities
and attempting to survive in a
cruel and heartless world.

Suffering and pain and weariness surround me,
we have lost the spark of life,
we have no will to live.
Not any more, not any longer.

Working us to death to accomplish what?
The extinction of an entire race of Jews?
What have we humans been reduced to?
I'll tell you.

Merciless animals that drown in self-confidence
and do anything to achieve power and praise.

Walking cabinets of fat that make little use
of the tiny brains we have been given.

Selfish, soulless men who specialize in torture,
and killing with fire and Zyklon B.

I want so bad to still believe in God,
but after this it is impossible.
If God so loved us Jewish peoples,
why would he have done this to us?
He has condemned his own peoples!
The Lord Almighty is a condemner,
not a savior!

And yet I still wish he played a part,
in every life of every Jew that has not yet died
and even more so those who have.

When we look up into the sky,
all we see is the wind whispering
with the black smoke that rises from
each crematory that we can
and cannot see.

I think back to the tranquil life
that I once owned.
That now is fading away,
like a memory slipping beneath the
glowing horizon.
Now I live for death, for nothing.

It is all I know.

I do not understand the reason
for which I push myself to survive.
Perhaps it is the want to still believe in God.
Perhaps it is that I want to live a new life,
to make up for this evil, cruel one that I
am being forced to live.

Or maybe it's because however long I suffer
does not determine who I am,
but rather who I am destined to become.
Maybe God is still playing a part in my life,
and even with all the death around me,
all the souls that are perishing,
what if it is part of God's plan?

Why would he design a plan like this?
No, he could not have meant it to happen.
He has condemned us to death.
I mustn't allow myself to be hopeful,
for I would just earn the bitter reward of
grief and swollen sadness.

For what have I to thank him for?
He has killed my family, my friends,
everything I once treasured.
He allowed my life to be handed over,
to these power-driven Nazi.

There is but one thing only
that keeps me alive,
in this prison of fire and ashes
and that is the now fading promise
of this horrid, heart-wrenching, life-ruining war
coming to its overdue
timely end.

Hi Emmylou,

This is a long poem, and I think anyone willing to put in the effort for a really long poem should be clapped on the back a bit. I certainly don’t have the guts or attention span to pull it off. Hopefully, though, I’m going to have enough of both to review this poem of yours!

Okay, then! This is clearly in the voice of a Jewish person who is experiencing, it seems, the war. I’m going to assume the topic and the poem are important to you now, and I’m going to ask that you not be too offended with what I follow with. I know you want this poem to be the best it can be – all poets do – and right now it’s nowhere near that place. This is less a poem and more of an elongated rant. It begins as a poem, with imagery and feeling, and then delineates into a jumble of expressions and anger which is often repeated. You have two and a half pages here which could very easily lose an entire page, if not more, just by deleting some unhelpful strophes.

Your subject matter is volatile, controversial in parts and very difficult to express without invoking some emotion. You’ve got the emotion down pat, there’s a whole lot of anger and some struggling depression throughout this poem. What you’re missing is the connection to the reader. Usually this would be something I leave to the reader to decide, but in this case, the anger in this poem is throwing out all of the connections that could have been made. All I’m seeing here is rant, as I said earlier, and that doesn’t have to be. You start with such an interesting concept, death as the one sided argument. I’d love to see you continue this theme throughout the poem. Perhaps with posed questions, or answers, or similar. I’d like to see stronger imagery as well, maybe of the bleak outlook this person is living in, give us some pictures to go with the words, as it were. I think in essence what I’m saying is to not let the topic bloom over the poem itself. A lot of poetry about tough topics is simple, stating events or expressing concerns. Currently your poem alienates the reader because it accuses with little to no resolution. Your poem certainly doesn’t feel like it ends (Timely, by the way, means on time, so it can’t be overdue and timely at the same time) and we need a resolution, particularly as many people will know what you’re writing here, and what it means. We know it ended, but we’d like you to end it to, this small slice of a person.

I think you can do something with this, but I also think it needs to be stripped back before you can express what you’re attempting in a manner that is poetic. I look forward to seeing anything you do with this, though, and I hope you’ll PM me when/if you change it. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns as well!

Thank you for the read; it’s certainly been interesting,
- Penguin.