Barbarossa

[poliphilo]

                                    BARBAROSSA

 

                                    After they found their fifteen comrades

                                    Half stripped in the frozen grass

                                    With noses, eyes and genitals

                                    All cut away, the captain, full

                                    Of righteous indignation, ordered

                                    Every farm and village burned

                                    And any villager shot on sight.

 

                                    That afternoon a foot patrol

                                    Fired on a sleigh and three dark figures

                                    Slumped from it.  They were all plumped up

                                    In blankets, shawls and overcoats

                                    And so of indeterminate sex.