Birkenau Structured

By Emily Grochowski

Lachrymose is death

Bereft of Zyklon B,

Famined anomaly

Of bygone withered breaths.

Recede ebbing pause,

Pro-death since its collapse,

A Birkenau relapse

Of infested gauze.

Electric screams of fence,

Hail executioner!

Departed revolutioner

Of being’s pretense.

Mangled infant howling,

Blinding vapors strange,

Eternally deranged

This helpless foundling.

Upon abyss of char

Forsake salvation,

Netherworld elation

Infinitely marred.

Eerie is this walk unlashed,

Crushed eglantine buds

That echoes bursts of blood

On ground decayed with ash.

Sulfuric aliens await

Eternal return.

Intact a soul discerned

In life’s illusion innate.

I contract myopia,

Endless cadavers alone,

Fatalities unknown,

Lull me, mind’s dystopia.

Final equinox, ellipse

Showers activated,

Now alas asphyxiated

Am I in black eclipse