Inhumanity (Dresden 1945)

The sky is falling
and there is no place to hide.
Black paints the sky
with a droning moan
blotting out the stars.

Hear the sirens
and rush down to the cellar,
cringing in fear
as the payload of death
screams in release.

Only history and art,
refugees
and prisoners of war,
hostages to our security,
reside here.

TNT turns it all into rubble.

Thunder rolls
through the day-turned-to-night
stealing sleep
and sanity.

The first incendiary bomb explodes.

The millenium old Frauenkirche
is given a new coat
of fiery chemicals,
so hot
even stone burns.

Fifteen hundred degrees.

Even bone burns.
So hot
that mothers cannot
hold their babies.

There will be no corpses
twisted into shapes
of betrayal,
only ashes
only ashes.