Poem for Yom haShoah

In commemoration of Yom haShoah (Holocaust Remembrence Day) I am sharing this poem I wrote a number of years ago.

Never Again.

___________

Persistance of Memory
by John W Leys

I haven’t forgotten you
How could I even try?
Haunting my waking dreams,
Your eyes plead to me
From emaciated faces,
Crying out for justice.

I hear laughter
As you’re herded
Like cattle
From the boxcars
To the gas chambers
They so cleverly disguised
As showers.

I can hear babies crying
As they’re torn from their mothers’ arms
And thrown against walls
Or dissected like animals
By trained doctors.

I smell the smoke.
It stings my eyes
As it pours from the chimneys
Of the crematoriums
Where they’re burning your bodies.
I pray for your souls
As they reduce your bodies to ashes
To use as fertilizer in their garden.

I hear laughter.
I hear them laughing.
Laughing because they think
That they’ve won.