time for a poem

Featured Photo: Pondering Woman | © Pixabay

In times when the apocalypse is once again being happily debated and everyone is being listened to if one has to assume that they have little or no knowledge of the subject, it is — I think — time to tell us to remember people who really know about war and above all about death.

We can currently observe quite well where this expertise of complete incompetence has led us. More and more observing people are withdrawing completely disgusted from the current "specialist debates" from the social media, and I can hardly bear it anymore how the usual deserters and slackers argue about the sovereignty of interpretation of military operations or how peace activists preach the advantages of weapons of mass destruction .

I find it really disgusting to know that countless fellow human beings are being slaughtered less than 1 kilometers from us and that most people here gloat over this situation or, even more tragically, want to take advantage of it for themselves. In doing so, no one remains with us who bears responsibility, without guilt! Every one of these fellow citizens has blood on their hands.

Now back to one of those people who know what war is. A real hero, so to speak, and stone dead.

Gerrit Engelke is still one of the working-class poets, who not only did not shirk military service, but also turned down the offer to do something else for his homeland - so he alone and quite clearly belongs to those people to whom we mean have the highest respect. Unfortunately, he himself had to pay the highest price for his decency and is therefore still lying in the military cemetery of Étaples on the French Channel coast - here he was somewhat fortunate in misfortune.

Engelke's better-known works include the poems from his collection Rhythm of the New Europe.

But let's leave it now Gerrit Engelke speak yourself.

After a heavy dream

I am a soldier and stand in the field
And knows of no one in the world.
That's why I can't celebrate this rainy day
So sorrowful, wet and leaden,
Because your picture at night shattered my sleep
And carried me close to you

I am a soldier and stand in the field
Rifle in arm and far from the world.
If I were at home, I would close the door and windows
And wanted to stay lonely for a long time;
sinking into the corner of the sofa,
Closed eyes think of you.

I am a soldier in the murky field.
This is where the old human world ends.
The rain sings, the wet strands flow.
I can't do anything - just shoot lead.
Don't know why, do it as if I have to:
A shot rings out in the gray weather!

I wish that we all wake up very quickly from our own dreams, start to face reality and finally start working together towards a peaceful, free and democratic world.

What happens when you pursue your own advantage for over 70 years is something we are all witnessing right now — hopefully most of us will continue to be only from the sidelines.