Cold Freedom

I wrote this poem for a contest that focused on the Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau.

He walks past a room filled with shoes

that still smell of feet.

He walks past a room piled with clothes,

not long gone cold from the flesh they touched.

He passes a crate

from which a thousand eye-glass lenses stare.

And in his minds eye,

faces appear behind those wire frames.

They watch him walk away.

 

He steps out into a gray yard

And sees the chamber door across the way.

The breeze tickles his nose

as he remembers those that choked and fell.

 

He makes his way through the gates

Where gray-clad guards once stood.

And takes one last look at the razor wire wall

That will forever hold the memories

Of a million tortured souls.

Part of his soul remains.

Chains no less real than the numbers on his arm

Tie him to this place.

 

With every step to freedom

He longs to throw his thin-soled shoes

Onto that pile,

And dig himself a resting place

In that unmarked, crowded grave.

Reviews

[Gheeneil]

The horrible holocaust is the ghost that haunts just anyone. The haunting doesn't necessarily mean to scare but it's more of a reminder of man's cruelty which kills thousands of people in a snap of the fingers. There may be those who were saved but the freedom doesn't taste sweet as the thought of the encounter takes them back from where the nightmare is---pulling them back and making them prisoners of their own fear.

This is a great write.

[Pauline Marie Daley]

Amazing poem! You convey such intensity and feeling. Instantly the reader is immersed in the mind of this tortured man... I really liked it. :)

[Laura E. Aranda]

Thank you for entering this piece.....more review about it later! Cheers,lea
LOVED IT though