In Memoriam Erich Paul (Maria) Remarque 1895-1971

You did not recover from barbed snares and mustard gas
until 1929 a decade after The War to End All Wars.
Meanwhile Berlin cabaret acts
orchestrated The Jewish Menace.

Your comrades were pale schoolboys,
led astray by teachers;
mouthing patriotic prose,
sending you to a draft in 1916.

Days had been carefree carnivals;
blue skies, transparent butterflies,
shimmering meadows studded with fiery poppies
the ecstasy of warm summer winds.

Kemmerich was the first to fall;
waxen hands protruding from trench dirt
hair cork screwed over shrinking skull.
He bequeathed his boots to Muller.

You writhed before martyred horses
dragging entrails in anguished circles
mouths steaming blood.
Dettering used a single shot to end their agonies.

The earth convulsed in grave yards;
dead fingers pinioned your shoulders,
a coffin imprisoned you
to an audience of gaping masks.

Survivors talked of peacetime;
lines of poplars, truant streams
Beethoven’s symphonies spilling from apartments
soundless apparitions of the past.

A circus poster roused fantasies;
a girl in a light summer dress
a red leather belt
white buckled shoes,
sensuous silk stockings.
She inhales air beside a smiling lake;
red lips moistened,
by a glass of autumn wine.

You were the sole survivor of Second Company,
The others perished under green skies,
the last, a month before The Armistice.
It became All Quiet On The Western Front!