Zeitgeistlyrik: PEACE POEMS (Satis Shroff)

Satis Shroff reading his poems at the Freiburger Lesemarathon 2011

LAST TRAM TO LITTENWEILER (Satis Shroff)
(Quo Vadis, Deutschland?)

Midnight at Bertold's Brunen,
I boarded the last tram to Littenweiler.
Tired young people, school-kids
Disco, tavern, cinema and theatre visitors.
I sat opposite a blond German
And read Hanif Kureshi's
"London Kills Me."

A short African, a Bantu in jeans
Came, stood and turned his back.
An elderly, thick-set German skin-head
Covered with a cap and walkman,
Walked in with a sardonic laughter
Boisterous, obnoxious and high on alcohol.

The world was his stage.
He glared with his stone-blue eyes
At the African in the corner and said:
"This Boy is in the wrong place here.
Finish him off with a Kalashnikov
Rat-tat-a-tat! You'll see it soon
Wir werden es euch zeigen!"

The proud German in Bermudas
Laughed like a madman.
Our Teutonic Hero was not in the psychiatric ward
But in a crowded public Strassenbahn.
A so-called civilized German,
Grown angry, wild and inhuman.
What had the poor African done?
He'd asked perhaps for asylum
Or was perhaps a scholarship-holder
At the invitation of the German government.

The tram was full
But not a sound of protest was heard.
A silence that appeared like death.
Silence was consent.
Or was it angst?

The tram reached the Stadthalle
And the German became nastier.
Where was the civil courage of the Freiburger?
What was the use of buttons:
‘Jeder ist ein Ausländer?’
What were silent protest marches
Worth the next day?
Or a Rundtisch talk?
Why light candles to mourn a dead alien?

Silent, passive witnesses to new tragedies,
Akin to the horrid infernos,
Of  Hoyerswerda, Mölln and Solingen.
Everytime I hold a fork and knife
At breakfast, lunch and dinner
I'm reminded of the shame of  Solingen.

The loud-mouthed skinhead identified himself
With a wrong pride, pomp and glory.
A glory that cost 40 million lives
A spirit of plunder and murder
On helpless, disabled, gypsies and Jews.
The Jews have left for safer shores,
Now the new-Jews are the foreigners.

As the tram reached the Lassberg Terminal
The bald-headed German swayed
And uttered loud and clearly:
"I LOVE MY FATHERLAND!"
Not once, but thrice.
He went reeling to a waiting bus
With his Vaterland's repertoire.
A country where the dead have fear
Where the alien's agony and angst abides
Quo vadis, Deutschland?

* * *

MENTAL MOLOTOVS (Satis Shroff)

When Hoyerswerda burns
They discuss about the asylum-seekers.
Peaceful, righteous Germans go
In the streets with candles.

When a house burns in Mölln
They discuss about bringing back
Soldiers from the dangers of Somalia.

At the Turkish funeral in Solingen
The Chancellor keeps away
And avoids thus
Rotten eggs and tomatoes
That might come his way.

When the trial comes
The skin and neonazi has a lot of hair.
He wears a two-piece suit,
Ties a tie around his neck
And looks oh-so-respectable.
He peers into the cameras
With clear blue eyes and says:
"I'm innocent and a victim
Of the modern industrial society".
And withdraws his statement.

The judges are lenient
And the neo gets off on bail
Gestures with his middle finger
And quips:"Leck mich am Arsch!"
As he speeds away in a car,
Only to reappear with a Molotov
Like the Sphinx again.

"Ausländer Raus!
Deutschland den Deutschen!"
These are the slogans
making the rounds in the nineties.

The old black and white flag
From the Third Reich
Raises no eyebrows
At soccer stadiums, streets and pubs.

It's fashionable again
To throw mental Molotovs
At blacks, browns, yellows
And all non-Teutonics
At cocktails, chats,
Stammtisch and in the streets
Against anything alien.

"I don't like foreigners
I'll kill you", says a drunk
In broad daylight at the Bahnhof.
Please don't ask me
How it feels
To be a non-Teutonic
In Deutschland.

* * *

HOPE HEALS (Satis Shroff)

Unto you that fear my name

Shall the sun of righteousness

Arise with healing in his wings

(Malachi)

Bridges of peace, friendship and togetherness

Are built on mutual respect,

Tolerance and Miteinander.

We must talk about the symbols

Of tyranny in your villages, towns and cities.

On Memorial Day we gather with earnest faces,

To honour and remember the people

Whose names are engraved on stones,

Who died in the two World Wars.

The suns and husbands have fallen,

But a new ghost raises its ugly head again,

The Neonazis who work for

The Bundesnachrichtendienst.,

Who receive money for their incompetence,

In Thuringen, Saxony,

Hessen and Lower Saxony.

The lesson of faschism taught us

Never to combine

Police with the secret service,

For it would be akin to the Gestapo,

The Geheimen Staatspolizei.

The sixteen secret services in Germany

Cannot coordinate and cooperate.

Since thirteen years have we given

Neonazis a free hand,

Who robbed banks,

Executed Turkish and Greek migrants.

The constitution makes it possible:

´Germany for the Germany,

All aliens out!´

Long live the Freedom of Speech.

But prithee, where is the protection

Of the migrants and underdogs

Of the society?

Is a new holocaust in the offing?

The laxness of the governments,

Past and present,

Is astounding.

Yet there is no way

But the path of peace and togetherness.

The ewig gestrigen and the neos

Are still licking the wounds of war,

Wounds that won´t heal,

For they are infected with hate anew,

With brown-propaganda.

War has always been ugly and brutal.

The widows of the on-going krieg in the Hindukush,

The survivors who don´t understand their own world,

After the trauma of Vietnam, Irak, Afghanistan.

When the NATO sirens are tested,

The air vibrates with a monstrous noise.

Fear makes the olde soldier´s heart beats faster,

His pulse races and he almost chokes.

The memories and the fury of war overwhelm him.

Who will restore the faces we´ve adored?

Love, faith, togetherness and peace

Haven´t been lulled to sleep.

We still hear the clarion call

To the dangers of war,

To the hoarse shouts

Of the Neos in the streets,

Who strut and fret,

And believe Auschwitz was a lie.

A silence treads like cloudy shadows,

Among the people of Germany.

Hope hasn´t abandoned us yet,

Despite the petite victories of the rightists,

In Germany, Switzerland and Austria.

The people in these lands

Think otherwise.

In every good person there is a bad part,

In every bad person there´s a good trait,

Like ying and yang.

We can only appeal to humans,

Hope and pray for peace,

That the old wounds shall heal,

Between humans in this world.

* * *

Freiburg bombed in World War II

The Agony of War (Satis Shroff)

Once upon a time there was a seventeen year old boy

Who lived in the Polish city of Danzig.

He was ordered to join the Waffen-SS,

Hitler’s elite division.

Oh, what an honour for a seventeen year old,

Almost a privilege to join the Waffen-SS.

The boy said, “Wir wurden von früh bis spät

Geschliffen und sollten

Zur Sau gemacht werden.”

A Russian grenade shrapnel brought his role

In the war to an abrupt end.

That was on April 20, 1945.

In the same evening,

He was brought to Meissen,

Where he came to know about his Vaterland’s defeat.

The war was lost long ago.

He realised how an ordinary soldier

Became helpless after being used as a tool in the war,

Following orders that didn’t demand heroism

In the brutal reality of war.

It was a streak of luck,

And his inability to ride a bicycle,

That saved his skin

At the Russian-held village of Niederlausitz.

His comrades rode the bicycle,

And he was obliged to give them fire-support

With a maschine-gun.

His seven comrades and the officer

Were slain by the Russians.

The only survivor was a boy

Of seventeen named Grass.

Günter Grass.

He abandoned his light maschine-gun,

And left the house of the bicycle-seller,

Through the backyard garden

With its creaky gate.

What were the chances in the days of the Third Reich

For a 17 year old boy to understand the world?

The BBC was a feindliche radio,

And Goebbels’ propaganda maschinery

Was in full swing.

There was no time to reflect in those days.

Fürcht und Elend im Dritten Reich,

Wrote Bertold Brecht later.

Why did he wait till he was almost eighty?

Why did he torment his soul all these years?

Why didn’t he tell the bitter truth,

About his tragi-comical role in the war

With the Waffen-SS?

He was a Hitlerjunge,

A young Nazi.

Faithful till the end.

A boy who was seduced by the Waffen-SS.

His excuse:

Ich habe mich verführen lassen.“

The reality of the war brought

Endless death and suffering.

He felt the fear in his bones,

His eyes were opened at last.

Grass is a figure,

You think you know well.

Yet he’s aloof

And you hardly know him,

This literary titan.

He breathes literature

And political engagement.

In his new book:

Beim Häuten der Zwiebeln

He confides he has lived from page to page,

And from book to book.

Is he a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde?

Dr. Freud and Mephistopheles,

In the same breast?

Grass belongs to us,

For he has spent the time with us.

It was his personal weakness

Not to tell earlier.

He’s a playwright, director and actor

Of his own creativeness.

His characters Oskar and Mahlke weren’t holy Joes.

It was his way of indirectly showing

What went inside him.

Ach, his true confession took time.

It was like peeling an onion with tears,

One layer after the other.

Better late than never.

Works by Günter Grass: Surrealist poems Die Vorzüge der Windhühner 1956, grotesque plays Hochwasser 1956, Onkel-Onkel, Noch zehn Minuten bis Buffalo, Die bösen Köche 1957, original novel Die Blechtrommel 1959 (The Tin Drum), poems and drawings Gleisdreieck 1960, Hundejahre 1963, Die Plebjer proben den Aufstand 1966, Büchner Prize 1965, illustrated poems Ausgefragt 1967, third novel örtlich betäubt, play Davor, 1969 gesammelte Gedichte1971, Maria zuehren 1973, Liebe geprüft 1974, wie ich mich sehe 1980, ,fourth novel Aus dem Tagebuch einer Schnecke 1972,a study of melancholy Melancholia I, lengthy novel Der Butt1977, Das Treffen in Telgte 1979, Kopfgeburten oder Die Deutschen sterben aus 1980, Widerstand lernen, Politische Gegenreden 1980-1983, Aufsätze zur Literatur 1957-79 in 1980.Beim Häuten der Zwiebeln 2006.

* * *

Satis Shroff teaches Creative Writing in Freiburg and is the published author of three books on www.Lulu.com: Im Schatten des Himalaya (book of poems in German), Through Nepalese Eyes (travelogue), Katmandu, Katmandu (poetry and prose anthology by Nepalese authors, edited by Satis Shroff). His lyrical works have been published in literary poetry sites: Slow Trains, International Zeitschrift, World Poetry Society (WPS), New Writing North, Muses Review, The Megaphone, Pen Himalaya, Interpoetry. Satis Shroff is a member of "Writers of Peace", poets, essayists, novelists (PEN), World Poetry Society (WPS) and The Asian Writer.Satis Shroff is a poet and writer based in Freiburg (poems, fiction, non-fiction) who also writes on ecological, ethno-medical, culture-ethnological themes. He has studied Zoology and Botany in Nepal, Medicine and Social Sciences in Germany and Creative Writing in Freiburg and the United Kingdom. He describes himself as a mediator between western and eastern cultures and sees his future as a writer and poet. Since literature is one of the most important means of cross-cultural learning, he is dedicated to promoting and creating awareness for Creative Writing and transcultural togetherness in his writings, and in preserving an attitude of Miteinander in this world. He lectures in Basle (Switzerland) and in Germany at the Akademie für medizinische Berufe (University Klinikum Freiburg) Satis Shroff was awarded the German Academic Exchange Prize and was nominated for the German Engagement Prize, Berlin by Green City Freiburg.