A Natural History of Destruction

after W. G. Sebald

 

All the factories are in ruins,

are shells without a purpose,

walls without supports,

still smoking, after the blitzkrieg

is over,

sirens turned off,        

churches made into receptacles

for stained glass elegies,

images without purpose,

now that the skies

are empty,

clouds blackened by soot,

even the sun diminished,

without heat to expend

upon such useless ornaments

as these: the children dressed

in their Sunday best clothes,

sailor suits with torn pockets,

soiled pants and grimy shirts,

as they sit and dig in their

ash pits, shaped as sand boxes were,

in another lifetime, when excavating

on grounds like this was not

grave digging, but, play;

this is not how the day began

but this is how it will end.

 

 Alan Catlin has been publishing since the seventies; from the mimeos to the Internet. His latest full length book of poems is “Alien Nation.”  He is currently working on a sequel to that book under the working title of, “Beautiful Mutants.”