The young man (Series – Part 2)

Where did your life go from childhood days, cast out, moved about
one family to the next, enlisting in the Army, in the hope to leave
the country of your birth

How many times ~ how many? Three you said, when a gun was pointed
at your head, but a guardian angel held you close and let you
breathe another day

Thrown in jail, hard wooden beds, a cell for three fits twelve, facing
court your penance, for trying to escape, you revisited eight years ago
it doesn’t look the same

Bomb blast, the SS and their cohorts gathered round and you and friends
were ordered to pick broken bodies off the ground, how hard this would have
been for you

The head of the girl you knew, had spoken to that afternoon, your friend
that served you drinks ~ and you were told put ‘it’ in a pail to throw amongst
the pile of corpses

~ did you scream then Pop?

Running, forests now your home, European winters so cold, threadbare clothes
for covering, partially frozen lakes you had to swim across, that chilled you
to the bone

Empty tin with water from the stream, covering an old potato this is all
you ate back then

Is this why you love food so much?

Trains, twice, you were nearly caught, as guards stood eyeing civilians
a password given ~ freedom called

‘Professor Schmidt here’ you yelled as you confidently walked past those who
carried rifles, who didn’t give a second glance

Far from the border where you hid at day and scoured through night, until a group
of smugglers helped you and your friends plight

The escape plan had been hatched, a man who hid you in a truck and told you to move
quickly, when he whispered coast was clear

Into a grocery store and up the stairs you fled, waiting for a day and night
till in the morning you were called, when an officer with a gun marched to
the cabin door

Danny with a knife in hand, ready for the kill…. but

This man was in on ‘the act’, this ‘good samaritan’ helped you both escape and as he plunged
a tape into your hand said ~ ‘Make sure you give this to the Americans ~
when you reach your promised land’

©jmtacken 11/11/2013

Dad in the Middle

This has been difficult, as it is a story and I have tried to condense it as much as possible.