Your death Was a horror They tied Your hands To plunge A steel bar Down your gullet Without gas Without mercy Without delay They had to do this For your heart pounded with power To devour Air your lungs Could no longer Inhale In collective desperation They settled you To rest And oxygenized you To death Before you could Struggle to say again Goodbye And I love you And I love you And goodbye Your going out Foreshadows Our going out Your inner trumpets Foreshadows Our inner trumpets Whose woeful tones Declare these agonies G-d may smile At these Holocausts Yet we Who are more terrorbound Scream To pierce the ear drum.
Irwin R. Shaw - June 6th 1982
Holocaust for One
Your death
Was a horror
They tied
Your hands
To plunge
A steel bar
Down your gullet
Without gas
Without mercy
Without delay
They had to do this
For your heart pounded with power
To devour
Air your lungs
Could no longer
Inhale
In collective desperation
They settled you
To rest
And oxygenized you
To death
Before you could
Struggle to say again
Goodbye
And I love you
And I love you
And goodbye
Your going out
Foreshadows
Our going out
Your inner trumpets
Foreshadows
Our inner trumpets
Whose woeful tones
Declare these agonies
G-d may smile
At these Holocausts
Yet we
Who are more terrorbound
Scream
To pierce the ear drum.