"I Did Not Weep" by Mary Adams

I Did Not Weep
Empty and dead, I was nothing but a body.
My soul had been invaded by a nocturnal silence,
It deprived me of all desires.
How long had we been standing in the freezing wind?
“Left, right, left, right”
It no longer mattered.
The sad-eyed angel
The startlingly wizened face
Optimists were jubilant,
Wait.
I warned you.
Terrible scream
 I did not weep.
Keep your anger, your hate, for another day, for later,
Surely it was a dream.
It was all in the abstract.
What revenge.
Black flame
Provoke, so as not have to pretend,
Into that time when question and answer became one,
Into smoke under a silent sky,
Seeking redemption, seeking oblivion,
Is there any hope of finding either?

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 25, 2019 at 4:47 AM

    Hi Mary,

    I really like how you put Elie's perspective or whoever you were writing about into your place and you talked about it as if you were there and you were going through what the people in the Holocaust were going through if that makes any sense. The part of your poem that I thought was really powerful was when you said "Keep your anger, your hate, for another day, for later,/Surely it was a dream."

    - priscilla

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