One-Horned Devil
21st Century
Atop a floating demon here I stand,
Looking across war-torn lands,
Ruined farms, poisoned water,
And the horror of mustard gas.
I am truly not evil,
Yet your patriotism makes me so,
Nature made us friends;
Imperialism made us enemies.
Long have I quarreled my cousins
Whose empires I now covet.
Cheated, swindled, beguiled
Were my people at Berlin
Back in the fated 1871
When Bismark sold the Prussian strength
For German unity.
Blundering, heinous, fallacious,
Where Britain and France
For ever dare dreaming
The great Germany defeated
With no shot fired!
My blood boils, my heart trembles:
Ire in my eye burns bright
With rage, jealousy
Of what the murderous French
And Brit dogs have
Stolen from me!
I heed the advice
That my crown bears:
Upon it the skull and crossed-bone,
The Totenkopf:
Of the Death Head Hussars
Whose massacre I commanded
When Napoleon's
Grandson seemed strong!
Anschluss with Austria complete,
Serbia rebels,
A grand Anglo army marches
Into Slavic lands.
Hark! The rebels aided by the Russian.
They plan their strategy
Over frequency clear:
Intercepted, translated;
The day is won!
Thus away from Hungary's ashes,
Through Belgium, the Schlieffen Plan
Into France, the feigned foe!
Wilson and his Yankee army
Enter battle against me,
With Turkey and Austria faltering,
My list of allies grows thin.
They call my armies Hun
And me the "One-Horned Devil"
Mocking the spear in the crown grand.
Who has the final laugh
We soon shall see!
My sabre drawn unto France's heart,
Imperial waxed, uniform pressed,
And monocle polished,
Dining fine with courtier company.
From my kingly state
Down onto the dead and dying
I peer endlessly whose
Peril is not mine.
One million corpses
Line the trenches
At Somme and Verdun,
But no sympathy with
The fallen I share.
No avail, we march on!
Bloodshed, battle, butchery,
Europe ruined, never same again!
Stained forever with my blunder;
Much guilt upon my shoulders hangs.
"Mein Reich und ich geben auf!"
from the cratered trench I shouted;
the French devils, Brit dogs,
and Yankee cows have the day won!
Ending here is my Deutschesreich
All its wonder, all its splendor
Drenched in blood.
I am forced to abdicate,
Now of dark depression my country reeks:
Versailles, the maggot in my side,
Further gnaws to us poverty!
Little remorse I hold for the fated,
Those who perished, perish so
For their emperor,
Their sacred obligation fulfilled!
Germany now has fallen,
The darkness consumes us,
Uncertainty is our one ally,
Along the Rhine,
France the damned
Whoso rejected justice!
Our only hope is the frail Weimar,
Hindenburg's democracy,
Corporal Hitler will my war rekindle!
'Tis not luxurious Kaiserhood!
DayPoems Poem No. 2264
<a href="http://www.daypoems.net/poems/2264.html">One-Horned Devil by Brian Okabayashi</a>
The DayPoems Poetry Collection, www.daypoems.net
Timothy Bovee, editor
Poets Poems