Bitterness

Grady McMurtry

10 January 1945

In Metz the German dead lie stacked

Beneath the quiet snow

Along the railroad tracks, a wracked

And grotesque iron row

Between the trees, and where the packed

Wire brambles twist and grow.

Their wooden cheeks are dark with stain;

Hoarfrost has iced their hair;

Their broken bodies, shrunk with pain,

Claw upwards in despair.

The fortress City of Lorraine

Is guarded by their stare..

The ghouls have had their business way

Among these frozen dead;

Some stripped of boots, some with their grey

Ring fingers clipped instead,

And some have even been the play

Of dogs, who must be fed..

These are the vaunted “Waffen Korps”

The cold embalms so well;

God damn their souls forevermore

And may they rot in Hell!

We wanted peace, they wanted War

So leave them where they fell.

Lieutenant Grady L. McMurtry, U. S. Army

1/10/45

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