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Sunday, March 29, 2015

STRANGER

by George Held




1.

Warum? Por qué? Pourquoi?
Why-o-why-o-why-o?

The people want to know: Why
Did Andreas fly into the alp?

It would be OK if he’d killed
Only himself – suicide, while

Regrettable, is acceptable,
But murdering 149 innocents …

That’s beyond the pale,
The boundaries of civilized

Behavior.

O the pounding on the door
And the screams of terror


2.

Warum? Por qué? Pourquoi?
Why-o-why-o-why-o?

But what if the answer
Is “just because …”

Because Andreas could
And so he did,

Adding his name to those
Of Stavrogin, who killed

A child to prove his freedom
To do so, and Gide’s Lafcadio,

And Camus’ … is Lubitz
The new Meursault,

Author of an “acte gratuit”?

O the pounding on the door
And the screams of terror


3.

Warum? Por qué? Pourquoi?
Why-o-why-o-why-o?

But those men and their victims
Are literature, figments

Of great writers’ dreams,
While Lubitz’ victims

Left living survivors,
feeling loss, grief, despair.

Germanwings suffered
A cockpit intrusion

By the co-pilot, who locked
the door, dialed the numbers

in and then hit
“Execute.”

O the pounding on the door
And the screams of terror


George Held, a regular contributor to The New Verse News, has a new book out from Poets Wear Prada, Culling: New & Selected Nature Poems.