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 …
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.