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Best Poems From
HERBERT NEHRLICH
(04 October 1943)
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413.
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A Bomb
Dawn in the valley.
A chilling fear now rises
like an emotional, ominous cloud.
It soon disperses in the mist,
a lonely crow still flaps its wings
in stark defiance of the odd
and unwelcome turbulence.
Grasshoppers and locusts,
mixed in weird meleι
darken skies, their plaintiff hum,
heard through the region
and making every living creature
take notice, reluctantly. But now.
Blinded rabbits and field mice,
staggering between the pockmarks
created by the fallout and the pieces
of hot, still melting steel and fuel,
crying in heart-break and empty despair.
A field of corn stalks, once proud, erect,
now toppled over and covered by
a veritable ocean of dead fishes, from the sea
miles away, but boiling, foaming
in anger, no surf but rising now, tsunami
how likely? in the making, here the water,
that once tame blue green sea of tranquility
where it goes it boils and soon destroys, death,
once unthinkable except in natural order,
ordained and unaccepted, it is everywhere.
Now, that the bomb has come, feared
and always imagined, false dream hoped for,
but for others, in far away places, killings
in the fields of infidels, the murderers
and fornicators, same sex marriages,
premarital defiance and godlessness,
it must be, how could it not be, the end
already memory is fading of what still lingers,
it is the quick and so inevitable unravelling,
though much too slow, if death must come
so be it but with mercy to the innocent,
who, in a lifetime of believing and worshipping,
have earned some points that surely qualify
I do not see the sores, blasted through DNA
and oozing yellow pus that glows, from limbs
once used to pray and work the land, in honour
and obedience to God, with Jesus as his son
who sacrificed himself for us, to what avail?
So is this eli, eli lama asaftani, or did they lie
inside the scriptures, those legends of the past?
Yes, Mr. Oppenheimer, and company, thank you,
for being you and looking out for all those things
that were not living, had no soul and brought you joy
was splitting hairs not nearly satisfying,
that priceless atoms had to serve for your strange dreams?
I see it fading now, the print from this computer,
and heat has come at last, to sweep us with the dust
into forgetfulness and purple raven nights
I say good-bye to you and will you understand?
Herbert Nehrlich
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414.
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A Bond?
I asked you to suggest what I could do
to lift your spirits, make your life a fete,
I figured that by now you likely knew
what makes you tick and keeps you in the state.
I know today that it is never up to you,
you see the whole of me, it is the real me,
if some shenanigans can help me to undo
the minus vibes it only sets our spirits free.
It's warts 'n all of course, it must be for the two
who've found a miracle so close to the beyond
You have my eyes you lovely sweetheart and I do
show only nakedness but hopeful of our bond.
Herbert Nehrlich
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415.
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A Bred Farton Poem
Mangy, ugly mutt
hangs around the club
gets the hasty rub
scratches now his butt
waits for patient leg
eyes and face do beg.
Starts his horny hump
up and down the crease
from his inner sump
flows the canine tease.
People laugh a lot
think it is so funny
I believe it's not,
gotta hit the dunny.
Herbert Nehrlich
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416.
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A Brief Friendship
For those who jump
when friendship beckons
and seal their pact in miniseconds
go from a grump
to being happy
they've learned that life
if it is crappy
brings only strife.
But wait, what if they do at first
cling to the warmth of status quo
in an insatiable thirst
they sit and watch the union grow.
Yet, humans being rather fickle
they'll take the tiniest excuse
a word, a gesture comes, to tickle
and plants the seed (the devil's ruse?)
which now creates a plant with leaves
developing into a huge
and monstrous climber, to the eaves
it looks convincingly like Scrooge.
No further sign is now required
the catchcry now is condemnation
a fleeting friendship has grown tired
all faith, a product of inflation.
Herbert Nehrlich
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