THE COLOUR OF PAIN

THE COLOUR OF PAIN

The words on the gate to hell,
Read “Arbeit Macht Frei”,
Where, Twenty-nine nations,
Were held to slowly die.

The road is slick with wetness,
Enclosed with an electric fence,
It was a place of no return,
From where, one entered it whence.

The tramp of a million footsteps,
Have made hollows on the stone,
In these groves lie yellow flowers,
A site, where dignity still mourns.

The barracks are now empty,
Full of haunting, silent sound,
Filled with the smell of terror,
Permeating from the ground.

Rooms packed with human hair,
Shoes, brushes and glasses too,
Clothes, shawls and suitcases,
Millions and yet so few.

A place where women and babies,
Were experimented upon by men,
To find the perfect balance,
To create a race par excellence.

The fit and able were chosen,
Till they with starvation dropped,
Labour of force and instilled fear,
Toiled, till their hearts finally stopped.

Into showers spewing poison,
Without conscience they were herded,
Old, and young, the weak, and sick,
With gas they were then murdered.

Human hair was clipped for cloth,
For warmth on a winters day,
Fat for soap and bones for buttons,
Their ashes in fields then lay.

The chimneys are now smokeless,
The fumes still leave their mark,
Where people burnt inside ovens,
It’s still hot and dark.

The shooting wall, the gallows,
The holding cells, the horror of it all,
How they survived, those who did,
Walk, when they could only crawl.

This hell on earth stands witness,
To mans brutality against man,
The levels of cruelty to be reached,
If he wills, and wants, and can.

Only a barren, starkness of torment,
Narrates its story of pain,
The colour yellow on the trodden steps,
Remains a voice, burning in the rain.

~ Sujata ~

More Poems By Sujata

Home