The Answered Prayers
The Answered Prayers of Claus Philipp Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg
By Christopher Lauer
She is just a plot to kill Hitler
hatched forty, or fifty, years too late.
She is a glorious and ingenious plot
and all post-war songs were to be sung
happily in celebration of her selfless effort and intangible honor
and whilst humble and seemingly good-natured
she knows this and hums these songs in her sleep.
She is an intricate and beautiful plot
left empty and unfulfilled now
with no defined or deserving target
she takes a bead on the brotherhood
born with no other atrocity than an attraction to her
with her hardwired, haywire attempts to destroy them.
And all this, when all the while, she was meant to save the lives
of hundreds of thousands.
That’s one hell of a pic! I’ll have to get a copy of that and hang it next to my Pancho Villa ‘I want you, Gringo’ poster; or take it with me to the next KKK rally in this progressive little Texas town I live in…that’ll piss off the skin-heads!
The poem is a ‘doozey’! While reading, I suspected that this Claus Phillip Maria Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg might be a real person (despite the fantastical name)who tried to snuff Hitler. Shore ’nuff, he was…I found info on this link…http://www.moreorless.au.com/heroes/stauffenberg.html
To my limited powers of perception, the ‘She’ in the poem is a reference to ‘The Answered Prayers’ of Claus etc in the title…because he himself was a man and not a she…figurative as opposed to literal. To me, the ‘she’ becomes a Lady Liberty/Justice if you will as I read/re-read this poem. Inevitably, things just never seem to be set right in this world…Hitler is gone, and a million want to take his place. I love the awesome ‘delving deeper-flying higher’ poems. Thanks Mr. Lauer!
I just really like comments from Quasimofo.
Oh, and the day I read this submission was the very same day I started reading “Eva Braun”. Ever read that? So far so good. Oh, and the movie “Blind Spot: Hitler’s Secretary”, ever see that? Pretty interesting.
I keep reading this and finally decided to comment today…I take the “she” in the poem is liberty personified too, and that the almost fantastical name of the man who almost killed Hitler is as poetic as “an intricate and beautiful plot”… the poet’s alliteration is not overdone, and Guess who’s playing Stauffenberg in a movie about the July 20, 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler? Tom Cruise. Doesn’t Germany’s government have a thing against the Church of Scientology? Anyway, what I love most about this poem is the ambiguity- that the “she” could be our government, it could be us, or both. “We the people…” I hope to read more from Mr. Lauer the future.