From the 2007 edition of The Muse: Auschwitz

Ashes to ashes

Dust to dust

Here we are again

With a passionate lust

To fill the night sky

With powder of gray

Falling from heaven

In the simplest of ways

Seeming so beautiful 

One could almost pretend

That the snow of such luster

Was not long before, a man

A gentle tear falls

As the cattle car slides

Down the lonely track

Into the unforgiving night 

A new head is loaded

As the ovens burn red

With the heat of my sins;

With their screams filling my head

I must take my place this night

As I have with all the rest

To etch my name in history

By atrocities which I’ve addressed

Goodbye bourgeoisie 

Alas! With vengeful stifle

I pluck you from your pedestals

And exterminate your life

Goodbye gypsy lovers

With homosexuals too

Do not try to plead with me

For I’m not to care for you 

Goodbye Czechs and Poles

As the sun has seen you though

Your time with me has ended now

So into the furnace with you

And last but not least

Please bring to me my Jews

For I’m told that they must go

To the oven and gas chambers too

I do not want to do this job

But for fear of joining them too

I push and I prod so I may live

Is that awful of me to do?

I cannot fill this role

One I so richly despise 

I will not allow myself to live

By simply taking their lives

Now all I have to give 

Is the gift of life, in which 

I’ll save a generation 

By not throwing that rusty swich

What right do I have, 

To exterminate a race?

For if I do not do my job

Another will take my place

With principle this frigid night

Conscience cannot bear the thought

I stand on grounds of moral intent

For which I am to be shot

My conscience is clear

I’m tossed in a grave

Lying next to those bodies

I’d just tired to save

My morals were shaken

But strength I had shown

And I’ll stand with clean hands

When my sins are atoned

Andrew Johnson