“A Prisoner Reaches a Hand toward Death”
First you hear the cry of that poor creature.
Then curses rumble through frightened halls,
Sirens sing the alarm-song, and
The deathwatch ticks in every cell.
What drove you, friend, to reach a hand toward Death?
The whimpers of the whipped? The swallowed pangs of hunger?
The years gnawing at our body like rats to a corpse?
The restless footsteps that slink into our heads?
Were you driven by the mute mockery of grief-ridden walls,
That push on our chest like a nightmare?
We do not know. We only know that human hands
Harm one another. That no bridge straddles
The rivers I and You. That we lose the way
In the dark of this house. That we are cold.
Ernst Toller
(1893 - 1939) was a Jewish anarchist, poet, and playwright. He was imprisoned for five years for his part in the armed resistance by the Soviet Republic to the central government in Berlinand was exiled from Germany after the Nazis came to power.
Best Bud! member Mathilda Cullen (@mathildork) has translated Toller’s Poems Of The Inprisioned (Gedichte der Gefangenen), which can be purchased here.