"The End of April" Irat R. Feiskhanov The end of April, with its showers, had come in; Soon after would come the eighth of May; We swore allegiance to our leader, now as ever; We later learned he'd shot himself that day. Our tattered group of old men and of young boys And of young girlsâ€"anyone that we could getâ€" Held on to faith, faith in our dear leader, Whatever we knew, we knew that he knew best. Our city was every bit as tattered With bombing raids that had given way to shells And everywhere lonely parts of bodies Reached out still for other pieces of themselves. Everywhere disfigured buildings Stood gaunt, with their skeletons exposed Clothed in rags of translucent fog, Which never dared to leave. Or was that smoke? It always shook, and growled, and whistled And barely a moment would go by In which some unscheduled demolition Didn't block out another piece of sky. We fought so many days inside that earthquake, We'd forgot what earth felt like, when it stood still Ex! cept for those few moments during an explosion When the land hung in the air against its will. Our ears rung constantly; our sight swam green; Our stomachs ached; but we had made our vows. And death was not as scary as dishonor; We would die gladly for our leader even now. Any idiot could see that, which we didn't But nothing, save our leader's wraith, Could pierce the veil of our glorious delusion; We still hailed Victoryâ€"Gott mit Uns!â€"We had faith. When their tanks rolled in on caterpillar legsâ€" Those
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