Buried Horror

Buried Horror

Wednesday 31 January 2018

Rape of Nanking - The Other Holocaust - December 13, 1937

by Lisa Makarchuk


 fascist troops entered Nanking and
seven weeks of killing ensued
unleashing rape, atrocity
murder and rampage
with hatred imbued 
killing hundreds of thousands 
their bodies were strewed
through city streets
befouled, eviscerated
disemboweled, bayoneted
 persons writhing and moaning
while in kerosene soaked
 burnt by fires being stoked 
breasts were sliced off
women defiled then nailed alive
to walls, naked ones made to sit 
 on hot charcoal stoves
continuously lit

civilians were tied unto trees
kicked to death, and babies
sliced in half, thirds and quarters
people subjected to electric tortures
 kerosene pumped through hoses
forcibly placed into mouths and noses
rupturing bowels excreting their swill

in parts of the city 
people suspended 
until they would feel
their bodies distended
some forced to kneel 
on nails, there were
 live burials, castration
corpus stashed into carts
children screaming and weeping 
from medical experiments
 people alive but half-buried
 German shepherds ferocious
and scary, tearing 
their innards apart

evil harvested the city; it came
 In the goosesteps of
frenzied soldiery who claim 
 a superior race mentality
sharing convenient indifference
and studied acceptance
by those exercising no resistance
to this genocidal existence
what is it in war and battle that happens 
soldiers’ morality subsumed under flame
we’ve heard it over and over: NEVER AGAIN


Bio

Love of poetry, doggerel and rant began for Makarchuk in a rural school she attended in northern Saskatchewan. She co-coordinated the First International Festival of Poetry of Resistance and coordinated the third one. She has written radio copy, news articles and published a chapter in a collection of essays in  “Cuba Solidarity in Canada”, edited by Nino Pagliccia.  She edited  “IFPOR Anthology 2011, vol.1” and her issue-oriented poetry is also found in “Crossing Borders”, edited by Bruce Kauffman; and “Resistance Poetry 2”, edited by Roger Langen. In the book “Bottom of the Wine Jar”, launched August 13th, 2016,  she is published as one of four poets, two Canadian and two Cuban. She is an associate member of the League of Canadian Poets and Vice-President of the Canada Cuba Literary Alliance.

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