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Contests : War Poetry Contest : Past Winners : 2004 : Jim McGarrah
MUSEUM OF HOSTAGES
(Bled, Slovenia)
In this photo a young man waits
for his execution.
He's tied to a bullet-scarred tree,
his eyes half-closed as if he
had fed on strawberries
from a picnic basket, as if this blue flame
of sky and a bottle of good Riesling
made him drowsy, comfortably unaware
of the Nazi pill boxes and trenches
that still ring the courtyard.
The guide tells me that this museum
was once a prison full of farmers
and their families. On this very date, the Nazis
set them free as a gesture of good will
to flee the Russians, who marched
through the Soca Valley like red ants,
devouring all flesh in their path.
The prisoners ran, blinded more by thoughts
of freedom than fear of its result.
When the trees along the hillcrest
spread out before them like pillars from heaven
machine guns inside the bunkers
opened fire. Women fell first,
covering their children. Then, men turned
back to fight the lead wind with bare hands.
Red wheat roiled in the field.
"Guns barked with Hun efficiency,"
says my guide through his tears. But his hand curls
behind his back waiting, like a ripe
flower, for the tolar coins I rain into his palm.
I ask about the photo as we leave the silent
building and why this man got tied to a tree.
"He was afraid to leave his cell,
so the Nazis made him watch
then shot him last."
The guide smiles and waves at a German
tour bus parked beside the garden.
This poem was a finalist in the 2004 War Poetry Contest sponsored by Winning Writers. Copyright is reserved to the author.
About Jim McGarrah
Jim McGarrah teaches creative writing at the University of Southern Indiana. He serves as the managing editor for Southern Indiana Review and co-directs the RopeWalk Reading Series for the university, as well as being on the permanent staff of the annual RopeWalk Writers Retreat. His poems, essays, and stories have appeared in many literary magazines, including most recently in Connecticut Review, Cedar Hill Review, Elixir and North American Review, and also translated for international journals such as Pagitica and Blesok (Shine). His poetry will also be highlighted in two new anthologies this year, Roque Dalton Review by Cedar Hill Press and And Know This Place: Poems of Indiana by Indiana University Press. McGarrah's first book of poems, Running the Voodoo Down, was released nationally in 2003. It won the Elixir Press Editor's Choice Award for that year. He has been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes and a finalist twice for the James Hearst Poetry Prize. McGarrah's critical essays, "Never Such Innocence Again", "The Contemporary Frontier of American Poetry", and "Ernest Hemingway: Latent Feminist", have been presented at several national conferences including the Association of Writers & Writing Programs and the Literature, Film, and War Conference at Binghamton University (SUNY). He is currently working on a nonfiction book entitled A Matter of Priorities, which reflects his experiences as a combat Marine in Vietnam. Several excerpts from the book already appear as individual essays in print. McGarrah holds a MFA in Writing from Vermont College and a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies from the University of Southern Indiana.
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