They were in hundreds, thousands,
eventually millions,
the wretched souls amassed
in long killer carriages.
They were in hundreds, thousands,
eventually millions,
taken afar, leaving behind them
only long trails of dense black
smoke,
or rather empty places, dehumanized,
places inhabited by absolute absence
where the Absolute was absent.
They were in hundreds, thousands,
eventually millions,
the men, women and children
one fate for all, one fatal only
goal.
And they arrived and did not see
nor light nor a way out,
but only their own end.
They were in hundreds, thousands,
eventually millions,
and the last things they remembered
was a dense black smoke,
a despair that screamed in despair.
Today the memory remains
of hundreds, thousands, eventually
millions,
a memory which few – or is it many?
would just eradicate;
today’s a faded image
humanity sans feeling,
utterly degenerate!
Patrick Sammut
(Translation by Alfred Palma)
