Christian Bancroft received his PhD from the University of Houston and is the recipient of a Michener Fellowship. A semifinalist for the 2018 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry First Book Award and the 2017 Lena-Miles Wever Todd Prize for Poetry, he is the author of Now Sing: Reflections on Modernism and Queering Translation (under contract, Routledge) and the co-editor of the 2018 Unsung Masters Series volume, Adelaide Crapsey: The Life and Work of an American Master. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Callaloo, The Missouri Review, jubilat, Gulf Coast, and Asymptote, among others. ---------
Note: The following poems are from a longer manuscript, A Ghost Has No Fantasies, and are engaged with bringing to light and the reframing of the persecution of gay men and lesbians during the Holocaust. These poems are found texts, taken from memoirs, first-hand accounts, and archival documents that catalogue the persecution of queer men and women during the Holocaust.
Passion of the Twentieth Century
Richard Grüne
I kept myself alive by drawing from
evening until morning.
I draw those images at the request of my
former camp comrades, to close things, to demystify them.
Death there was a creak from a bed post at night,
beads of brow sweat: there was nothing compelling about it.
Drawing was a beyond for me, like some kind of polestar,
but one I couldn’t see, let alone where it would lead me.
I wasn’t even sure
what was happening at that particular moment,
except the drawing into which I dove. Even when I disappeared
into the pollution
of camp routines, I was still drawing.
I drew das Wesen out from what I knew of the shadows
of civilization. Not necessarily what happened there.
But there itself. Its Leidenschaft. Leidenschaft. Leiden-
schaft.
Keep Up
Gad Beck
When the bombs were falling,
we made love on the train.
Our cart vacant of others, and,
that night, vacant of scenes of the Panke
running
through the gardens of Schönhausen.
Distant explosions magnified
and breaking light
into shards on our bodies reflected through the raindrops
on the train windows.
He put his mouth on me,
and my nerves, thrilled to a tingle,
forced me to recognize my body.
And its pleasure.
You have to see this romantically.
When bombs fall
and buildings explode nearby,
you look to others
for closeness.
You forget the bombs,
the war,
the stalled train.
You are just close to others.
You didn’t get that?
Oh darling, you are slow.
Letter from Else
Else
After my shift im Cafe slight aroma
of the Havel
I remember you napping on the couch,
noise from the streets: Nazi police
noise from the streets: Nazi police
Alter Markt.
a beauty among the
savaged scene: your eyes relaxed in
their respective sockets,
distance.
their respective sockets,
distance.
from the SS
remember your mouth, , body, stretched
out, . Gh o your face:
out, . Gh o your face:
as though enlightenment swam through you,
meine faltige-Rose.
Do you remember in Berlin, at the Top keller?
You pointed t sign that read,
“Wir NeueGeist. es smit Schamlosigkeit.”
kissed me. felt your lips take
kissed me. felt your lips take
shape into smile as you withdrew them from .
ich dankbar, verschuldet that wemet,
were able to , was possible, among dawns
, we have been and are completely, this once,
dizzied by fortunate time together, before
vanishes like a fish released back into the sea.
A Hot Fraternity in the Brown House
Ernst Röhm
I make no secret of my inclinations
Of course I fight against moral laws,
above all P175. Is that not clear?
Meine Homosexualitat is of a highter culture.
Ich bin sogar
stolz darauf would march off
I only really Discovered this in 1914.
Though I can Remember earlier an array
of same-sex feelings and acts during my childhood
I’ve been with woman,
without any particular pleasure.
I would be. in the best order
if I was not missing an object of life.
I even took a companion with me
to Bolivia a 19-year old Munich artist.
I’m very close with him, and him with me…
he is quite the cute little thing.
In the streets of La Paz, none of the local
youths shy away from physical affection
to the point you would think everyone
in the street is Schwul! Oh, but I am
so attracted to hot-blooded, fresh
lieutenants. They would surely please you
enshrined in their blond youth,
as would the Turkish baths in Berlin:
the summit of all human happiness
Our love, heroic Nothing can happen to me.
If I am touched, hundreds of thousands
for me
Ich warte dringed auf Antwort.
Mit Kameradschaftlichen handschlag, Irh…
dizzied by fortunate time together, before
vanishes like a fish released back into the sea.
A Hot Fraternity in the Brown House
Ernst Röhm
I make no secret of my inclinations
Of course I fight against moral laws,
above all P175. Is that not clear?
Meine Homosexualitat is of a highter culture.
Ich bin sogar
stolz darauf would march off
I only really Discovered this in 1914.
Though I can Remember earlier an array
of same-sex feelings and acts during my childhood
I’ve been with woman,
without any particular pleasure.
I would be. in the best order
if I was not missing an object of life.
I even took a companion with me
to Bolivia a 19-year old Munich artist.
I’m very close with him, and him with me…
he is quite the cute little thing.
In the streets of La Paz, none of the local
youths shy away from physical affection
to the point you would think everyone
in the street is Schwul! Oh, but I am
so attracted to hot-blooded, fresh
lieutenants. They would surely please you
enshrined in their blond youth,
as would the Turkish baths in Berlin:
the summit of all human happiness
Our love, heroic Nothing can happen to me.
If I am touched, hundreds of thousands
for me
Ich warte dringed auf Antwort.
Mit Kameradschaftlichen handschlag, Irh…