Bill Knott - WELTENDE VARIATION # ?

The CIA and the KGB exchange Christmas cards
A blade snaps in two during an autopsy
The bouquet Bluebeard gave his first date reblooms
Many protest the stoning of a guitar pick

Railroad trains drop off the bourgeois' pointy head
A martyr sticks a coffeecup out under a firehose
Moviestars make hyenas lick their spaceship
God's hand descends into a glove held steady by the police

At their reunion The New Faces recognize each other
A spoiled child sleeps inside a thermometer
A single misprint in a survival manual kills everyone
The peace night makes according to the world comes


Note: von Hoddis: author of 'the first Expressionist poem,' Weltende, published in 1910. His poem has been aped innumerable times (Auden's 'The Fall of Rome,' for example), hence the questionmark in my title.

Bill Knott

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/weltende-variation/