One thing that's always struck me about poems of despair is how much more effective they are if they temper their bitterness with humor, however dark the humor. Here's one from a book titled "To Tell the Story," by a friend of mine in NYC who survived the Holocaust in a slave labor camp, and subsequently wrote poems to keep alive the memory of those who didn't make it. Her name is Yala Korwin:
Jozek's Fedora
That morning they sent us
to sort out headgear
in that hut, you know,
near the crematoria.
All sizes, shapes, colors.
Caps, hats, bonnets,
hoods, berets, biggins.
Near one edge I spotted
my brown fedora
bought in Krakow
four years before
on Grodska Street.
I stared, thinking:
is it possible?
Am I still alive?
It stared back at me
as if in disbelief
that I was still alive.
I said to Mietek:
pinch me, pinch me.
I need to know
if I am still alive.
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