Walther Funk Interviewed at Nuremberg
Walther Funk at Nuremberg
My own psychology is complicated—
I was somnambulant when young, and now,
When the moon is full, I’m easily upset.
The origins of that gold were, to me, unknown.
No, no, I’m glad to have your company.
The pacing helps to ease my bladder pain.
It clarifies my thoughts as well. To sit,
To be required to sit at trial was hard;
The urge to urinate distracted me.
Donations? Of course not. But people die
Of natural causes, and if some of them
Had gold teeth, or expensive glasses, then
That might have been the source of those deposits.
Continue down a road for long enough:
Eventually, to turn aside requires
An act of will beyond your reach.
Some power must remove the rotten things
And all the dirt that’s settled on this world;
And some new instrument must be created.
Walther Funk was Minister of Economics for the Third Reich, and President of the Reichsbank. At Nuremberg he was convicted of crimes against humanity, and sentenced to life in prison.
This poem is part of the series Interviews With Vampires. For more on the Nuremberg Trials, see Controlled Experiments on Social Pathology
If you like this poem, you might enjoy American Independence in Verse, now available for purchase.