And then they came for the fish…

I come up with

the oddest things

while downing cod.

Never mind

it rhymes with God.

That’s Captain effing

Obvious.

But on Friday

I crossed the line—

bringing up the

Nazis had a 2nd,

jackboot Führer:

Karl Dönitz,

in May of ’45,

that Heil Dönitz!

never caught on as well,

wouldn’t instill the dread

which Hitler’s surname had,

didn’t roll off the tongue

like the Roman, click-heeled

greeting to his monstrous

predecessor, that he preferred

his time as Admiral

a whole lot more,

hanging out with all the

flounder keeping neutral

through the war—

a torpedoed

Athenia,

Dachau &

Bergen-Belsen,

the Quislings

& Pétain’s Vichy,

the race to the Atomic Bomb—

knowing either way

they’re on a plate

with Tartar sauce—

the mad Hungarian

version—

giving the look

that they are swimming

in some garnished

Milky Way, every lump

a star, their fins

beneath the white of

chilled surrender.

Andreas Gripp

May 6, 2025

Karl Dönitz, Head of Nazi Germany, April 30-May 23, 1945