(AA) Canto 2: Delegations
Reparations
Every bit of scrap iron sits
In the hall of the old manor,
And, on the wall, a shadow flits
Theophile Gautier
“Upon the sacred soil of Vaterland
No enemy had stepp’d a single foot,
Thus how audacious they are to demand
These reparations, slump us in a rut!?”
Poor Germany
Never might recover
As when two soul mates see their other with a lover!
Where shrunken, starving babies curse
The birth to which them fated
As once pure housewives fill their purse
Thro men’s lust satiated
A scapegoat sentence well rehears’d
“Let all Jews be hated,
Living luxuriously while we strive
Each day, in desperation, to survive.”
Six cases of the best Moet
Blackmarkets Ribbentrop,
Round cabaret, the play, ballet,
He tour’d his mobile shop,
Some handsome, dashing chancer somehow dancing to the top.
Berlin
August
1919
Broken Dreams
I have nae will to sing or danse
For fear of England & of France
God send them sorrow & mischance
Sir Richard Maitland
“Upon the sacred soil of Vaterland,
No enemy had stepp’d a single foot,
Thus how audacious are they to demand
Such reparations;” tuskers in a rut,
For Germany
Never might recover
As when two soul mates see each other with a lover.
As shrunken, starving babies curse
The birth that they were fated,
As once pure housewives fill a purse
Thro’ men’s lust satiated,
The scapegoat sentence well rehears’d,
“Let the Jews be hated,
Living luxuriously while we strive
Each day of desecration, to survive!”
Six cases of the best Moet,
Black-markets Ribbentrop,
Round plays, ballet & cabaret
He tour’d his mobile shop,
Some handsome, dashing chancer dancing, somehow, to the top.
Berlin
November 1919
Brave New World
Sleep, for the yards of jail houses
Are all teeming with violent death,
And you are the more in need of rest
Muhammad Mahdi Al-Jawahiri
“Let us establish a League of Nations,”
Say the wardens of a war-weary world,
Glimpsing Man’s maturer aspirations,
Now that his battle-banners have been furl’d;
The status quo
Returns to normalcy,
The nurse-child of Anglo-Saxon hegemony.
Britain proclaims pre-eminence,
Now Russia has revolted,
The moral laurels worn by France,
For ‘peace’ truly devoted,
But spurning this most perfect chance,
Ostrich isolated,
The Yanks withdraw yon oceanic moats,
Jealous of England’s empire’s six full votes.
On a simple piece of paper
‘World Peace’ has had its birth,
America’s non-signature
Belittling its worth,
Shirking responsibilities as policemen of the Earth.
Geneva
January 1920
War & Peace
I am the rustling of the world
the swaying between here and elsewhere
the dumb foliage of the cactus
Abdourahman A. Waberi
As the snarl of that Star-Spangl’d nation,
Which ended Europa’s love of violence,
Shrivels, daily, into isolation,
Two Philopoema, charg’d with their defence,
Nestle to eat
Pot hot, home-made dinner,
Fans wafting off the heat from a white veranda.
As Mrs Patton pours the wine,
The gentlemen wisdom share,
Drape musings with a southern whine,
On the art of Tank Warfare,
“To penetrate the foe’s front line
Swift as a grizzly bear
“Plucks salmon, strike, back’d by artillery,
Not hamper’d spread defending infantry.”
Once Mrs Mamie Eisenhower
Had serv’d the last liqueur,
A quick shower, within the hour,
They’ll start a smart lecture
On ‘Pursuit of Routing Armies,’ by a young MacArthur.
Camp Meade
September
1920
The Nazi Party
I cannot tell what ails me,
But this I know for sure,
Thou only art my cure
Baba Tahir
He took the stand before a growing band
Of misfits, bandits, madmen & chancers,
Enchants them with a panorama spann’d
Over time across epic expanses;
His voice rings loud,
Flush’d with higher German,
Binding demotic crowd to th’ypnotic sermon.
“For over fifteen centuries
Reign’d the Holy Roman law,
When Fate unites the Germanies
We shall speak the peace once more
& Versaille’s damned iniquities
Demolish with a roar!”
”Rubbish!” some quatted heckler dares a noise,
Dragg’d off, rough’d up by tough-mouth’d bully-boys.
All hail the hero of the right,
Staunch National Socialist,
Ready to fight by plebiscite
Thro politics & fist,
The decadent democracies… his horde applaud upryst.
Munich
December
1920
Baby Boom
Sometimes I can almost see, around our heads,
Like gnats around a streetlight in summer,
The children we could have
Sharon Olds
Charlie Sumner stagger’d down Accy Road,
Hit Havelock’s lock-in, a quick whiskey,
Then thro’ his crude two-up, two-down, tiptoed,
To pounce upon his wife, drunk & frisky;
“Gerroff!” a clout,
His silent smile’s intrigue
Bends to triumphant shout… “We’ve won the blummin’ league!”
How rare is it to find true mate
To share thy meagre ration,
Youths rush upstairs to celebrate,
Indulging perfect passion
Without a jonny, for, of late,
Babies are in fashion:
He gasps as he sighs as his seed slips in,
A cry! Rose rises, “Our Jack needs feedin!”
His wife away…. some charabang
Lets off a lively BOOM!
With barren pang the clammy clang
Of battle claims the room,
While friends that fell at Passcheandale wail, “Charlie!” thro’ the gloom.
Burnley
May
1921
Enchanted Land
water they needed
this morning when
the river was drying
Rina Garcia Chua
The Oppenheimer’s lov’d the holidays,
Whose Picassos hung at Riverside Drive,
Were nothing to the glorious haze
Of shimmering sun the day they’d arrive
Back at the ranch,
Hard by Albuquerque,
For barbies, branch-by-branch, jug-glugs of Wild Turkey.
Young Bobby donn’d a cowboy’s hat
Said to the ranchers, ‘let’s go,’
With native shaman sat to chat
& smok’d & tok’d each next go,
Then kinda stoned in silence sat
By Sangre de Cristo
Where lonely, wee Los Alamos appear’d
To strike some chord within him, fraught & weird.
He rode back home, where there did sit
Some letter forwarded,
So open’d it, a flapping fit!
‘Mom, I’ve been accepted,”
She rushes in; “Where is it?” “Ma” “What?” “I’m off to Harvard!”
New Mexico
June
1921
The Birth of Ulster
The cavalry flew by and vanished,
The storm thundered and hushed.
Lawlessness bore down, bore down
Mikhail Alekseevich Kuzmin
From powderkegs of possibilities,
Europa exploded with republics,
Enjoying the responsibility
Of self-determination – old dog tricks
Of sit, beg, stand,
Silenc’d, & forever,
Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia!
Now Ireland wants a bit of that
Again, quite complicated,
As murder gangs go tit-for-that,
Assassins unabated,
The Black & Tans despising ‘Pat,’
Heinous & hated,
This crowded hour of Gaelic history,
Deals in dark death instead of liberty.
Partitioners accept the curse,
Imperial hybrid;
It could be worse, the public purse
No thirsty invalid,
For, to be fair, wealth everywhere blares what the British did.
Ireland
July
1921
Curiosity
a poet came,
lightly opened his lips,
and the inspired fool burst into song
Vladimir Mayakovsky
“The reason I have usher’d you here for,
Truman, is to find out information,”
Said the American ambassador,
“On a political demonstration,”
“Where, sir?” “Munich…”
“The Nazis?” “Yes…” “The place?”
“Cornelius Street, quick field check, y’know, just in case.”
Smith silent sits as Hitler stands
Above the hundertschaften,
Where ruffians in red armbands,
Men of lowly origin,
Goose-stepping slid to marching bands,
Twas such a raucous din,
That any tetratologist would think
Some creature-thing was shrieking at the brink.
Outslurr’d the Juden diatribe
From babbling, bubbling craw;
Thro’ jeer & jibe threats clear proscribe
The shirkers of the war,
Whose profiteering cowardice sets fires in the straw.
Munich
November 15th
1922
Mumble Words 