(AA) Canto 10: Polarizations
Jewish Wedding
Throttled before
they got the word out,
it must break through
Theodore Weiss
A carriage trundles thro’ soft ribbon fog,
As tho’ a cushion of romantic myst,
The Grunfelds gather’d in their synagogue,
Speechless ’til Heidi & her husband kiss’d;
A tearsplash floor,
Anna weeps happily,
Joyously crying for yofiful family.
The Rabbi’s household welcomes them,
Full-feasted celebration,
Moses toasts, “Shalom Alachem!”
Franz faithful keeps tradition,
Stamping on glasses, cries, “Lechaim!”
To the Hebrew nation…
As into this sacred ceremony
Brashly bursts & brawling brown-shirt bully.
Worm-filthy mouth spew’d forth abuse,
Breath-stench of bottl’d beer,
“You heard the news, you filthy Jews,
No longer welcome here!”
Scatter platters, romance shatters, batter’d by rattl’d fear.
Frankfurt
1936
Guerra Civil
The wind blows across the tombs
Freedom will come
& we shall be forgotten
Emmanuel de la Vigerie
As flickers wind at coalflame’s quickening,
Francisco Franco forms a violent breeze
Dichotomizes private bickering,
Sets complex quarrels climbing the trapeze;
When all our sight
Sees victory ahead –
One mis-step left or right we’ll topple down & dead.
The International Brigade
Embrac’d by Antifascist,
Whom, common causing, on parade
Left hand raises in a fist,
Man’s noblest consciences obey’d,
Poet, author, artist,
Attend to what is right, & that’s the left,
For Fascist thugees morally bereft.
As Germany & Italy
Operate together,
Admittedly (& wittily)
“Duce, en Espagna,
Na pas de troupes – ensuite, il neles rapellera pas!”
Spain
March
1937
The Raven
Your task, O man, is not to carp & cavil
At God’s achievements, but with purpose strong
To cling to good, & turn away from evil
EW Wilcox
From Nurnburg’s grand old Palace of Justice
To notices pinn’d at Hamburg stations,
Hitlerean antisemitismus
Forbids Jewish-Aryan relations;
In deep disgust
Jack Foley boards the train,
Such dirty devil’s dust ingrinds his native grain.
Inside the capital’s bright glow
Jack slides thro’ his embassy,
Plugs in his secret radio,
London warns about Graf Spree,
Contacting corrupt Gestapo,
Mix’d charm with bribery,
Obtaining visa-clutches for these Jews
Waiting outside his room all night in queues.
Onto a pillar by them flies
A bird to perch its flight,
With moonbright eyes, lampooning cries,
He fills them all with fright,
Who watch & wonder what it brings, this thing as black as night?
Berlin
April
1937
Skymurder
Nixt efter him come Mars the God of Ire,
Of strife, debate, & all dessensioun,
To chide & fecht, als feirs as only fyre
Robert Henryson
Sun tingles the lingering drudge of dusk,
Drowning a sleeping market town, rever’d,
The centre-culture of the ancient Basque,
Who, since the Empire of the Hyksos, steer’d
A private past,
Outwithing France & Spain,
Spanspun from San Sebastian to Aquitaine.
The streets full jamm’d for market day,
As over the hills appears
An airborne fleet of beige & grey
Whose droning un-nerving nears,
When black bombs drop on prams & play,
The one bridge disappears
In dust & rubbleflop onto water –
Up in town incendiary slaughter!
As faceless venatorians
Entomb abyss alive,
Those story reels of gory wheels
Of bomber steel survive
To tell this sordid poster-tale where ghosts of condors dive.
Guernica
April 26th
1937
Internal Tyranny
The mystical ladder of prayer
Is set for our use everywhere
Our thoughts, weary angels, ascend
Julia Ward Howe
Joe Stalin hail’d more than an Emperor
What powers emanate from single source
A second Nero & Caligula
Combin’d, deified like Little Boots’ horse,
A simple nod
Of th’omnipotent head,
Obey thy demi-god, obey, or, well, you’re dead!
As paranoid, delusional,
Fray’d nerve ends ever fretting,
The Boss demands the removal
Of traitorhood, each getting
Sham justice, then a funeral,
Desperate bloodletting
An army swamp’d by wild & rampant urge
Lost half its officers in this Great Purge.
As colonel knocks his vodka back,
Tough rapping slaps the door,
A cul-de-sac panic attack,
Took pistol from the drawer,
& blew his brains against the wall, his pain free warrantor.
Moscow
April 30th
1937
Pablo
That bull which flew into a fury
Because of a dark stain at the market
So much blood spilled at the borders
Nelo Risi
Admiring women, smoking tobacco,
Reading L’Humanitie, his street cafe
Lit by sprites of Persia, Picasso
Compares the Parisian First of May
To God’s domain;
Forgetting to inhale,
What is this news from Spain – cigar-tip burns his nail.
Wholly consum’d by mystery,
Disgusted by destruction
Of perfected humanity
In women & their children;
Amalgamates, pastorally,
Sheer pre-occupation
For personal pictorial express
Thro’ mural of monochromatic dress.
Dynamism’s immolation
Splurges into being –
Deformation, fragmentation,
Agonies agreeing,
From Harlequins & Minotaurs are spinal chords sent fleeing.
Paris
May 1st
1937
Cinematica
The armaments will start their devastations,
And though we’re for it, though we’re all convinced
Some fool will press the button soon or late
John Lehmann
To moving pictures Rita treats her son,
Laughs with the Marx boys, peers upon Pathay –
Smiles straighten with increas’d trepidation,
Her country choak’d on trouble-cloak’d Cathay;
Whoop-whoops & cheers!
Appears their President,
Easing most furtive fears with rhoticless accent.
Sitting beside his homely fire,
He panic play’d down calmly,
“Unto the Japanese Empire
A friendly hand extend we,
Peace ranks beyond War’s thankless mire,
Breathe Peace, breed Liberty;
For all our childrens’ sake Men must forgive,
& build a world where they would want to live”
The Hindenburg lit up the screen,
Cauterized by plasma,
Strange ghostly sheen, strange portents glean
About that swastika….
Like Carlton playing soldiers as they left the cinema.
Jerkwater
May 6
1937
Pierre & Veronique
Oh ! for some honest Lovers ghost
Some kind unbodied post
Sent from the shades below
Sir John Suckling
Loiret’s perfect city, rose-fair & sweet,
Deliver’d from the English by the Maid,
Two perfectly-lustred, loving lips meet,
The drudge of harsh realities allay’d;
Wearing life’s youth,
Our spirit’s velvet glove,
They share but one bold truth… to love is to know love!
Pierre carreses Veronique,
Whispers, “Je t’adore ma chere!”
Hands stroking slender, quatchless cheek,
Hers insliding thro’ soft hair,
Watching Communist comrades speak,
Jacquerie fills the square,
Sporting pitchforks & the sickle banner…
“Vite!” gasps Pierre, “We’re late for lit’rature!”
They rush’d into the lecture hall,
Took their shushing places,
The floral roll of Verlaine’s soul
Wove its vernal graces,
While finger-tips touch tingling at poesy’s pretty places.
Orleans
1937
Exposition
Our essence is not bound to any place
The vigor of our wine is not contained
In any bowl
Muhammad Iqba
The world flocks to itself, a splendid fair
Of cultural pavilions, of which
The Germans built the most flamboyant there,
Tho’ Moscow’s canvas claims a larger pitch;
While them both grand
Small Spanish tent attracts;
Thousand-upon-thousand to face the Fascist facts.
Audacious painting pris’d aghast
Responses spawn’d electric
To Franco’s kshatriyan caste
In chaos geometric;
Dismemberment’s iconoclast,
Cubism’s eccentric
Masterbrush composes, in triangles
A madness of horses, light bulbs & bulls.
The Nazis swift to discommend
Such vomit strokes enslav’d
Whose dregs distending reprehend
Fine taste, fresh-fac’d & shav’d,
Not this unkempt degenerate development deprav’d.
Paris
June 1st
1937
Mumble Words 