(AA) Canto 17: Sitzkreig
The Agony of Poland
Do not tell her about my suffering,
Let her ignore the bite of pain,
that is tearing up my being
Georges Andriamanantena
As febricant, mechaniz’d juggernaut
Pours in an endless torrent from the West,
Seizing maladroit forces by the throat –
The Blitzkrieg theorum passes first test;
All Warsaw prays,
Surrounded by the foe,
Still proud her anthem plays on ev’ry radio.
Hitler steers his half-track rumble
Thro’ the war-torn countryside,
Brandishing a single pistol,
& whip of harden’d oxhide,
His finest aide-de-camp, Rommel,
Makes studies by his side –
But coming on that first hospital train,
Refused to see his soldiers suff’ring pain.
They drove on thro’ the ghostly fog
Raking that rathole town,
A pining dog, a synagogue
Charr’d black from burning down,
Where perch’d a crow, it’s beady, yellow eyes now fleck’d with brown.
Sosnowiec
September 8th
1939
B.E.F.
This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
Henry Reed
What happy breed of men cheer’d off to war;
Geordie, Scouser, Taffy, Scot & Cockney –
Shepherded yon the Cornubian shore
By Captains of His Highnesses Navy;
Unfit to fight
First-class modern conflict,
Like Agricola’s might stormdashing naked Pict.
They sail’d around Amorica,
Dodging periscopic glare,
“We’ll hang out our washing on the
Siegfried line!” flits thro’ the air,
Human paraphernalia
Landing at Saint Nazaire –
Where vital lines of communication
Criss-cross precious strings afloss a nation.
Tommy Sumner fingers the dust
Coating the farmhouse grey,
Bland ketchup must, bayonet rust,
Hand grenades & Nestle
Spoke volumes while invoking occupants of yesterday.
France
September 13th
1939
Vae Victis
With mounting beat the utter fire
Charred existence and desire.
It died low, ceased its sudden thresh
Louise Bogan
Festival terms charming to exstasi
The breathless followers of his visions,
Hitler’s vast voice soars over victory,
“The Almighty Lord has bless’d our weapons,
Surrenders wrung,
We suffer sleights no more!”
Poland – the very young victims of ‘Total War,’
Whose citizens now garden-weeds,
Their modern-age conqueror,
Now rules, he says, subhuman breeds,
Whose anthem plays no longer,
“In these fields we shall plant the seeds
Of our German future,
But first we must defeat the Western foes!”
He orders an attack before the snows.
Towards the front the Russians race,
Usurping spoils of war,
Vast empires face in that same place
Where they had met before…
Hands shaking ever warily like when men meet their whore.
Brest Litovsk
September 17th
1939
Russia’s Greed
they took the West, and they took the North,
they took the beehive, and took the haystack,
they took the South from us, and the East
Marina Tsvetaeva
As thugs unruly truly know no side
But that of bullying belligerence
Thro’ tradimental spheres of influence
Russia commits Slavic sorroricide;
The Poles defy
Their fate, as ev’ry man
Gives battle but to die, to kill all that he can.
With battle-hearts in stoic chest,
Poles held the lines at Wilno,
The Vauban Terespol at Brest,
Slung Turpentine at Grodno –
Tho’ sixteen days Modlin supress’d
The Wehrmacht – pincer’d, Oh!
As, one-by-one, each eastern fortress falls
Red soldiers wave red banners on the walls.
The conquerors gave way to beasts,
Murderous repression
KVD feasts on policemen, priests,
Siberia’s oppression
Awaiting true soul Polski at their country’s fourth partition.
Poland
October 6th
1939
Stalag VIIIB
Know that they all seek happiness
In hurting them men hurt themselves
& will be born again among them
Sutrakrtanga
‘This is defeat,’ thought Vladek Speigelman,
Acamp for Polish soldiers & theirsighs,
Unseasonably freezing, when even
The strongest birds were falling from the skies;
Him set apart
From fellow Poles, a Jew
Already, ghettos start, already ‘them’ & ‘you’.
While Vladek shiver’d in tents thin
The Poles slept in warm cabins,
Soup watery splash’d in his tin,
Plus crust of bed, for din-dins;
Puss, lice & frostbite clamour’d in
Thro’ weather shepherd shuns –
there is a line when fac’d with such despair,
the ones who’ll die are those ones over there.
In icy river Vladek preens
His flesh like morning prayer,
Whose madness means the cold day seems
Tropical to compare,
For life might be a game of chance but winners well prepare.
Lamsdorf
October 13th
1939
Aktion T4
Am I a beast, a murderous dog?
Men violated
Murdered
Ernst Toller
“As death a cure for all disease & strife,
As notes discordant spoil the sacred song,
The incurable raff & chaff of life,”
Insidiously pleads the tallow tongue,
“A mercy death
Physicians must bestow
Unto the wasted breath those useless ghostlings owe.”
Jaws of Doctor Karl Brandt grinded,
As he sipp’d the rich vermouth,
By his Fuhrer’s speeches blinded,
“Must the flower of our youth
Lose their lives, so feeble-minded
Might lead theirs – most uncouth!
Anybody unable for labour
Are valueless…” “So?” said the Reichsleiter,
How to effect transformations
Of lives unliveable,
The creations of foundations
Seeming charitable
Will euthanasia minister to lives incurable.
Tiergarten
October 19th
1939
Dogged Finns
Men’s strength
soldier’s courage
poet’s cries
Agostinho Neto
Stalin shades in East Poland pencil black,
Studies the subtleties of the buffer,
Senses good well the Nazis could attack
Thro’ the passes of Scandinavia;
Thus to the Finns
He offers ‘fair’ treaty
Six small airbases wins friendship with Muscovy.
At Helsinki’s curt rejection
The blood of the Russians rise,
Dismissing the Jus Gentium
Leningrad fills with supplies
For one brief march Karelian,
A splendid exercise,
As light of hearts to battle strong men go
Up to those husky regions busk’d in snow.
As columns press the border posts
A dog-fierce enemy
Like vengeful ghosts rake Russian hosts
With bear-hug enmity
& bullets glaz’d in freezing haze, all sides the foemen flee.
Finland
November 30th
1939
Graf Spree
It aint no place for a Christian
Below there – under sea.
For its all blown sand & shipwrecks
John Masefield
Albatross scythes thro the furrowing sea,
Nine helpless British merchantmen her pray,
Sinking each ship with a broadside fury,
The Altmark streams the survivors away;
In full steam haste
The English warships sped,’
Amidst the tackless waste hunter becomes hunted.
Three fast cruisers catch up with her
Off the prize-rich River Plate,
Kruppsides cripple the Exeter
But to duel at this rate
Could see the others destroy her
She flees, but is too late,
A shell from the Ajax blows the bridge sky high,
Panic! Mayhem! “Shnell! Schnell! To Uruguay!”
She sails form the harbour’s haven,
The English lie in wait,
An explosion, the scuttle done
Herr Lansdorff shares her fate,
In time honour’d tradition, for a captains shame is great
Montevideo
December 17th
1939
Winter War
You and I do not have songs of woe
When the feet is pricked with thorns, eyes turn moist,
We do not bear those stones of despair
Kamini Roy
Christmas leaves the isthmus with no victor,
The warring nations weld this strangest truce,
The only battles broker’d by Russia,
Slipping a violent neck thro’ Finland’s noose;
Her Red Army
Check’d long the whole frontier,
Foe fighting stubbornly, belief relieving fear.
“Be strong & quit yourselves like men,
Make Death proud, proud to take you,”
Finns cry as Russians push again,
The many against the few,
Trying to gouge the front open
Against their heart’s sisu,
Dancing the dance of death between the trees,
‘Schwip-Schwip’ they went, ‘Schwip-Schwip,’ snow-skimming trees.
Stalin sends in the Betka tanks
Along the forest trails,
Onto whose flanks these furclad ranks
Unleash a lethal hail,
Of victory brew’d in the flames of molotov cocktails.
Finland
January 12th
1940
Mumble Words 