(AA) Canto 26: Strugglebound
Allies
Man now his Virtue’s diadem
Puts on & proudly wears
Great thoughts, great feelings came to them
Lord Houghton
Great Britain spends the last of her dollars,
Threadneedle’s twinkling bullion bled dry,
If ever should she be victorious
Give her the means for bartering supply;
What vision rests
In Rooseveldt’s rare brain,
“Tis in our best int’rests the battle to sustain.”
The policy that was lend-lease,
Pleasant child of the New Deal,
Reflected climes of prosp’rous peace;
Aircraft, shermans, ships & steel,
Minerals, cereals, obese,
Serve up a vital meal,
Providing Britain’s back bone with its meat
Cost waiv’d until Old England’s on her feet.
Without warfare’s foremost sinew
All bids for triumph fails,
Magnate & Jew stitch wealth into
Britain’s heroic sails…
Tis not the longest sword but deepest purse that e’er prevails.
USA
February
1941
West End North
Our mother is praying, our father is gone
To the forest, on wolves to make war.
Oh sing us a ballad, the tale then repeat
Goethe
A letter came from Burnley, Lancashire,
Jess Linscott of the Vic Dame Sibyl saw,
Some thirty years ago, would offer her
& her company a safer place, but raw
& quite uncouth
Compar’d, when, with London
But surely, sir, forsooth, the show must carry on!
The troupe of Thespians doubl’d
With the best of Sadler’s Wells,
T’where townsfolk once were troubl’d
By the Pendle Witches’ spells
Where in bedrooms seven huddl’d –
Like Cambridge matin bells
The factories woke them every sun-up
“Don’t worry, cock, this’ll keep yer chin up.”
The landlord pours a pint o’ stout
Sibyl sips delicious,
Thro’ coal & clout, there was no doubt
These lads o’ Lancashire,
“The finest in the county too!” were now all friends of her.
Burnley
February
1941
Balkan Conquest
The winter fly I spared
Was captured by
the cat
Issa
As when she join’d the Kaiser’s sorry fight
Bulgaria bedazzl’d by Berlin,
Selling her soul to please the Tripartite,
This time a greater Germany must win;
When midst the pack
Howl with the wolves ye must,
Fears of frightful attack worse than the bite none trust.
& so the Yugoslavian?
Forg’d from sterner spiritus,
Born of the loins of horseback Khan
& the daughters of Hellas,
Harden’d to war by Suleiman
& Turkish scimitars?
Have found their prince, thro’ promise threat & bribe,
Tying their limping realm to Hitler’s tribe.
The bad news filters through land,
The lust for battle calms,
Large armies standing down, disband,
Surrending their arms,
But for those buried in the woods or hidden in the farms.
Yugoslavia
March 26th
1941
Family Tradition
Chuala mi an reido ciuin
A cluich
Le guaim na h-innealan
Victoria Maciver
Bruce Slater struggled with the tractor key,
His right arm nigh useless without a hand
Whose bones lie pick’d clean at Gallipoli,
Buried in Anzac Cove’s more crimson sand;
Then came on his
Son Shane with feisty spring,
“Pop, back down in Alice, the army’s recruiting!”
Silent time overcame the scene,
Broken roughly by Bruce spit,
Altho’ the moment long foreseen
Heart-strings may still twinge a fit
& tho’ he’d barely known nineteen,
“Go son, go do your bit!”
Shane whoop’d with joy as he hugg’d his father,
That night they tuck’d in the Bush together…
The fire crackles as the stars
Sprinkle light thro the murk,
They talk of wars, Bruce shows the scars
Inflicted by the Turk…
“Son, soldiery is one days fighting for five weeks of work.”
Northern Territory
March 27th
1941
Axis Axle
Look, one war giving birth to another
one war crawling out from between the
legs of another, out of the rubble
Warsan Shire
Von Ribbentrop receiv’d Matsuoka
At Fuschal, gatehouse of the grand Alpine,
‘The war is won,’ stated over dinner,
‘Strike now & England’s empire must be thine!’
On Berghof peak
Hitler waited calmly,
‘This moment is unique in all of history!’
They found him in a warlike mood
& Spring’s rejuvenation,
‘Brother, when battle is renew’d
This won war will be well won,
When if ye act upon thy feud
With Rooseveldt’s nations
I promise thee Germany shall assist,
& smash those Allies with our Axis fist.’
A gasping captain makes him jolt,
& Matsuoka smile,
A lightning bolt, ‘The Serbs revolt,’
A demon spits its bile,’
‘Then we shall bathe their babes in blood & burning corpses pile.’
Berchtesgaden
March 29th
1941
Operation Retribution
In rejected heaps by a monotonous road
The old simple delights were left to lie
On the wasteland of life’s descent to night
Sri Aurobindo
To war eveil the devil ne’er could win,
The pensive Yugoslavic spirit push’d,
“Before we set the hounds upon Stalin,”
Hiss’d Hitler, “upstart yokels must be crush’d;”
Crucial delay?
Or insignificant?
To mid-June from mid-May his ‘Barbarossa’ went.
As war expand it’s theatre,
Ira furor brevis est,
Russia’s borders stripp’d of panzer,
Infantry peels from the West,
Goering prepares his Luftwaffe,
While restless Budapest
Hugs Hitler’s Janissarian legions
With men & arms, lording o’er the Balkans.
Belgrade receives the Stuka’s lay,
The reeling Serbs take flight,
Melting away, some other day
Continuing the fight,
Tito spitting at swastikas flitting into the night.
Yugoslavia
April 1st
1941
Confidence in Confidence
Never in this world is hate
Appeas’d by hatred
It is only appeas’d by love
Dhammapada
Sense hinting at the mentally diseas’d
Von Runstedt reach’d Der Fuhrer’s office late,
Instead of anger found his captain pleas’d,
Excited even, “Do not under-rate
Just what it means
Vast Russia to invade…”
His ‘destiny’ down leans on fingers widely splay’d.
The Russian army is a ghost,
That barely a man shall show,
At six to ten weeks at the most,
our men shall march thro’ Moscow
From Black Sea beach to Baltic Coast
Our Swastika shall glow!”
“I must protest,” said Runstedt, condescending,
“in this I can see no happy ending,
Just leagues on leagues of bloodshot tear,
Sir, no single season,
Shall disappear the Rus, their sheer
Size belies all reason…”
“Dumkopft! doubting my destiny’s tantamount to treason.”
Berlin
April 4th
1941
Conquest of Greece
Outside Eden the earth was imperfect,
the seasons changed,
the game was fleet-footed
Judith Wright
In certain spots the Earth resembles God,
When mountains range unclimbable, when birds
Take perches where the Titans rarely trod
& Hesiod left trembling over words;
A dream, indeed,
& those who dwell there would
Defy Il Duce’s greed with ev’ry drop of blood.
As Mussolini gave a sigh,
Asks Hitler & his horses
For help, sends Hellas in reply
The Wehrmacht’s vast resources,
Conquering hot Thermoplylae,
While, on Mount Olympus,
As round them herds of mountain goats canter’d,
Swastikas were on the summit planted.
The city of the violet crown
Grew grey & strangely still,
Tourists look down on the old town
From Acropolis hill;
& photograph’d the Parthenon for fraulines & the thrill.
Athens
April 27th
1941
Birth & Death of Brian Davies
Who are you and where do you come from?
You have killed my mother, father
Even my brothers and sisters
Patricia Mercy
How joyous when a newborn cries its first
Now sucking glibly on its mother’s teat,
His father’s swelling pride in bells shall burst,
Life understanding life ne’er seem’d more sweet;
Wild sirens sound,
Death soars in from abroad,
Bombs battering the ground along the old Mill Road.
What did you think of life, my child,
Before that bad bomb’s striking?
Thy little ward all whitely tiled
I hope was to thy liking,
Murmurs of conversation mild
Spear’d by tearful scriking,
With that warm milk you seem’d to quite enjoy
For those few minutes, you & Lawrence Foy.
“Ee-ya, la! They’ve bomb’d nan’s chip-shop!”
“Bloody, bastard fokkers!”
Kill-spheres still drop, caught on the hop,
Huskisson’s poor dockers –
But most of all slain babies names remain e’ermore to shock us.
Liverpool
May 4th
1941
Mumble Words 