(AA) Canto 27: Whirlpool
Rudolf Hess
you try to examine
if it is the food that is stale
or the stomach that is sick
Baleka Kgositsile
Dreams of walking England’s tapestried halls,
Two famous Nordic nations to unite,
Waking, now a burning impulse controls,
Taking a Messerschmitt in solo flight
Across the sea
To Scotland’s rugged shores,
Bales out, floats prettily oer heather-coated moors.
Hess was captured by a hayfork,
& prodded to the station,
“You must allow me, please, to talk
With the Duke of Hamilton…”
Churchill puff’d out his cigar smoke,
“This bizarre peace mission
Must never be permitted to prevail,
We’ll fob him off & let him rot in jail.”
Torrid bombshell fell on Hitler,
The mad Reich ‘Number Two’
Made prisoner, squealing anger,
“His mind must be cuckoo…
I’m surrounded by idiots!” the air turn’d black & blue.
The Berghof
May 10th
1941
Cultural Capital
But oftentimes, among my mind,
A Glee possesseth me,
That had I Ballet knowledge
Emily Dickinson
“Where ya going?” “I’m going out!” “Where too?”
“Who bloody wi’, more like!” “It’s just wi’ Ray…”
“Has he got a job yet?” “Dad!” “Look, love, you
Can do better!” “Well, we’re off ter ballet!”
“You’re what?” “Dancing
Sophisticated, like;”
“What, men in tights prancing – tell ’em ter take a hike!”
They had a couple in the Fleece,
Then walk’d to town in the rain,
The music wafted in like peace
As the lithe Margot Fontaine,
Did contort, glide, notes ride, release
Art’s darts time & again
Which sends the audience delirious,
“How could our bodies move so glorious?”
“How was it?” “Smashing!” “Really good!”
“Better than bingo, mam,
Our dad you should take,” “Would I blood-
Y hell as like, just clam
Up, eh? keep yer bloody caviar, where’s mi jam & spam.”
Burnley
May
1941
Ethiopia
Africa my Africa
Africa of proud warriors in ancestral savannahs
Africa of whom my grandmother sings
David Diop
A rugged patriot with fuzzy hair
Stood waiting for his moment to defy
Those traces of mustard gas lacing air,
& raising his rifle, let loose a cry;
Halle’s kingdom
Echoes ten thousand fold,
Hoisting hearts for freedom, to break Benito’s hold.
Colonel Wingate answers the call,
Crackling with warrior zen,
Beside the Blue Nile’s canyon roll
Marches his gallant Queensmen,
Into their steps brave tribesmen fall
From secret mountain den –
Guerrillaring, together, cleverly,
Destroying an outwitted enemy.
Across all Abyssinia
Generalissimo
Suits surrender… on white charger
Wingate, in triumph’s glow
Trots ‘tween the eucalyptus in the shade of Antoto.
Addis Ababba
May 20th
1941
Bismark
It was a macabre song
like the chipped tooth in the sink,
like the handcuffed man stumbling
Luis Enrique Belmonte
At last the target ventures out to sea,
The Sister of the Graf Spree & Tirpitz,
Queen of that unsinkable trinity,
Enough to give any sailor the shits;
Making contact,
Cutting her teeth in blood,
As furious attack’d sunk is the shell-shock’d Hood.
The loss of a capital ship
Strikes the English to the core,
Responding lets her engines rip
As a hundred men of war
Converge upon the last known blip –
& sights her to the fore;
& with the Home Fleet hurtles shells thro’ air,
The target wisely turns for St Nazaire,
But a lucky hull-breach slows her,
Bombarded from afar,
The Dorsetshire administers,
The toothy coup-de-gras,
Sad sailors leaping into waves deep swallowing a star.
Atlantic Ocean
May 28th
1941
Classical Debacle
Say Crete, & there is little more to tell
Of muddle tall as treachery, despair
And black defeat resounding like a bell
John Manifold
Crete raptures like a classical antique
For dread Persophone in springly lust,
Protected by Britisher, Anzac, Greek,
With ad hoc weapons rescued from the rust;
Their foe flies by,
Sky blossoms, gliders glide,
A withering reply, whole sqaudrons crucified.
By Kiwis Malleme airfield held
Beneath relentless Junkers
Gliding to land, shot at & shell’d,
Turning burning wreckages,
Yet cobra-strike contents expell’d –
Hardmen mountain troopers –
Manhandling blocks of heavy weaponry
Tipping the balance back to victory!
As Wermacht westward rolls thro’ Crete,
The Commonwealth withdraw,
One more retreat, one more defeat,
No way to wage a war,
As once again hungry half-men pluck’d from a foreign shore.
Sfakia
May 30th
1941
Secret Wars
By torch and trumpet fast arrayed,
Each horseman drew his battle blade,
And furious every charger neighed
Thomas Campbell
Seduc’d by nasal incense of the East,
Events proceed to move precipitous,
Upon the secret fronts full force releas’d
To hide from view the hippopotamus;
Of German arms
Acute espionage,
Manoeuvring’s alarms embalms with camouflage;
Playing the ancyent game of kings
Seems Schellenberg’s true station,
Arresting all the Russian rings,
Ingrain’d within his nation,
To double agents, on kid’s swings,
Fed false information,
Like Operation Sealion once nmore,
Shall strike, this summer, at the Saxon shore.
Of course ‘twould be impossible
To stave the truth entire,
But terrible, most audible,
Was Stalin’s Slavic ire,
Whenever someone mention’d an invasion, he’d scream, “Liar!”
Moscow
June 2nd
1941
The Agony of France
Courage, my soul ! now to the silent wood
Alone we wander, there to seek our food
In the wild fruits, & woo our dreamless sleep
P.E. More
The French welcome the Nazi supermen,
Preferring peace to resistance & pain,
Tho’ alters rare, amid occupation,
Bare secretly the cross of lost Lorraine;
Shining spirit
Of old Ambriorix
Repugnant in the spit of one imperatrix.
“Nazi batardes!” Veronique curs’d,
Stubbing out her cigarette,
“They rape our country &, what’s worse,
Les cochons fou have raped Annette!
Somebody has to be the first
To challenge that mind-set,
We must form an arm’d group for resistance!”
“Domain…reviens dormir,” whisper’d Constance.
Slipping graceful to her lover,
Tongue-probing lust to share
‘Tween the covers, like a glove her
Man thrust his hands down there,
& tho’ her pantings sweet her soul was longing for Pierre.
Orleans
June 11th
1941
Fog of War
Without Fortune and prospect, I ignite the fire
Of impatience – the guards of prudence have vanished:
My caravan defenseless in the coming fire
Ali-Shir Nava’i
Stalin tosses his despatch into fire,
“Hitler prepares to invade, screams London,
They only want to plunge us in their mire!”
Molotov reads a note from Washington;
“The twenty third…”
“When will this nonsense end?
Attacking is absurd, Herr Hitler is our friend!”
Good company kept Khan Stemmler
For the conquest yet to come,
Singing songs throughout Silesia
Of Moscow & Lebensraum,
Bearing their blessed Swastika
Stich’d in each labarum,
A battle-banner beaming & unfurl’d,
Full flying to defend the Western world.
By frontier guards passes freight train,
Honouring the treaty,
Loaded with grain from the Ukraine,
Unaware completely
Watching it trundle by them was stormtrooper company!
Poland
June 21st
1941
Canticae Divided I
All that mortal man possesses
has mortality & passes;
everything goes hurrying past
Lucian
As Dante set himself inside his stuff
& made an epic poem from the blend,
As Byron forg’d digressions in a huff
Of satire, thus, at each cantica’s end,
Metaversal
I’ll slyly slip inside,
My poem’s stretch’d dispersal, tryptychs personified!
So here he is! the big, big man,
The man with big ideals,
Thumb-twiddling with his masterplan,
Set to shoot thro’ all the gears,
No Corsican, of course he can
Reduce the Rus to tears –
His army’s momentum – momentous, firm,
Bear’s paws shall be ‘neath which Moscow shall squirm.
Granted, that’s not my greatest line,
But life’s about mistakes,
Each one divines a warning sign
To help us slam the brakes,
I mean Russia? Napoleon? who’d risk such mad mistakes?
Kaunas
April 11th
2024
Mumble Words 