(AA) Canto 7: Ravenswarm
Imperial Hypocrisy
At noon in the desert a panting lizard
waited for history, its elbows tense,
watching the curve of a particular road
William Stafford
The Japanese drop bombs upon Shanghai,
The flooding blood of innocence is shed,
The League see a glint in their slinty-eyed
Members, summon’d to answer for it’s dead;
The crux has come
When empires young & old
Shall totter up the sum of all their stolen gold.
The bespectacl’d Yosuke
Rails the Trans-Siberian
Thro’ Moscow’s hospitality
To the shores of Lake Lucerne,
Hectors crumbing fraternity,
“Who shall cast that first stone?
To civilise China good soldiers died
But condemn’d here as Christ was crucified!”
Cast was the ostracizing vote,
Yosuke disinclin’d
Donn’d his dark coat, & clear’d his coat
“We terminate this bind!”
Scrunch-scrapp’d up piece of paper, left the world bestunn’d behind.
Geneva
February
1933
Pilgrimage
Age & decrepitude can have no terrors for me
Loss & vicissitude cannot appal me
Not even death can dismay me
Elizabeth Hayson
A holiday to feel alive & free,
To visit the Communist templeground
Anatoly ushers his family
Onto the train for Moscow Central bound;
As Russia spread
Forever, seemingly,
Their borodinsky bread graz’d, gazing dreamingly.
In the wake of private enterprise,
Cos there aint no I in team,
Utopia the common prize,
As their statehood reigns supreme,
the towers of the kremlin rise,
Some magic mythomeme,
But, cold & bleak, the cobblestones speak drear
As like a winter’s mist, all sides, hangs fear.
“Is that him, father?” “Yes Sergei –
Dosia! Konstantin!
Come see…” some sigh, some groan, some cry,
Some let the angels in,
Gazing at the glorious immortal leader, Lenin.
Moscow
1933
Anti-Semitism
An unhappy, evil nation
Treats its victim’s self-oblation
In unworthy fashion
Adam of St. Victor
At the heart of European Jewry,
Fair city of the Rotheschilde’s high finance,
Miff’d Moses Grunfeld dismiss’d from duty,
His former friends purpling with arrogance;
A hiss, a jeer,
“Go scum, go spread the news,
Your kind will not work here, you & your filthy Jews.”
He walk’d (they forced him from the tram)
Into the Jewish boycott,
His heckles up, hands all a-clam,
Some cassirean gauntlet,
Trying to purchase bread & jam
Abuse was all he got;
Up oer orizon swept a storm of tears,
He went to sit with father & his fears.
Gone mournful thro’ the cemet’ry
Between the Jewish graves,
On bended knee, in misery,
Tears streaming down in waves,
His parents’ tomb some spiteful, scarlet hakenkreuz enslaves.
Frankfurt
1934
A New Dictator
with apologies for the inconvenience,
they carefully wrapped barbed wire
round the wrists of the political prisoners
Frank Chipasula
On the dreaded Sturmabteilung men point
Black pistols to their brains, the triggers pull
& spray their brains out wallwards to anoint
The National Revolution from the skull;
That list of doom
Was tick’d off name-by-name,
For these there was no room in Hitler’s grander game,
Where stands he all supreme, the lone
Arbitist of Germany,
Commanding legions from his throne
With a frantic fealty,
Right arms rais’d high they’ll set in stone
Most precious loyalty –
“We swear obedience by holy God,”
Der Fuhrer took each promise nod-by-nod
& christens himself ‘Grand Marshalle’
Lord of all the forces;
Of shot & shell, Alf Nobel’s gel,
Uniforms, field horses,
Tanks, planes, U-Boats, mine-fields, E-boats, fortresses & soldiers.
The Third Reich
August
1934
Death of Anatoly Stiltski
Va! meurs! la derniere heure est le dernier degre.
Pars, aigle, tu vas voir des gouffres a ton gre;
Tu vas sentir le vent sinsitre de la cime.
Victor Hugo
As Phoebus prick’d the dusty harvest haze,
Stalin’s lapdogs surrounded quaint Moshny,
Amid this bastion of the old ways,
Anatoly fear’d for his family;
Ring of cold steel
His wee home’s scape-proof mesh,
Machine-gun muzzles wheel & lacerate his flesh.
While wife & daughter wail & gnash,
His sons weep & thrash in vain,
All toss’d aside like filthy trash,
‘Brethren’ burning long-grown grain…
By slaughter’d cow, like human rash
They stagger’d thro Ukraine
To this city of cold, modern concrete,
Where hunch’d, hungry man-shadows stalk the street.
While pondering in pity’s square
Her kids beg with a song,
Old merchant’s stare soothes their despair,
“Your boys look fit & strong –
Come work for me!” her family timidly tag along.
Kiev
1934
Gleichschaltung
Doth someone say that there be gods above
there are not; no, there are not. Let no fool,
Led by the old false fable, thus deceive you
Euripedes
The scent of sweat & leather wets the air
Certain men stood silent; gazing sadly
At swastikas demanding everywhere
Mental attention glamourised madly;
Children shatter
Eardrums of all they meet,
Shrieking out, “Heil Hitler!” to narcotize the street.
In the grip of exultation,
From the forests’ ancient roots,
Watch the old gods reawaken
Thro’ crude staccato salutes;
Jesus Christ has been forsaken
& all his angels’ lutes –
The tribes are rising, formally reborn,
Whose supreme chief the dragonsteeth hath sewn.
“The Bolsheviks, Novgorod’s bear
Must by us halted be!”
Defending their primeval lair
A race collectively
Embracing Hitler’s righteous cause have set the wyvern free.
Germany
1934
Dictators
The Chancellor met his flashy idol,
Most dashing in medals, fez & dagger,
Together tour’d the stunning Grand Canal
Whose conversation in a gondola
Passes under
The famous Bridge of Sighs,
Where men watch with wonder & glory in their eyes!
Benito speaks, in Adolf’s tongue,
& spirit, of alliance;
“Let’s carve ourselves, before too long,
Spheres of Fascist influence
Together, then, & friends, & strong,
Great Britain test, & France –
& if the world would ever come to war
Let our bold Axis pierce the planet’s core!”
Der Fuhrer’s turn, Il Duce bored,
As monologuing long,
Hitler outpour’d, from spittle gourd,
A game of great Mahjong,
Fearless of steering gondoliers into a billabong!
Venice
June
1934
Prosperity
Not in the clamour of the crowded street
Not in the shouts & plaudits of the throng
But in ourselves are triumph & defeat
Henry Longfellow
Herr Stemmler clock’d off from the factory,
Proud to collect another working wage,
By S-Bahn trundles thro’ this great city
Sunk deep into Mein Kampf’s numinous page;
Sacraliz’d tome
Of Germany reborn,
Preaching in town & home under a crown of thorn.
Max buys a clutch of books & toys,
Then sprints off home for dinner
Gives out the gifts to his glad boys
& pale autistic, daughter,
His wife turns up the wireless noise
Belching propaganda –
Stealthily increasing by decibels
Minds being poison’d slowly by Goebells.
They went out to the silver screen
To gaze on holy face,
Whose angel sheen, strong yet serene,
Shone blithe & full of grace
Berlin
August
1934
Oaths of Loyalty
It grieves me that thy mild and gentle mind
Those ample virtues which it did inherit,
Has lost. Once thou didst loathe the multitude
Guido Cavalcanti
Heavenly Vale of Operatic Hearts,
Hemm’d in by behemoths huge, hewn from stone,
Those cool, majestic mountains of the Harz,
Witness a soldier of the Aesir born;
An eagle flings
His wings to airy dawn,
As ev’ry treetop sings for chandelier’d dawn.
On receiving the Reich leader
He dismiss’d der Fuhrergaurd,
Offers men of the Third Jager,
Lords of La Haye Saint’s courtyard,
“I have made my men a soldier
Enough to hold Asgard!”
Appeal made to militarizing creed,
Not hopeful gesture… but resolute deed.
Awe trembles as his soul’s captain
The Honour Guard inspects,
Hitler has won his devotion,
Aft’ solemn oath extracts,
His ear is pinch’d & in that instant Rommel’s all accepts.
Goslar
1934
Mumble Words 