(AA) Canto 24: Deepening Wounds
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If I ever smell of a Resurrection, or come a second time on Earth, I will pray God to make me born in England, the Land of Liberty
Montesquieu
Kick-Back Peace
That ancient tree, don’t let it fall
Until old age is knelling;
So many things it can recall
Hans Christian Andersen
The spirit of King Arthur is at stake,
Churchill declares his strivance to restore
To France her liberty, like Francis Drake
Preparing for Armada by the shore;
Kenning, again,
Just as when Bonaparte
Defeated was in Spain, there shall his fight-back start.
Gibraltar was the vital key
To Suez & to empire,
To lose Madrid’s neutrality
Would be devastatic dire,
Thus bribes were plann’d painstakingly
To meet each man’s desire –
Franco’s own brother & top generals
Suddenly invested in minerals,
Then from Swiss bank accounts brand-new,
Lapp’d up London’s largesse,
As agents flew each one withdrew
Two million or less,
& crocks the Fascist Latin bloc’s abortive obsolesce.
Zurich
September
1940
The Living Blitz
My precious life I spent considering
What I should eat in summer, wear in spring.
Vile belly ! take the crust ! tis crust ! ’tis nobler food
Sa’di
As sirens fire, up to his office roof,
For visions halieutic Norman climbs,
He’d lost too much at cards, so rose aloof
From crude & clutter’d fleshpits of these times;
As was his right,
Special immunity,
Felt he, death’s chances sleight in such a vast city.
Perusing London’s ‘Bright Young Things,’
Play ‘No Man’s Land’ twyx dances,
Sense-numbing battle slowly brings
Growing insouciances,
Borne stubborn by phlegmatic wings,
Tea-time in the manses,
As all, through the capital panoply,
Grew calm, as sleep panope in the sea.
“We share such bloodymindedness,
If Hitler thinks we’ll crack,
He’ll find in us the kind that does
Not kowtow to attack,”
Thought Norman as his cautious chauffer roll’d into the back.
London
October 1st
1940
Destiny of War
Cut him off. He can take care
Of himself. Take root in the earth,
Or go hunting with wolves
Charles Simic
Refraining from his guttural bombast
Hitler convers’d calmly over luncheon,
“The season for the sea-invasion pass’d,
We continue the bombing of London…”
Truths sadly aired,
“This war now beckons long,
Tho’ unfully prepared our will shall prove too strong.”
“England” spoke thwarted conqueror,
Cousins willing to admire,
“Has subjugated India
But with superior fire,
Her Raj precursors our Russia…
But… her global empire
Must be destroy’d when all the fighting ends,
When all I wanted was to be their friends.”
“Russia!?” what resipiscent surprise!
“Why yes, it has to be…”
Divining eyes drift to the skies,
“…Our one true enemy,
Whose rabbits must be swiftly slain or chain’d in slavery.”
Berlin
October
1940
Open Neutrality
Thy spirit, Independence, let me share:
Lord of the lion heart & eagle eye,
Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare
Tobias Smollett
As ‘Victory Itself!’ the platform paced,
“How dare this… this… little cuckold be late,
When schemes, without my help, would go to waste!”
In steaming, clanking, came a train of state;
Franco of Apain
descended with a smile,
That smirk’d with a disdainful, strain’d bandito smile.
With podgy face & squeaky voice,
His ally’s presence grated,
“Friend, can there be no other choice,
Our fascist front far-fated?”
At once, the high-pitch’d whine annoys,
Brash & unplacated,
“I cannot let your soldiers march thro Spain
Who want no new Napoleon again.”
“Napoleon!” “Such foreign force
Would only cause unrest,”
A stubborn horse, no change of course
On him the snake impress’d
Despite his wily gaze, left grazing on be-medall’d chest.
Hendaye
October 23rd
1940
Civilian Fightback
I am older & have been far away
In different corners of the world –
I have seen all that I expected
KC Steven
As Big George Foreman threw his very best
By the Congo, at Muhammad Ali,
Then ‘punch’d himself out’ – right hook! comes to rest,
Spreadeagl’d like a toss’d aside dolly;
The Nazis fling
Reaming draining strength
Warpassion weakening, their last must come at length.
In the belly of the barrage,
With battle rattling dentures,
Shunning all shield & camouflage,
Old soldier of the trenches
With his dear wife, their temple Taj,
Shrugs away the wrenches,
When dropping bombs send rubble toppling down,
Crossing the arteries of London Town.
How mellowly these spouses sit
Lunching to sirenwails,
“Names not on it just won’t get hit!”
Again, the Fuhrer fails
To fray the fighting spirit where an Englishman prevails.
Peckham
October
1940
Tiger Frisking
Drizzles surge into deluge, and,
Absorbing mother’s tears of agony
Purl out from prison grills
Varavara Rao
He noticed how the spotted hawks in flight
Pass’d on wide pinions thro’ the lofty air,
To where some steep, untrodden mountain height
Caught the last tresses of the Sun God’s hair;
Leaving the scene
Of Franco’s betrayal
Despite all that has been Franco remains neutral!
His carriage furnish’d lavishly
With the treasures of the Loire,
He rode the Transalpine to see
Marshall Petain at Montoire,
Conducting high diplomacy,
“Will Vichy join the war?”
The Marionette joins the Caudillo
By answering with such ungrateful, “no!”
Thro’ Piedmont he makes his way
To lily Tuscany
Finds Il Duce scripts his own play
“My friend, my grand army
From Albania pours to Epirus & Thessaly.”
Florence
October 28th
1940
Death of Sue Johnstone
Under the searchlights tied
In bows of cellophane,
Your camouflage is night
Geoffrey Dutton
Night falls & yet the pigeon flocks take flight,
Docks shining with an eerie daytime glow,
Up-spurting flames, the stark stench of cordite,
Those flail-a-fall-a rafters row-on-row;
Above them all
Those gutsy herren came,
Relentless to their goal, a capital aflame.
Beyond the bonnie estu’ry,
Yon its looping curvatures,
Each anti-aircraft battery
Pointed accusing fingers,
A bubbling, peasoup cemet’ry,
Devilish defences,
A lottery, & at thy number’s root,
You’d better bag yersel’ a parachute!
Her blazing staircase made her freeze,
The wailing flames arrive,
Upon her knees, thro’ smoke & wheeze,
“At least the kids survive!”
Clutching slow-melting teddy bears, their young mum burnt alive.
Poplar
October
1940
Strange Meeting
As long as the sky whirls
You will be my redemption
And my doom
Reinaldo Arenas
Molotov admired the rich, Reich heartland,
Conducting his formal tours d’horizon,
Von Ribbentrop shook firmly by the hand,
Concealing deftly the escalation;
How plushly lay
That old painter’s study,
Whose helfer sniff’d to say, ‘Velcome to Victory!’
As Vyacheslav faced Der Fuhrer,
He was never overaw’d,
Outspeaking the master speaker,
Show’d his tongue the sharper sword,
“Tell me of this New World Order…
What of your plans abroad…
Stalin is concern’d while court you Finland…
What will come of your duel with England?”
Sirens fumigate the building,
Grey shelter tense with fear,
Explosions ring, awful thudding
Comes scudding ever near,
“Dis var is von!” “Then whose are those & why are we in here?”
Berlin
November 13th
1940
Britannia’s Waves
The sailor’s wives
At Capo le Case
Have sad songs
Paolo Volponi
Among mountain isles of Homer’s musing.
From His Majesty’s ship, ‘Illustrious,’
Swordfish uplift, birds on a double wing,
Black specks against the sunset to the west;
The seas bleed red
Beyond Ionia,
From where beige killers sped to distant Puglia.
As Il Duce’s fleet caught sleeping
By the British planes in rows
Into waves like salmon leaping
Went their famous torpedoes,
Murder & destruction reaping
With rough & violent blows
Destroying with a stalely-sure aplomb
The proud ‘Littorio’ touches bottom.
Two more battleships share ger fate
Three more suffer greatly,
As strange sensations congregate
Thro’ Italy’s psyche,
Faint inklings of disaster for them & Mussolini.
Taranto
November 14th
1940
Mumble Words 