(AA) Canto 30: Explosion
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The barbarians are to arrive today
C.P Cavafy
American Opinion
It is imminent; in the sudden smell
of wet grass and stir among the frangipani,
in the straight tense fence-posts in half-light
Wong Phui Nam
Rita clocks off another working day
Making deadly accoutrements of War,
Collected her ever-increasing pay,
Then nipp’d in for a whiskey down Hank’s Bar;
Conversation
Deepens at the refill,
“I did not raise my son just to die for Churchill!”
“I fought,” said Hank, “In Flanders’ mire,
Back in Nineteen Seventeen,
Pull’d Britain’s chestnuts from the fire
In scenes like ya’ve never seen,
Just so that lousy old Empire
Remains our global queen!”
A tear slipp’d from the corner of his eye,
“Y’know I saw a lotta good men die.”
She drains the glass, gush’d from her core,
“God bless America!”
Walks thro’ the door to Ned’s new store,
There buys a newspaper,
Front pages dominated by sour-face Mister Hitler!
Jerkwater
December 5th
1941
Pendulum Turns
My country is my pride & glory!
The great Soviet people in a headlong rush
Of fiery lava will wipe out the fascist gang
Nikolai Tikhonov
For those friends having fail’d to run the course
Willie’s harp sang a sad & lilting dirge,
Breakfasting on the flesh of frozen horse,
Sweat froze to Khan at his madnesses verge;
Reduced to rags,
Barely untermenschen,
O torn & tatter’d flags, O worn & shatter’d men!
Over Moscow’s frozen river
Came Zhukov’s counter-attack,
Fresh soldiers of Siberia,
From many a hunter’s shack,
Spirits fortified by vodka,
Snowsuits upon the back,
Supported closely by planes & cannons,
Shall pulverise those exhausted Germans.
Thus perishes the same retreat
Which slew the Grand Army,
Raped with defeat, scraping ice-sheet
Men trudge dejectedly,
Homes burning, & potatoes, to express tough enmity.
Russia
December 6th
1941
Pearl Harbour
Sometimes I fly at dawn above the sea,
Where, underneath, the restless waters flow—
Silver, and cold, and slow
Paul Bewsher
Sol’s portal rose Impayen from silk sea,
Illumes a rain-thrash’d fleet thro’ morning mist,
Upon the flat-top of the Akagi
Yamamoto crushes pearl in fist;
World-airwaves fill,
“Tora-Tora-Tora!”
Instreaming for the kill, screaming, “The Emperor!”
They burst on battleships in rows
Like Samurai hard charging,
Swin-streaking swordfin torpedoes,
Underneath the whizzing wing
An awful & unlawful show,
Noble ships exploding,
Day of Lusitanian proportions,
Flys everywhence across the world’s oceans.
“KERWHOOM!” The West Virginia
Joins the sunken others,
Oklahama, Arizona –
But not the carriers –
Thro’ chance or fate, steaming at sea, peacef’ly on manoeuvres!
Hawaii
December 6th 1941
08.15
First Strike
You have blown out beauty
with a breath, torn her,
dealt her the death-wound
Salvatore Quasimodo
Barb’d hornets flew all over Ohau,
In lethal waves obsessing for the kill,
Too slowly the realisation grew,
“We are being attack’d! This is no drill!”
Amidst the hell
That burnt at Hitcham Field
A Yankee gave a yell behind a Browning shield.
This all-American hero,
While pals hugg’d nearby ditches,
Spread lead, fed with deadly gung-ho,
“Ya yella sons of bitches!”
A cracking shot plunged some Zero
Into football pitches,
Crash-landing & smashing into a post,
“Goddam! That slant-eyed mother fucker’s toast!”
With the morning’s carnage over,
With no more death to spread,
Each warrior – in good order –
Atop the white wave sped,
Leaving Hawaii belching smoke & Hirohitan dead.
The Pacific Ocean
December 7th 1941
09.30
America Goes to War
A million, ten million, singing, “I am ready.”
This the sun looks on between two seaboards,
In the land of Lincoln, in the land of Grant & Lee
Carl Sandburg
Thin veil of snow covers the capital,
A little ice drifts on the Potomac,
An all together pageant of wonderful,
Oblivious to enemy attack;
Dines Rooseveldt
Inside those Whitehouse walls,
The perfidy hard felt, the murdering apalls.
News-tickers read the deed aloud,
What words to be receiving,
Rude shock electrifies the crowd
Jaws dropping disbelieving,
A father’s tear slips sad & proud,
Portending his grieving…
Deep in the Dustbowl Carlton park’d his car
To race into the kitchen babbling ‘Ma!
Ma! Where are you?”‘ About the farm
The workers gets the gist,
“Don’t join the army, boy, stay calm,”
“But Ma, I must enlist!”
She tried to soothe him with soft hands, but strokes a pearl-clench fist.
Jerkwater
December 7th
1941
Rewards of Patience
We that so glory in your high decision,
So trust your goal;
All Europe in our blood, but yours our vision
ES Swift
Face sighing stern, lips draining brandy glass,
Marlborough’s blood congealing for the fight,
Depress’d with this unpleasant presentness,
No way to win the Wars at all in sight;
Blimp from dinner,
Cheeks half-cock’d all aglow,
He gestures his butler fetch in the radio…
As he twiddl’d with his diamonds
Tun’d to service with a clink
“… attack’d the Hawaiian islands…”
Splash, spit, splurt, out burst his drink,,
“All the tides & all the oceans,
Dare this be what I think?”
By private line he reach’d the President –
To serve his hopes, it seem’d, an angel sent.
“God be with you!” how civilly
Men end a friendly call
His boyish glee vees victory,
“So we’ve won after all…
Now Hitler’s fate is seal’d,” he utters with a sterner drawl.
London
December 7th
1941
Sunrise
The sun that in the East does rise
Drapes clouds with golden gown,
O’er seas and peaks it sails the skies
Bernhard Severin Ingemann
Harvesters of Hirohito’s blessing
Invasion-fleeted, surg’d across the sea
Nippon’s naval majesty expressing,
To manifest, at last, their destiny!
Sacred crusade
On wings of iron & fire,
The White man will be made to choke on his empire.
From Cathay down to Mandalay,
Oer Kota, Thailand & Guam
The Sunrise burst with roaring ray
Across colonial calm
Cheap stars of tin hacking their way
With masterful sword-arm,
The whole of West Pacifica ablaze
Night, pitch-black, lay upon the deep,
Splinter’d by moon’s bright glow,
Towards shores steep sea-soldiers creep
Steep’d in deep bushido
The only sounds were motor whirrs until the sandy blow…
Malaya
December 8th
1941
Axis Expansion
O how impossible it is for the ill-fated
Poet to know his destiny. How can he say
By whom he will be slandered, hated
Yuli Daniel
A date to prosper long in infamy
& many a death sentence rubber stamp
With Hitler’s face, the world’s arch enemy
Whose mistress switches on the bedside lamp;
Marettimo
To Turin & Trieste,
Armour’d armadillo snarls at the Eagle West.
Il Duce war declares, city
Eternal senses unease,
With depthless minerality
America, overseas,
Is royal with reality
Brains cool’d by logic’s breeze,
Ciano gaz’d down the Via del Corso,
“Yankee tanks will clank up here – I know so,
When bucket tears shall clear the blood
Fill’d by the widow springs…”
But then who could stop that fresh flood
Of fashion, Fascist kings
Determine mass reactions of the mussolinilings.
Rome
December 11th
1941
Releasing Wolves
What will we do
when there is nobody left
to kill?
June Jordan
As packs of seawolves rise from rock & reef
Like children unbridl’d to a garden
The U-Boats in conjubilant relief
Unleash’d to focus an ocean’s cordon;
To win this war
Old Britain must be starv’d
Thro’ merchant shipping tore a darkness sharply carv’d.
As Schellenberg rakes thro’ the files
From comprehensive sources
An accurate report compiles
For Heydrich on the forces
Of American Anglophiles –
Metals, oil & horses;
“Eighty-five to ninety million tonnes
Of steel?” “Yes sir!” such massive numbers stuns
Hitler… “Unsinn!” Goering retorts,
“What absolute nonsense
He crafts reports to convince courts
Of his self-importance,
Better let psychiatrists tend this mental disturbance.
Berlin
December 13th
1941
Mumble Words 