(AA) Canto 34: Impasse
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No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country
George Scott
Inferiors
So then, to tell my story, here I stand.
The dress’s tint, though bleached in bitter dye,
Has not all washed away. It still is real.
Gertrud Kolmar
Since Wansee’s vow Nazis have maximis’d
Their social lordship over all the Jews,
Trapp’d in a den, as them dehumaniz’d
In piecemeal motions, widen’d by the news,
This slow process
Of expropriations,
Doubles each day’s duress, & its degradations.
From public pools prohibited,
Purchas’d newspapers denied,
Debarr’d from buying firewood,
Civic central kept outside,
Electricals confiscated
With telescopes, as died
The shining light of man’s modernity,
Portcullis closes for eternity.
On recremental lives deposed,
Like swine lacking odour,
Good schools are clos’d, warm homesteads hosed
Down with soapy water,
Evicted, cramm’d in hungry camps… cattle to the slaughter.
Germany
June
1942
Death of Heydrich
Only a tiny drill
Can turn into powder
The hardened one
Lelawattee Manoo-Rahming
King Wenceslas’ crown adorns the Hangman
Of Prague, who rules his province arrogant
Enough to be guarded by no real plan…
Thus went his Mercedes, his doom’s advent;
Two patriots
Plot assassination,
Sneak-bomb back’d up by shots… fear waltzes thro’ Tschechienne.
While all around the manhunt raged
Killers refuge in a crypt,
But still ruthless Gestapo gaug’d
Their whereabouts, & so tipp’d
Soldiers of the SS, engaged
This church as bullets ripp’d
Rank on rank from desperate defenders,
“Reserve your last bullets t’avoid tortures.”
Einsatzgruppen dealt the disgust
Of the German peoples,
Beaten & cuss’d, male peasants thrust
Inside cellars, stables,
There set alight, their homes destroy’d, their wives shot thro’ the skulls.
Lidice
June 9th
1942
Clandestine Protestations
I love to see thee bring to naught
The plans of wily men;
When simple hearts outwit the wise
Frederick William Faber
“The herd mentality has serv’d us well,
Irresolute & shallow as them led
Wither we are leading, Heaven or hell!”
“It matters not, as long as them well fed
By daily trucks,
Diets of galling stones,
Which grab & cut & suck soft marrow from hard bones.”
Like children, in untutor’d throng,
Overbrushing what looks strange,
Good women, sensing things were wrong,
Felt powerless of change,
But thro’ Von Moltke blew a song
Tho’ dangerous in range,
Solanaceaen intelligentsia
Clambors up from cellars, & together!
Helmuth advis’d the High Command
With secret plans to skew,
His name demands each shame disbands
With sisyphean due,
Not, “what you do’s horrendous,” but, “what does it gain for you?“
Berlin
June 26th
1942
FC Start
Never say no to any
Delight which your life bestows.
Grasp it with hungry senses!
Ingeborg Flood
Kizmenko was march’d inside the warehouse
Known by the name Bakery Number Five,
His countrymen as quiet as a mouse,
Just happy to be working & alive;
With joy he saw
Friends from the Dynamo,
& by them on the floor, Lokomotiv Moscow!
As certain persons of this world
Live life as they are meant to
The flag of FC Start unfurl’d,
Russian red & Ukraine blue,
As team thro’ intense training hurl’d
Such expectations grew –
& in the end, whatever might befall,
These dusty kickabouts sooth’d heart & soul!
Upon a happy summer’s day
When dreamer’s lived the dream,
Nazi leeway, they’ll get to play
Romanian starcream,
& goal-by-goal dismantled them, such was their splendid team.
Kiev
July
1942
White Rose Bloom
Whilst fearful battle breaks at dead of night
Heroes ! rise & play your part
The stars will lead you with their friendly light
Roger Scicluna
As darker powers seas & shorelines weave,
Releas’d from their subboreal syndrome,
Hans Scholl & Alex Schmorell frontlines leave,
Disjointing from the bucks that first left home;
Compell’d to write
Leaflets of common sense,
To flog & put to flight cognitive dissonance.
They quoted, quite extensively,
Novalis, Aristotle,
To castigate the bourgouisie
Goethe, Schiller – terrible
Truths told of Fascist Germany –
Most unfathomable
T’would be if Hitler were to win his wars –
Form leaflets mail’d thro’ academic doors.
First Von Moltke read the letter,
Then read it three times oer,
Subnubilar to Luminar
He found a dozen more,
& sent them all to Stockholm for reprintment, spore on spore.
Berlin
July
1942
The Russian Front
the vegetation is of iron
dead tanks, gun barrels split like celery
the metal brambles have no flowers or berries
Keith Douglas
Ravenous warfare, widening regions,
Town hall dominoes sporting swastikas,
Lungbursting songs of conquering legions,
Interrogateries & massacres;
We’ve never seen
A battle of its ilk,
Blood-bolter’d gallow-queen enrob’d in sallow silk.
Tho’ northern impasse yet remain’d,
That lock of arms humungous,
Destruction of the South unchain’d
By supercharg’d invaders,
Another mass of mileage gain’d,
But, with less surrenders –
Thro’ battle’s college wiser men are born,
The Red Army was skillfully withdrawn.
“Get me Von Paulus on the phone!”
“Mein Fuhrer?” “You must take
Stalingrad – ALL of it must fall!”
Gen’rals groan’d in the wake,
“Silence, my will insconced in fate, the Bolshevik must break.”
Vinnitsa
July 23rd
1942
Camp Eingost
And now I know what ails the world: Power
Humility dies on its very own emaciated neck
Even cockroaches rise
Rira Abbasi
Life weary, yet life loves to linger on,
At least in Warsaw some know family,
One restless morn th’ess-ess form a cordon,
Shunting away the old ones, forcibly;
“You will be sent
To safe & special camp,”
But reality meant extinguishing life’s lamp.
The Starbearers pack’d tight without
Water nor ventilation,
Days trundle by ’til rough shout “Out!”
A primitive train station,
Old Hersz is fill’d with gnawing doubt
At the explanation
That for these showers they must strip to skin,
He kiss’d his Kaiser’s cross & crept within.
The Harikvah soon screaming roar,
As hissing swirl’d the gas,
Squirm, writhe & claw… alive no more
They search’d each mouth & ass,
& form’d possession-mountains, ditching deep the warm corpses.
Treblinka
July 22nd
1942
Desert Surge
With grey arm twisted over a green face
The dust of passing trucks swirls over him,
Lying by the roadside in his proper place
Gavin Ewart
On a day suffocating & stormy,
Resplendent bloom’d the Rose of Jericho,
Til’ crush’d beneath grinding machinery
Of Afrikans advancing row by row;
Led by Rommel,
Darling of the masses,
To conquer the Kanal & claim the Caucasus.
With flair & flourish he attack’d
Scudding hard & calcin’d earth,
Battle’s hot, corrosive impact
His to steer by right of birth,
Tobruk’s quicksand captured intact,
Much bloodspill marks it’s worth,
A port from which a warring conqueror
Could drive the British out of Africa.
To Alamein the Eighth withdraw,
Digging-in defences,
Midst Cairo’s War th’embassadour
Urns his secret papers.
As the Fleet, from Alexandria, flees for safer harbours.
Egypt
August 7th
1942
Malta Starved
‘See you tomorrow, then.’ Tomorrow,
it is certain, never comes.
Evasions & delays recur
Macedonius the Consul
There was no spring in Malta, forty-two,
Nothing lives on a nervous volcano,
When waters fresh tainted by dusty dew
In blown by senses-seizing scirocco;
No food to spare,
Guarding pets with shotguns,
& only prickly pear replac’d those sunken tonnes;
When siren sounds incessantly
When, rampant, typhus fever,
When fighters bare from Italy
& no-one dare relieve her,
This princess isle this of liberty,
Even best believer
Grew weary at the hunger & the drain,
Til Mass restores each heart with stoic strain.
How long can an honest nation
Bide her tongue & suffer?
Thirst, starvation, no salvation,
Oer grim futures hover –
When lacking arks of flour & oil; comes, soon, cruel surrender!
Malta
August
1942
Mumble Words 