(AA) Canto 35: War Rage
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I cannot, I do not wish to die.
I love life – I love this grass, this earth, this air
Tolstoy
Game of Death
Learn by our friendship to create
An immaterial fire,
Whose brightnesse Angels may admire
Thomas Stanley
“Come mother, the match is kicking off soon!”
Shouts Konstantin, blood-rushing FC Start,
Whistling a happy Ukranian tune,
Sweet strains of which were nestled deep in heart;
Heroes emerge
Behind great Trusevich,
Onto the grassy verge, then spread around the pitch!
Eleven versus eleven,
Hitler white & Stalin red,
As the Russian Number Seven
Scores a bullet with his head,
Konstantin was shot to heaven,
A year of fears far fled…
Free kick fies from the foot of Kuzmenko!
& now, at last, the ball finds Klimenko,
Who dribbles around the goalie,
But choosing not to score
He hoofs it screaming skillfully
Back to the midfield four –
Hysterical with pride the Stiltskis ride the thunder-roar.
Kiev
August 9th
1942
Operation Pedestal
& only the drowned hears
stay calm –
& obeys, not the drowning
Henneh Kyereh Kwaku
A convoy pass’d the safety of the straits,
Sailors survey’d the scene as once did Scott,
But his soiree was not left to the fates,
That tranquil sea tempest of shell & shot;
No man dared bunk
The plan steam’d on & on,
As ship-by-ship was sunk twixt Skerki & Cape Bon.
The war roll’d on right furious;
Malta’s harvest, all afloat,
Hard beset by swarms of stukas
& Davidian E-Boat,
Throwing hell at the destroyers,
Whose carrier support
Fought out long running battles down the Med,
For oil & fruit, for vegetables & bread.
Above Valetta’s long main street
Into the boiling sky,
Six Spitfires meet, to save the fleet
They could but only try,
As west, into those jaws of death, they could but only fly.
The Mediterranean Sea
August 13th
1942
Forcing Divisions
Every one feels dread;
Every bird wings to its mate.
Every thing springs through the earth
Aneirin
A summons, screaming demons in red ink,
Sent to the Spiegelmans, Vladek look’d numb,
“What is it, love?” her husband pour’d a drink,
“All Jews must go to the Dienst stadium…”
To go no good,
Not to go no better,
So join’d the fleshy flood before the gauleiter.
Whole families forc’d to divide
Kids & old folks to the left,
The right side clearly the right side
Where the young & strongest sift
Vladek watch’d as his sister tried
Five spirits to uplift
Her children, fatherless now, three long years
Among them now their grandpapa appears….
“Dad!” Anna shouts, he was just here
With us!” “He must have snook
Across…” a fear descended drear
Elsewhere the ‘left’ were took
Gone with a wave, a nod of head, & one last love-fill’d look.
Sosnowiec
Aug 20th
1942
Operation Edelweiss
Lord, these are Thine! With soldierly tread
Without a tremor they go their way,
Singing a hymn they march ahead
Lucian Watkins
Three Oberstdorfers face their greatest test
Driving, higher, vision after vision
Blend ‘Nil mortalibus ardui est,’
With the 21st Mountain Division;
Their Reich war flag
Into a rucksack squeez’d,
Heel-leaps starting to drag as conversation wheez’d.
Beyond the pass of Chotju-Tau
The Caucasus were climbing
A simple case of here & now
As when the bards start rhyming
& magic, confiscating now,
Pearls with perfect timing,
There’s poetry immortal, & the heart
Yearns nature’s best breathtaking works of art.
Western Eurasia’s highest ground
Conquer’d by Germany
The bag was found – with slapping sound
The flag was flapping free,
A deed, indeed, piquing the company of Calliope.
Mount Ebro
Aug 23
1942
Stalin’s City
My dish, my tumbler,
here in the tin-plate
I’ve scratched my name
Günter Eich
The Sixth Army thunders to the Volga,
The Swastika hoisted over Elbrus,
In front – unending acres of Asia,
Behind – the widest wake of conquerors;
Resting their flank
Upon the deep, dark Don,
Onwards advanced each tank, onwards & ever on!
With sleeves roll’d up, sporting short pants,
On mountain slope stood Willie,
Watching apartments, parks & plants
Of this white cubist city,
The first hint of caution supplants
Invincibility!
For infesting the city & the plain,
The Red Army seems set to fight again.
Above shored-up defences pour
Fourth Richtofen Air Fleet,
Planes by the score have brought the War
To level ev’ry street,
The will Man gains to resist ills soul-temper’d in the heat.
Stalingrad
August 23rd
1942
Montgomery
The Ark waits,
Lord,
the Ark waits on Your will
Carmen Bernos De Gasztold
The world is at arms, the world is ablaze,
Nigh ev’ry man now forced to choose a side,
What days are these? These are darkest of days,
Stripping a man of dignity & pride;
The battle lines
To breaking point pull’d taut,
Der Fuhrer’s grand designs to be or be distraught.
Churchill threw the pink-skinn’d Monty
On imperial mission,
Stood before the beige Eighth army,
“We must win by attrition,
Defend the Nile from the blue sea
Down to the Depression…”
His troops entering oaseas of calm
In whose auspices they must face no harm.
All round the village rose the purr
Of Shermans beautiful
With knowing burr, the spirits stir,
“Sole way to slay Rommel…
Dig ‘em in along Alem el Halfa at the double!”
El Alamein
August 25th
1942
El Alamein
Waiting for the end, boys, waiting for the end.
What is there to be or do?
What’s become of me or you?
William Empson
Stiff-borne by dreams from his fade-worn Fuhrer,
Fraught by an all-expectant Germany,
Ill on the air of the wide, wide Delta,
The Pyramids in immediacy;
Rommel orders
His neurasthenic men,
“Boys, rev up the panzers, advance them once again.”
Droving North of the Quattara
These iron-clad caravans
Rode the ridge Alem el Halfa
To the Somuan Shermans
Hanging tough – from sandy shelter
Shells titubated plans;
He paus’d, the pale moon growing paler still,
Up from the south warm sandstorms shriek & shrill.
Dust settles on a dead terrain,
Enmein’d with armour’d hulk,
Glancing in pain, long lists of slain,
“A tanker has been sunk…”
He took the news heart-sighing, “Call it off!” & left to sulk.
Jabel Kalakh
September 3rd
1942
Order of the Red Star
We shall go along roads beneath the stars,
so that Plotsk straightens its shoulders,
so that Poznan shall know freedom
Sergei Narovchatov
These unreal times, this petrifactive age,
When impudence of Nazi kings impinge
On Mother Russia, who great war will wage,
Wreaking the bloody claret of revenge;
A nation’s fate
Upon its fight insists –
To hound, exterminate invaders with mail’d fist.
Women in their millions dress
For liberty thro’ battle,
Meeting ‘Monsters of Wickedness,’
Embracing, fanatical,
Ev’ry danger, every duress,
Ev’ry heretical
Enemy, what deep love for Russia grows,
Unfolding with their passion for the cause.”
As throats enamel’d sing, “for me
A meter dig of soil,”
Gethsemane’s fresh family
Prepares to disembroil
Their country from the chaos of the Nazi’s vast despoil.
Tula
September 13th
1942
Black Gold
Whither, unfortunate wretch, have I strayed,
Thus of thy bounty to lie disinherited –
I alone whilst every other is paid?
Publius Papinius Statius
A flight of spitfire falls from sommer sky,
Lands as precisely as migrating drake
On isles astride the highway of supply,
All alone in this hostile Axis lake;
Thro’ constant fire,
Urged on by deep belief
That crown’d heads of empire must send to them relief.
Harbours of expectant children
By sad & weary farmers,
Drop-swap nervous conversation
Cheering for the Port Chalmers,
The Stars of Melbourne & Brisbane,
Clad in shatter’d armours –
Survivors of this keystone of the war,
Then the Rochester Castle made them four!
The convoy limp’d, or tow’d to port,
Join’d by vital tanker,
Tho’ ten ships short brave sailors brought
Salvation to anchor,
Soon submarines refuel’d scented Axis ship & sank her!
The Mediterranean Sea
September 15th
1942
Mumble Words 