(AA) Canto 38: Evelations
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Ambition, when the pinnacle is gained
With many a toilsome step, the power is sought
Wants to support itself, & sighs to find
The envied height but aggravates the fall
George Bally
Maltese Falcon
Long the night, boisterous is the sea-shore;
Usual a tumult in a congregation;
The vicious will not agree with the good
Lywarch Hen
From nettle-danger flowers safely drawn,
With Monty on the roads to Tripoli
The Maltese felt them less & less alone
As day-by-day was nearing victory;
Valiant light
Brave Malta saved the world
When Hitler’s evil might was at Valetta hurl’d.
That once more yearn’d their homes to raze,
In an action of sheer spite
The heavens, for eleven days,
Full of sound & fire-sprite,
When spitfire its design displays
Lord of the azure height,
So many Axis pilots by them slain,
They never would return in force again.
With winter comes increas’d rations,
& mail from overseas,
Latest fashions, famous passions
Sets people at their ease,
Small semblance of normality & sweet-fill’d christmas trees.
Malta
December 25th
1942
Nippon Noon
into plain rubbish
they begin to turn –
fallen blossoms
Tsuji Momoko
Sanguine waters surround the Solomons,
The Sun of Empire starts her long descent,
Humbl’d & hurt by brash Americans,
Epitomised by one hardy sergeant;
Our big, bald Al,
As rough as gruff could be,
Stuck on Guadalcanal from Hicksville, Tennessee.
He watch’d the vaulting Perseids
Cause foeman’s vapouressence,
At times was forced to close his lids
To starbrite phosphorescence,
Struck by th’enchaunting Leonids
& life’s impermanence,
He remember’d what his Pa used to say,
“Son, life’s a loan, you’ll pay the debt one day.”
The Yankee seizes seas & skies
As the Imperatour,
Enlowers eyes, slouches & sighs,
“The army may withdraw…”
Bows Tojo, “Yes, your majesty…” then scuttles thro’ the door.
Tokyo
December 31st
1942
Imperial Dementia
An early death was considered likely
with an emperor so hard, so severe
in matters of belief
Jan Wagner
The pursuit of unbridl’d ambition,
Wildly bezerking thro’ civilised lands,
Oft leads to phantasies, as the vision
Of Empire crumbles to glitter-bone sands;
Hitler muses
Midst these mythopoeics,
So serenely ponders, “O, what should I do next?”
Another Christmas passes by
Still elusive, victory,
Cheer found but when his childish eye
Casts oer a model city,
By marble fire-place a sigh
Of wistful self pity…
Reliev’d by smashing up plastic soldiers
With models of rockets & jet fighters.
Retiring to his simple bed,
Old nightmares draw yet near,
Convulsions shred the shrieking dread,
Awake… awash with fear,
Blue lips babbling strange nonsense, gasping, “He… He… He’s been here!”
The Berghof
January
1943
Intrepedities
Though you may out of sight retire,
Malice will not be cheated so,
She can pursue where’er you go
Brooke Boothby
Captain Baron Jean-Michael de Selys
Saddl’d his typhoon without permission,
Whistling La Brabanconne askim the sea
Spire-tip Brussels swimming into vision;
Neath rooftop guns
Gestapo Headquarters!
Who murders Belgium’s sons, that rapes Belgium’s daughters.
At window-level whizz’d the plane
& pepper’d the place entire
With vengeful bullets, to sustain
Bodies tumbling under fire
With bursted abdomen & brain;
Watch the lone wolf flyer
Go treetop-touching down the Avenue,
To soar off high & melt in blue sky true!
Thro’ bodies, broken glass & blood
Rush stretchers & white sheets,
A crimson flood, a small crowd stood
Onwatching from the streets,
Stonefaced & silent, but inside singing from the songsheets.
Brussels
January 20th
1943
Zionism
See how villains make such noise
They turn birth & death into rituals
Fools fall prey to their shouts
Bullhe Shah
Too many massacres, dire & sneaky,
To mention in stanzettas – I’ll sing one,
Of how the Turks reduc’d Saloniki
From centuries of cultural Hebron:
The Holocaust
Accelerates the need
For better homelands, hors’d by Zion’s tawny steed
Rabbi Schonfeld supplies the plan
To save the Jewish fishes
Leave Hitler to his master plan
Un-netted in Mauritius
Tho’ parliament & churchmen fan
Flames of his best wishes
Such noble dream to save the Jews stillborn
When underneath the brier’s leaf, the thorn!
Yes, there shall be an Israel,
Her children are divine,
Like Azrael (prophet or asngel) the lobbies yell
“It must be Palestine,
Those lands promis’d to Moses on Mount Sinai, by sign.”
London
January
1943
Convoy
There is a silence where hath been no sound,
There is a silence where no sound may be, –
In the cold grave, under the deep, deep sea
Thomas Hood
America! Republic Young & Free!
Your Liberty remains supreme touchstone,
Keep safe thine arsenal of democracy
Til by great fleets to battle’s field is borne;
Your shore recedes,
Soon lost in hoary mists,
Merseywise flow the needs to feed th’Allied int’rests.
Our fleet in constant motion ploughs
Thro’ a ceaseless sea of silk,
The ocean crashes oer the boughs
Of Elizabeth & her ilk,
Gigantic herd of scatter’d cows
Laden with vital milk,
On all sides nothing but the tawny blue,
Sometimes an iceberg lumbers into view…
Jack blew into his freezing hands,
Inert, unthawable,
In vigil stands watching Iceland’s
Cliff rows formidable,
By nature’s beauty nobly touch’d… rip-tiding to battle.
The Atlantic Ocean
January
1943
Ghetto
on a morning of frost
in the soreness of waking
the cry of humanity goes out of itself
Lance Henson
Clack-dish echoes thro’ miserable streets,
But nobody has anything to give,
Death & disease with malnutrition meets
Where only HOPE whispers the will to live;
God’s earthly flail
Flung flat across Warsaw,
Grand flagellant unveils his ghoulish threshing floor.
Faith uplifted with the Torah
& the flesh of Hebrewdom,
Moses lights up the Menorah
Kinsfolk hand-held as they hum,
Proclaiming ‘Happy Hanukah’
& as the meal was done
Ludwig told stories of the Maccabees…
In bursts a breathless Karl with, “Father please
May we converse?” they left the room,
“I harbour gloomy news,
They wish our doom, up chimney flume
Intend to send the Jews,”
“This is not true…” “It is, but if they come we must refuse!”
Warsaw
January
1943
Avatars
Three hosts combine to offer sacrifice;
Three tongues prefer strange orisons on high;
Three gaudy standards flout the pale blue skies
Lord Byron
An old man drags his bulk across the sands,
Off-breaks beside the barb’d perimeter,
& clambors over, sharp wires dig in hands,
At once he’s accosted by a soldier;
“Hold it right there…
O my god, you’re Churchill!”
The P.M. gave his stare, the M.P. freezes still.
By Rooseveldt he takes his seat,
Discussive for the future,
“To German cities we must mete
The full wrath of the bomber!”
“Aye, until Germany’s defeat
& total surrender,
By Europe’s freedom all deeds must measure –
Japan may be destroy’d at our leisure.”
They left the villa for the sun,
Found soldiers to review,
Nigh ev’ryone American,
The fighters Yankee too,
That oerhead roar’d, defenders of the world’s most crucial two.
Casablanca
January 27th
1943
War at Sea
The sea shall seethe like boiling casserole,
Change colors, taking on unnatural form,
Showing its ill will at full blast to all
Ausiàs March
“Up periscope!” unveils a killing ground
By Seawolves circl’d in their hungry packs,
The feast is set, curl’d smoke plumes all around,
The silence broken, ev’rywhence attacks!
Cold & enpearl’d
The submariner rides,
Bellum Navale swirl’d beneath the whirling tides.
With heavy beard & nerves half shot
Xaver cursed his dank abode,
Often times his stomach would knot
As the depth charges explode
But when a new course would he plot
& the foe torpedoed
He felt his place with the warring nations…
Claxons caterwaul … to action stations!
Th’Elizabeth sinks! Jack Sumner’s
Clothes sea-salt saturates,
Haul’d by shoulders, joins the others,
Last lot of his shipmates,
Cramm’d in a bulging, wooden boat to contemplate their fates.
The Atlantic Ocean
February 1st
1943
Mumble Words 