The Boys in Brazil

April 26, 2015 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | PETER'S WRITING, Poetry | 0 Comments |

[At the anti-celestial Palm Court Café, São Paulo]

Bromide:

Welcome to Concepcion! Whoever you may be,
Surrender any weapons, set where we can see,
In classical tradition we will not ask you your name
Until you have sat down and eaten, nor from whence you came.
Hush.
From the city of dreams with its one-man-armies,
Coloring by numbers a land of glass and bone,
Only fire cleanses for the rain does not wash
Away those who abet these activities; not yet.
For those men with a brain to wash,
With announcements to make and facts to ignore
Force be the key so as to quell the tumult
And compassion will not be what these unfortunates get;
After all, nemo dat quad non habet.
You who cower there! In the chival mirror approaches
Unrelieved despair. So still, still you crouch,
Still so still. And then out of the mirror it flies;
A moth from a shoebox, shivering in light alabaster-
Hush, hush, every fresh setback is a disaster.
These old men, of whom we splinter celluloid
Were, so many stale years ago,
Answers to a logistical problem,
Now half-men hiding in a shadow.
A blur in a dream daguerrotype,
Compelled by hysteria to follow direction
Of Hollywood Boulevard stereotypes…

Herr Speer:

Even you, attrition, laid waste with less zeal
In older times-why, these (albeit faded) photographs reveal
A kinder, gentler desolation and decay-indeed, a rosy
Glow insinuates itself within my ken
And in such a kind and gentle way.
I am not here to be fobbed off
With minor villainy, or such small beer-
I am less concerned with the motion of pawns across
The board than with forgotten faces, getting angry when ignored.

Herr Heydrich:

Still, the Jew runs about the place
Like a cut snake, looking for an old face
But no one’s interested anymore,
Es ist schwer, gegen den Strom zu schwimmen.
They are men consigned to fail to clear
Hoops of cleansing fire.
They’ve cornered the media to try and keep fresh
Those old and dreadful fairy tales
Of Holocausts and things; lining up for their pounds of flesh-
Listen to the singer, please, not to what he sings.

Herr Bormann:

But now, it being so late in the year,
Frost settles on the thwarted green.
What the english would call a common
Is a bloody mess, a bomb site no less.
The joke goes; ‘Martin, now the war is over,
What are you intending to do?’
`I’ll take a bike tour of the Fatherland.’
`And in the afternoon?’
A grey-grim city, no longer pounded
By mortar shells, only guilt now settles
And with hands on noose and black cap,
A wraith in pilgrim grey
Comes this day to sum-up the situation.
Dear Dr. Bergold is a singular lawyer-
He represents a man who isn’t there,
A man for whom the verdict holds no terror.
Goes the Doctor through the motions,
Defending someone who takes no notice
Of the charges-no instructions given
Upon the testing of the evidence.

Heydrich:

But why should they test? The verdict is assured-
Would that future conduct were ensured.

Herr Himmler:

We are creatures of circumstance,
Of what and where and when
And if you think we are controlled
You had better think again.

Bromide:

Your hearts are wrapped in reddish gauze
Cut out by stainless steel,
Presented in a chocolate box by the maniac responsible,
A heartless piece of mockery bundled up in twine.
Rats have nibbled at your brains-

All:

We were too tired to go away,

Bromide:

And they wished to dine. These empty vessels, as manure,
Helped grow a lawn all over the world that broke the fall of the mighty structure.
Wait Nazis! In your memory lane,
Answer this true; Did you sincerely believe?

Heydrich:

Yes, and still do.

Bromide:

There’s your Master Race for you-are you not ashamed?
By Jove, did you believe the human spirit could be tamed?
Whether twenty million Russians or seven million jews,
Under-estimate the object and you will make the news.
Through the wet green trees one sees their world collapsing as did Moloch
But I believe in this and it’s been tested by research,
You don’t shoot the galah, you know, you take away the perch.

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