Vir Triumphalis (1944)
Posted: 15 May 2019, 09:57
Marshal Zhukov in the van straddles
a slow clomping horse. The documentary
dubbed with martial music incongruous
with the demeanour of the foredoomed. A child asks
‘Who are these gentlemen and why do they look
so miserable like us?’ A repast of greasy cabbage
soup further stresses those suffering from dysentery.
A phalanx of generals follow in grey wolf uniforms,
alive, their future offers little but further wretchedness.
The route lined with the very Muscivites they tried
to annihilate. Thin housewives, barefoot children stare,
restrained, fascinated at a broken enemy
with so few guards. There is little evidence
of hatred, no jeering, nor cheering just pity,
there is a limit to their pity however;
they remember the bombings, hunger pangs
in the faces of their children, lists of the dead
posted on abattoir walls, constant streams
of ambulances racing from the front, lights flashing
red to siren wails. A mood of sombreness
settles on the crowd. Wehrmacht soldaten
in ragged uniforms with unkempt beards clank
by with improvised mess cans at the hip, ready
for a sudden chow call. Despair worn like a limp
flag progresses through Ivan's capital in blocks
of five thousand, pass buildings, towering office
blocks with balconies flowering office workers.
A woman turns to gaze at a commissar, her dress
flows out in the breeze, wafts a fragrance wasted
on the prisoners, their situation demands
total obedience to the law of survival, one lapse . . .
A Russian officer fills the frame, in a pristine
uniform, a chest with campaign medals,
shoulders heavy with gilded braid. A mother
cradles her blond haired son, cups her hand
around his head to protect him from the sight
of these broken men, fine looking men, noble even
on another day, ushered like cattle. Crowds follow
the cavalcade reluctant to release their eyes.
This augers the final landler of National Socialism,
the lies of the Führer unfurl as empty as when first
uttered, the mania of the beast shown in futility.
The sordid end is near, the crowds linger in the squares
as the last detachment marches to the railway, loaded into
wagons, the doors slam shut then shunted of into oblivion.
Water tankers clean the street of excreta, a victor's distain.
But where is magnanimity, it is as absent as the king's
joy at the news of his pyrrhic victory at Heraclea.
******
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjGfKj2lx8M
a slow clomping horse. The documentary
dubbed with martial music incongruous
with the demeanour of the foredoomed. A child asks
‘Who are these gentlemen and why do they look
so miserable like us?’ A repast of greasy cabbage
soup further stresses those suffering from dysentery.
A phalanx of generals follow in grey wolf uniforms,
alive, their future offers little but further wretchedness.
The route lined with the very Muscivites they tried
to annihilate. Thin housewives, barefoot children stare,
restrained, fascinated at a broken enemy
with so few guards. There is little evidence
of hatred, no jeering, nor cheering just pity,
there is a limit to their pity however;
they remember the bombings, hunger pangs
in the faces of their children, lists of the dead
posted on abattoir walls, constant streams
of ambulances racing from the front, lights flashing
red to siren wails. A mood of sombreness
settles on the crowd. Wehrmacht soldaten
in ragged uniforms with unkempt beards clank
by with improvised mess cans at the hip, ready
for a sudden chow call. Despair worn like a limp
flag progresses through Ivan's capital in blocks
of five thousand, pass buildings, towering office
blocks with balconies flowering office workers.
A woman turns to gaze at a commissar, her dress
flows out in the breeze, wafts a fragrance wasted
on the prisoners, their situation demands
total obedience to the law of survival, one lapse . . .
A Russian officer fills the frame, in a pristine
uniform, a chest with campaign medals,
shoulders heavy with gilded braid. A mother
cradles her blond haired son, cups her hand
around his head to protect him from the sight
of these broken men, fine looking men, noble even
on another day, ushered like cattle. Crowds follow
the cavalcade reluctant to release their eyes.
This augers the final landler of National Socialism,
the lies of the Führer unfurl as empty as when first
uttered, the mania of the beast shown in futility.
The sordid end is near, the crowds linger in the squares
as the last detachment marches to the railway, loaded into
wagons, the doors slam shut then shunted of into oblivion.
Water tankers clean the street of excreta, a victor's distain.
But where is magnanimity, it is as absent as the king's
joy at the news of his pyrrhic victory at Heraclea.
******
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjGfKj2lx8M