That mad world of blood, death and fire

And another anniversary from the First World War: one hundred years ago today Allied forces landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in an attempt to secure the Dardanelles from the Turks and open up a supply line to the Russians.

Gallipoli was the brainchild of Winston Churchill, who maintained the belief that the Mediterranean was the “soft underbelly” throughout both world wars. His “second front” was going to change everything, in 1915 and 1942.

Churchill, you understand, was an imperialist to his spinal fluid. In the First War, he had his eye on gaining territory from the tottering Ottoman Empire (and ensuring the sea lanes to India). In the Second, he was intent on maintaining the integrity of those territories the Brits had acquired in the First.

In fairness, Gallipoli was also an attempt to make a breakthrough anywhere, because nothing was happening on the Western Front except a daily mortality rate that no nation could sustain for long. Especially one that still had a volunteer military.

So they cobbled together land and sea forces and headed for the Straits. Their first attempt, a naval attack, foundered on Turkish mines. But it did alert the Ottomans that something was on the way. So they resorted to landing troops on beaches of Suvla Bay that faced German-trained Turks holding the high ground. The Allies—including large forces from Australia and New Zealand—effectively never got off the beaches. Not in nine months of fighting.

Conditions were appalling; casualties ditto. The troops were never properly supplied (arguments back in London about which front should be fully supported), except with bad commanders. When they evacuated on 7 December, they left behind 46,000 dead, with total casualties more than half of the force of 450,000 who served.  

So 25 April is commemorated in the Antipodes as ANZAC day, with a mixture of pride and bitterness, at being imperial catspaws. The song “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda”, written by Scottish folk songwriter Eric Bogle in 1971, captures this, so I’ll leave you with the cover by The Pogues, which is as raw as a trench.

April soft and cold: Making a hole in my tunic and cloak

Today we’re setting the poetic WAYBAC Machine to late Republican Rome. Give it up, folks, for Gaius Valerius Catullus, a guy who really knew how to turn a phrase. Especially when it comes to love. And lust. And bodily functions.

I’ve already shared with you my relationship with Ovid, and Virgil. (And I find it extremely interesting that my post on the former is about my top-ranked post ever. My guess is that high school and college students around the world are being assigned Metamorphoses, and that there isn’t a whole lot around the Web on it.) Catullus influenced them (and others) a great deal.

Many of Catullus’ love/lust poems are about the woman he calls Lesbia, who was in fact Clodia, a married woman whose husband, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Celer, died in suspicious circumstances. She also had an active sex life, which included Catullus’ friend Marcus Caelius Rufus.

(Clodia and Caelius broke up hard. No, I mean tabloids-hard. She accused him of attempted poisoning—the suspected method of Metellus’ death, and he ended up in court on a murder charge. He was defended by Marcus Tullius Cicero, who counter charged Clodia of being a seducer and a drunkard. Cicero also hinted strongly of an incestuous relationship between Clodia and her brother Clodius Pulcher. I’m telling you—you study Roman history or literature, you really get your money’s worth.)

But back to Catullus. You remember Catullus, right?

He took on a lot of public figures, including many swipes at Gaius Julius Caesar, but he also wrote about friendship and just, you know, stuff.

One of my favorite poems about Lesbia/Clodia is V, “Let’s Live and Love”.

Vivamus mea Lesbia, atque amemus,

rumoresque senum severiorum

omnes unius aestimemus assis!

soles occidere et redire possunt:

nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux,

nox est perpetua una dormienda.

da mi basia mille, deinde centum,

dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,

deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.

dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,

conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,

aut ne quis malus invidere possit,

cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.

Let us live, my Lesbia, let us love,

and all the words of the old, and so moral,

may they be worth less than nothing to us!

Suns may set, and suns may rise again:

but when our brief light has set,

night is one long everlasting sleep.

Give me a thousand kisses, a hundred more,

another thousand, and another hundred,

and, when we’ve counted up the many thousands,

confuse them so as not to know them all,

so that no enemy may cast an evil eye,

by knowing that there were so many kisses.

Things heat up graphically when we get to XXXII, “Siesta", to a woman he names Ipsithilla.

Amabo, mea dulcis Ipsitilla,

meae deliciae, mei lepores,

iube ad te veniam meridiatum.

et si iusseris, illud adiuvato,

ne quis liminis obseret tabellam,

neu tibi lubeat foras abire,

sed domi maneas paresque nobis

novem continuas fututiones.

verum si quid ages, statim iubeto:

nam pransus iaceo et satur supinus

pertundo tunicamque palliumque.

Please, my sweet Ipsíthilla,

my delight, my charmer:

tell me to come to you at siesta.

And if you tell me, help it along,

let no-one cover the sign at your threshold,

nor you choose to step out of doors,

but stay at home, and get ready

for nine fucks, in succession, with me.

Truly, if you should want it, let me know now:

because lying here, fed, and indolently full,

I’m making a hole in my tunic and cloak.

In LXXV, “Chained” he pretty much nails the hell of love:

Huc est mens deducta tua mea, Lesbia, culpa

atque ita se officio perdidit ipsa suo,

ut iam nec bene velle queat tibi, si optima fias,

nec desistere amare, omnia si facias.

My mind’s reduced to this, by your faults, Lesbia,

and has ruined itself so in your service,

that now it couldn’t wish you well,

were you to become what’s best,

or stop loving you if you do what’s worst.

And again in XCII, “Sign of Love”:

Lesbia mi dicit semper male nec tacet umquam
de me: Lesbia me dispeream nisi amat.
quo signo? quia sunt totidem mea: deprecor illam
assidue, verum dispeream nisi amo.

Lesbia always speaks ill of me, never shuts up

about me: damn me if she doesn’t love me.

What’s the sign? Because it’s the same with me: I’m

continually complaining, but damn me if I don’t love her.

Well, I could go on forever. Or you could go look him up. Because Catullus is definitely a slice.

April soft and cold: Beginning with A

Since today is the 100^th anniversary of the beginning of the Armenian genocide at the hands of the Turks, I thought I’d give us a couple of poems from Armenia.

Our first sample comes from Saint Nerses IV, 12^th Century bishop and Catholicos of Armenia. Nerses’ epithet, Shnorthali, often converts him to Saint Nerses the Gracious, but apparently it actually means “filled with Grace”, it came from his work attempting to reconcile the Eastern Orthodox and the Armenian churches.  

He was a theologian, poet, writer and composer of hymns, and the latter shows in his “Morning Song”, which reads to me like a hymn missing the music.

“Mourning Song”

O Day-spring, Sun of righteousness, shine forth with light for me!

Treasure of mercy, let my soul thy hidden riches see!

Thou before whom the thoughts of men lie open in thy sight,

Unto my soul, now dark and dim, grant thoughts that shine with light!

O Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Almighty One in Three,

Care-taker of all creatures, have pity upon me!

Awake O Lord, awake to help, with grace and power divine;

Awaken those who slumber now, like heaven's host to shine!

O Lord and Saviour, life-giver, unto the dead give life,

And raise up those that have grown weak and stumbled in the strife!

O skilful Pilot! Lamp of light, that burnest bright and clear!

Strength and assurance grant to me, now hid away in fear!

O thou that makest old things new, renew me and adorn;

Rejoice me with salvation, Lord, for which I inly mourn.

Giver of good, unto my sins be thy forgiveness given!

Lead thy disciples, heavenly King, unto the flocks of heaven!

Defeat the evil husbandman that soweth tares and weeds;

Wither and kill in me the fruits of all his evil seeds!

O Lord, grant water to my eyes, that they may shed warm tears

To cleanse and wash away the sin that in my soul appears!

On me now hid in shadow deep, shine forth, O glory bright!

Sweet juice, quench thou my soul's keen thirst! Show me the path of light!

Jesus, whose name is love, with love crush thou my stony heart;

Bedew my spirit with thy blood, and bid my griefs depart!

O thou that even in fancy art so sweet, Lord Jesus Christ,

Grant that with thy reality my soul may be sufficed!

When thou shalt come again on earth, and all thy glory see,

Upon that dread and awful day, O Christ, remember me!

Thou that redeemest men from sin, O Saviour, I implore,

Redeem him who now praises thee, to praise thee evermore!

This translation is incomplete, as there are 36 three-verse stanzas, each of which begins with a letter of the Armenian alphabet. If you’d like to see it in Armenian, you can do so here.

Let’s move forward, however, to a contemporary Armenian, Gregory Djanikian, who here takes on the 1915 genocide. He, too, uses the alphabet as a device for shaping his thoughts.

“Armenian Pastoral (1915)”

If Anoush were holding her child

and watching the sheep 

carted off like men to the slaughter

and Armenag in his dark vest and trousers

were hobbling barefoot in the village square

toward the pockmarked wall

and Ashod in his prison cell

were counting the sprigs of parsley

that must be rising in his garden now

if Araxi were razor-thin by the roadside

dreaming of a while mountain 

turning red in the alpenglow

if Antranig refusing to walk

were shod like a horse

and tethered in his own pasture

and Azniv were a wet nurse now

to a battalion of mouths

her infant slit clean in the straw

how long would it have to go on then

beginning with A and spilling over

into all the alphabets

before mother sister father child

could wear the same faces in any language

be cut from the same tongue.

No remembrance of things past

Here’s another grim anniversary from World War I. Today marks the 100^th anniversary of the inaugural event of what we’ve come to know as genocide. It’s the assigned “day” in 1915 that the “modern” Turkish government led by the Young Turkey movement began the racial cleansing of Armenians within the Ottoman Empire.

By the time they were done, 1.5 million Armenians were dead.

These systematic massacres were documented at the time. Diplomatic and military representatives of Turkey's allies in World War I, Austria and Germany, wrote about and deplored the murders. But nations of the world community were busy either fighting or avoiding fighting in the war, and they averted their moral eyes.

Well, except for one young corporal serving as a runner in the Western Front. In 1939, when Adolf Hitler's generals questioned the outrage his command to wipe out every Pole (man, woman, child) who stood in the way of blitzkrieg would engender, he sanguinely asked, "Who now remembers the Armenians?"

Ever since then the Turkish government has consistently and vehemently denied these acts of mass murder. The most you ever got from them is that “some Armenians died along the route as we were resettling them away from the front.”

They’re so adamant about this that they imprison and punish their own citizens for bringing up the topic—to this day. And of course, if you want the Turks as your “allies”, you daren’t mention that little disturbance way back in the mists of time.

I come from Pasadena, a city with a very large Armenian population (increased during the Lebanese civil war in the 70s). We ran a couple of our grape vines out back to our neighbors' yard, so they could make dolmas without walking around the block to get the leaves.

It’s part of my home-memory that periodically there’d be news of some official from the Turkish consulate in LA being found dead in a burnt-out VW or the like a few blocks from where I lived. I didn’t understand it then, but I’ve come to see that it’s not just the genocide (and that’s what it is—after about 700K, you’ve moved from mass murder to genocide) that infuriates the Armenian community. It’s the denial of it.

And in the congress of nations this refusal to acknowledge the past not only impedes whatever forward progress Turkey might make. It seriously puts into doubt the country’s reliability as an ally. And frankly, the fact that the United States—under every administration for the past 100 years—refuses to condemn Turkey for this is appalling. Only a few days ago Turkey recalled its ambassador to Austria because Vienna finally called the events what they were; ditto its mission to the Vatican. But the US, the United Kingdom and Israel remain silent and change the subject.

I understand that we need friends in the Middle East. But I’m not convinced that a nation that can eradicate 1.5 million of its citizens like spraying for roaches, and then spend the next 100 years refusing to admit the crime really has genuine friend potential.

Who now remembers the Armenians? We should.

April soft and cold: Spy my shadow in the sun

It’s that time again—yes, Will Shakespeare’s birthday—when we bring out a couple of selections from the master. Always a highlight of National Poetry Month.

As you know, I like to share something from a play, as well as a poem-in-its-own-right. And since this past year has seen the definitive identification of the remains of Richard III, and (finally) his burial as an actual king of England (albeit in Leicester, which is making a complete tourist trap out of it), let’s have something from Shakespeare’s tragedy about the last of the Yorkist kings.

As you recall, Shakespeare’s Richard is deformed in body, mind and soul. As you’ll also recall, Shakespeare was getting his material from Tudor historians; all of them were in the pay (or patronage) of one Tudor or another. Think of it as being a historian or playwright with Stalin looking over your shoulder.

Anyhow, Shakespeare sets up Richard’s wickedness right at the opening scene, which begins with his soliloquy, as Duke of Gloucester:

Now is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this sun of York;

And all the clouds that lour'd upon our house

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;

Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;

Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,

Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.

Grim-visaged war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front;

And now, instead of mounting barded steeds

To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,

He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber

To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,

Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;

I, that am rudely stamp'd, and want love's majesty

To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;

I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,

Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,

Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time

Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,

And that so lamely and unfashionable

That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;

Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,

Have no delight to pass away the time,

Unless to spy my shadow in the sun

And descant on mine own deformity:

And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,

To entertain these fair well-spoken days,

I am determined to prove a villain

And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,

By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,

To set my brother Clarence and the king

In deadly hate the one against the other:

And if King Edward be as true and just

As I am subtle, false and treacherous,

This day should Clarence closely be mew'd up,

About a prophecy, which says that 'G'

Of Edward's heirs the murderer shall be.

Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: here

Clarence comes.

There’s nothing at all subtle about this: Richard flat out says that—since he’s physically deformed and therefore no one will love him regardless of his actions—he’s fitting his morals to his ugliness. And, by the way, even though the Yorks have only just ascended to the throne (in the form of his tall, hunky brother Edward), he’s already mapping out how to kill the one brother and blame the other for regicide.

Yikes!

So let’s have something different by way of mitigation, then. Here’s Sonnet 30. If there’s any better description of friendship, I want to see it.

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought

I summon up remembrance of things past,

I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,

And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:

Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow,

For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,

And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,

And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight:

Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,

And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er

The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,

Which I new pay as if not paid before.

But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,

All losses are restor'd and sorrows end.

Freeing the green genie

One hundred years ago today, German troops released chlorine gas into the air facing Canadian and French forces at Ypres, Belgium. It was an attempt to break the stalemate in the trenches that had spoiled everyone’s plans for early victory, triumph at home and massive territorial acquisition.

The chemist responsible for the development of chlorine (and other toxic and poison gases for warfare), Fritz Haber, put forth the idea that using gas to stun and debilitate (and, later in the war, outright kill) enemy soldiers was humane, really, because it would cause the Allies to, well, you know, surrender in the face of such obvious superiority.

(Haber won the Nobel Prize in chemistry in 1918, “for the synthesis of ammonia from its elements.” Go figure.)

Kaiser Wilhelm II and German high command agreed with that whole superiority thing, and authorized the release of the gas from canisters dug into the ground, which required favorable winds to disseminate the vapor. Not only that—it required wind, the lack of which delayed the tactical execution of what they termed “Operation Disinfection” for some days.

At around the same time, Wilhelm and the High Command also embarked on unrestricted submarine warfare (meaning shoot first and don't bother asking questions) and Zeppelin raids on cities in England. Both strategies had as a primary aim inflicting terror on Britain to induce it to withdraw from the war. Poison gas attacks were in fact aimed at soldiers, but of course the winds carried the gas over non-combatant areas as well.

I have never understood the attraction of such a fickle, uncontrollable delivery system. Because—think about it: when the winds change, the gas blows over your own troops.

The Allies had actually been warned of this new weapon, but their commanders disregarded or dismissed the warnings. So the Canadians and French (including a division of Algerians) were taken completely unawares, and they fled their positions.

The immediate results of the attack were appalling, not only from actual physiological injuries (much worse was to come with the introduction of phosgene and mustard gases), but from the utter terror inflicted on the unsuspecting soldiers on the receiving end.

Picture it—the very air around you turns green and poisons you. And because the gas is heavier than air, it settled near the ground and flooded the trenches. There was no defense.

Here's a sampling of the effects, depending on whether it's chlorine, phosgene or mustard: You can't see; you can't breathe. Your eyes, throat, skin, lungs all burn. Your skin blisters; your lungs blister. You cough up copious amounts of blood and fluid; but it brings no relief. Eventually your lungs fill with fluid and you drown.

You could see chlorine, but later gases weren't visible. So the first sign of being gassed is when your body reacts. By then it's too late to defend against it.

At Ypres the Germans advanced a couple of miles in some sectors, but they were unable to follow through on the attack, and in the end the lines reverted to almost exactly what they had been before. Story of the entire four years on the Western Front, really.

There was a massive, outraged outcry from the Allied military, politicians, newspapers and citizens. After all, chemical weapons were banned by the Hague Convention. The Germans insisted that what was banned was using chemical weapons in artillery, so this wasn’t covered. Also, see above about being superior.

Eventually, the Brits began issuing their troops with gas masks, and made a huge push to research, manufacture and deploy their own chemical weapons. So did we, when we entered the war. Of course, there was quite the distinction made between Hun barbarians using all those gases and the civilized Allies doing so. Don’t get me started.

And here’s the thing—chlorine gas is still being used as a weapon of war, even today. One hundred years after letting one of the most appalling genies ever dreamed up in a chemist’s nightmare, it’s being deployed all over the place in the Middle East.

And you can believe that most every country with a military budget has stockpiles of it. Because it still works, after all this time.

April soft and cold: On the rocks of Mount Kamo

Last year I gave you a few examples of the poetic forms haiku and tanka. But it’s worth exploring Japanese forms further, with examples both ancient and modern.

Empress Jitō ruled from 686 to 697 CE. She was one of eight women to take the role of empress regnant, taking over after the death of her husband, Temmu (who was also her uncle; but as that’s not really particularly relevant, we won’t dwell on it). Here’s one of hers:

“On the Death of the Emperor Temmu”

Even flaming fire

can be snatched up, smothered

and carried in a bag.

Why then can’t I

meet my dead lord again?

Kakinomoto no Hitomaro (roughly a contemporary of Jitō) is known for his long poems, but here’s a short, untitled, one I like because it sets you up for something romantic, and then shatters your expectations.

My girl is waiting for me

And does not know

That my body will stay here

On the rocks of Mount Kamo.

And here’s a haiku from the 20^th Century. Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (1892-1927) was quite the literary giant, producing poetry and short stories. The film Rashomon is based on Akutagawa’s story “In a Grove”. This entry, however, is appealingly whimsical.

Green frog,

Is your body also

freshly painted?

April soft and cold: Golden ointment rained

A friend commented on my latest post focused on e.e. cummings by saying, "I really like cummings, much much more than W.C. Williams. But Wallace Stevens whips them both."

Well, I couldn’t recall any Stevens right at first, so I hunted him down. I’m not convinced that he’s actually better than cummings (although I agree that he is superior to William Carlos Williams), but then I haven’t lived and breathed him for decades, as I have cummings.

And, you know—for a lawyer and insurance executive, Stevens is pretty good indeed. Here are a couple for you. I really like the imagery of both of them, but “Palaz of Hoon” does blow me away with its bold surrealist strokes.

“The Snow Man”

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is. 

“Tea at the Palaz of Hoon”

Not less because in purple I descended

The western day through what you called

The loneliest air, not less was I myself.

What was the ointment sprinkled on my beard?

What were the hymns that buzzed beside my ears?

What was the sea whose tide swept through me there?

Out of my mind the golden ointment rained,

And my ears made the blowing hymns they heard.

I was myself the compass of that sea:

I was the world in which I walked, and what I saw

Or heard or felt came not but from myself;

And there I found myself more truly and more strange.

Gratitude Monday: Powerhouse network

Today I am deeply and humbly grateful for friends-of-a-friend who answered a call to action wholeheartedly, simply on the basis of “Will my Facebook friends please…”

I’m grateful for the happenstance that brought me into this network, for the temerity I showed in asking for help and for the overwhelming generosity of the response.

April soft and cold: Nothing much to lose

Time to look at another poem about what was known as The Great War (until people realized they were going to have to start numbering these cataclysmic conflicts). And today I’m going with one from A. E. Houseman.

Last year I shared with you one of my all-time favorite poems, from anyone, ever: Housman’s “Terence, This Is Stupid Stuff”. It’s long(ish), but delivers a serious punch. In “Here Dead We Lie”, Houseman packs every bit as powerful a blow, distilled down into the smallest of space.

Here dead we lie
Because we did not choose
To live and shame the land
From which we sprung.

Life, to be sure,
Is nothing much to lose,
But young men think it is,
And we were young.

At the time of the war’s outbreak, Housman was in his mid-fifties, and a professor of Latin at University College, London. (He was also an atheist. When a very rare original 1535 Coverdale Bible was discovered in the college library, Housman suggested that it would be better to sell it and “buy some really useful books with the proceeds.”) So there was no question that he would serve, and he did not.

However, the man who wrote the immensely popular A Shropshire Lad poems before ever setting foot in, you know, Shropshire, is not incapable of envisioning what he hasn’t yet experienced.

“Here Dead We Lie” dates from 1914, when the armies along the Western Front had just had the experience(s) of charging headlong—multiple times—into massed rifle and machinegun fire, with soldiers dying in their thousands, and without the noticeable gain of much territory. During these melees, some men turned and ran, often to be shot by officers to the rear. Housman may be referring in the first stanza to those who kept going forward out of a sense of honor or duty—to die rather than engender shame for their loved ones—even though there was clearly no hope of tactical value to the sacrifice.

But if so, he turns it around in the last stanza, where he speaks of the high price of choosing the path to death (for whatever reasons). If those four lines don’t tear your heart out, then it’s probable that you don’t have one.

April soft and cold: So late into the night

Look, I’m not the world’s biggest fan of the English Romantic poets. Wandering lonely as a cloud? No. Beauty is truth, truth beauty? Eh… Yeah, okay—I’m definitely down with “Ozymandias”, because Shelly absolutely nailed that testosterone-fueled über arrogance that we see in kings, pols and corporate execs. But for the most part…see above about “eh”.

And ordinarily I’d avoid Byron like leprosy, but I’m giving him a pass for “We’ll Go No More A-roving”. This one I find quite charming, which I cannot say for most of his oeuvre. Or his life.

Although, I grant you, being mad, bad and dangerous to know does have its attractions, albeit kind of at a distance. Like across the bar, with a lot of whiskies between the two of you.

Actually, this one might be about the end of that MBDtK phase of one’s life.

“So We’ll Go No More A-roving”

So, we'll go no more a roving

   So late into the night,

Though the heart be still as loving,

   And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,

   And the soul wears out the breast,

And the heart must pause to breathe,

   And love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,

   And the day returns too soon,

Yet we'll go no more a roving

   By the light of the moon.

Byron didn’t live long enough to hang up his roving spurs, which may make this one even more poignant. I’ll have another large whisky, please.