With the European Elections tomorrow and our politics so sullied and divisive I am sharing this poem from Poems from the Swamp, my 2018 collection.
The Gauleiter and his Pig
The
Gauleiter and his pig reside here
in the
swamp, a septic, infected sty,
poisoned
with wormwood for false prophecy.
Their respectability has that stink
of swill
that clings like thin grease, that chokes throats,
an
insinuation of rancid filth.
They can
wash their hands, insipid Pilates,
and never
know what it is to be clean.
The people have spoken, so it is claimed
across this
newly grim, unpleasant land
where
mandrakes strangle healthy plants,
fervoured
tendrils spread amidst the sane,
sanguine
folk of once fair-minded islands
made
pestilential and sabre-rattling
when pigs and Gauleiters take command.
This pig
and Gauleiter feed on censure,
patrol the
streets, sniff out the shunned,
hunt the
dreamers, the effete, the forceless,
poison the
water, spread lies, deception
that find
keen reception in willing ears.
These guardians of now lost Albion
with pig
battalions in eager service
goose step,
relentless over small town swamps,
spread
venom and violence with every tramp.
People need
their pigs in lipstick, patsies,
apologists,
pimps and panders.
These quiet
and not so quiet fascists
impose
spurious jurisdiction,
shift civilisation’s
paradigm
spawn bleak
new dawns of moral disaster,
bring
terror, trauma and catastrophe.
This
Gauleiter and his wallowing pig
inhabit the
swamp imperiously,
belching obscene absurdity.
The cowed
folk quake and scuttle with truffles
to sate and
satisfy lusty tumescence,
with Destroying Angel, Fly Agaric,
to avoid
the cosh, the Taser, the mace.
But nothing
placates appetites like these
where only
the hunger, the greed is fed.
The sty
turns seamier, with deepening stench,
while mists
from the quagmire writhe and hiss,
meander in
serpentine gyres and twists,
layering
the space where once light fell
with impenetrable shadows from boundless Hell.
Once
before, in still living memory
the
fair-minded folk of a place like this
thrilled in
denouncing friends and neighbours,
those whose
faces no longer fit.
Trucks
rattled the bones of human cargo
along
tracks destined for nightmarish swamps.
Pigs and
Gauleiters wallowed in loss,
caroused at
perdition and extermination,
a
Saturnalia of uncountable cost.
This
Gauleiter, pig, and the onlookers
are
droghers who’ll carry the weight of the swamp,
a shipment
of shame beyond all atoning
long after
this tale and its tellers are gone.
May
8
By Josie Moon
Pisagua
Category: Social Comment 2 Comments
It is 40 years since Thatcher became PM in Britain. Her election ushered in change that damaged the fabric of society, destroyed communities and began the steady dismantling of the country’s infrastructure. I have a strong and abiding loathing of her and all she stood for.
It is arguably not widely known that Thatcher regarded Pinochet of Chile as a good friend and ally. I am currently re-reading Andy Becket’s excellent book Pinochet in Piccadilly which details the strange, fascinating and disturbing story of Thatcher and Pinochet.
When I first read the book I wrote the poem below. The poem returned to me as I read comments fawning over Thatcher and as I picked up the book again.
Pisagua
1973
The trucks began to arrive
and cries rang from those
who dragged themselves
naked
up the glass-strewn nitrate slopes.
No visitors.
No Red Cross.
Executions took place
beside the cemetery.
Now an unscarred monument
in black and blue and red
guards the place of the dead.
Vultures still circle overhead.
There is a memorial to the dead in Pisagua, pictured above; a solemn and frightening piece of wall art that tells the story of those taken, tortured, murdered and left in a mass grave under Pinochet’s orders.