The Life Review of Robin Ludd
By © Anton
Vendamencsh, 2017
7 Loop de Loop
The train from Weimar
(on a humanitarian
mission
To evacuate
Demoralized City-folk
And other
Capitalists
From populist
And ludite inquisitors
Experienced in
sacking
Countryside
estates
Of Baltic barons
From Rigawood)
Took us to Vilseck
A military camp
And ammunition dump
In the wood
Threwn with hundreds
Of unexploded
Phosphorus bombs
And a dozen Kasernen*
Which became home
To refugees fleeing
From Commies
After blood.
Now there’s
a noteworthy word:
*Ka-sern—
From the
word ‘castle’
Al-Qasr in
Arabic
Ca-strum
in Latin
Meaning an armed
camp.
A word that
With the assistance
Of mindfull pareidolia
Converts to Jeru-salem
Home of lambs
In times when men
Were not yet murderers.
Does not ‘strum’
Stand for straw?
Does not ‘salm’ in Latvijan
Also mean straw
And soloma (солома)
in Russian
Mean the same?
Is not Jerusalem
The same as Jaroslav
(Jaro meaning
lamb
From Greek yarn-aki
Russian = yagnenok
=English yarn)?
When all is ssid and done
Does not the
word send
To the back of the skull
A photograph
Of a straw threwn floor
A straw mattress
For soldiers or lambs
Or luddies of Nottingham
Turned out of home
By missionaries of violence.
After taking us
To Jerusalem in Bavaria,
The cattle wagons
Brought us
(Mother and brood)
By way of
Bamberg, Amberg,
To Beutauklingen Strasse
In Esslingen am Neckar
A suburb of Stuttgart
And on to New York
And last to Boston
Where a small family
That made a living
Keeping a house
For orphans
Gave me room and board
In return for
A helping hand
And where
In the afternoons
I played endless
games of chess
With Charlie
A retired sea captain,
Who bored with life
Was succored
Many an afternoon
By Nellie
To the chagrin
Of Delores.
For a few years
It was as if
I had an anchor.
But playing
chess
Informed me
I was but a
pawn
In a game
played
To the end
of no other end
than to check mate
Endless boredom
in the
labyrinth
of yet another
city
born of indiference
to violence.
It was not
Charlies fault.
He had no idea
Why and how
The ocean came
to stop
At the gates
Of Boston
harbor.
Please,
Do not ask.
Why I did not
sink roots.
Of course, I tried
And played
The harmonica
To sweet Valvala
Who lived
Next door
And who
in answer cried:
”I am ready
For you, Robin !
I am ready !”
I never forgot
And continue to
regret
It was I
Who was not
ready.
Sideswiped and robbed
Of my inheritance
By God
(Chance Circumstance)
And by Milia’s stepson
Poor Creon
Who frightened
By everything but wealth
Took advantage
And displayed
The portrait
Of murdered grandfather
His stepmother’s victim*
On the wall
Of his Toronto home
As a trophy
For me to
behold
When I answered
His invitation
To come visit
Then chased me
From his dining
table
When I
confronted
His insolence.
*Surely it was
Yesterday’s revenge
On tomorrow
(And tomorrow’s revenge
On yesterday)
When two weeks after
Her birthday
Milia died
(on 23rd of September)
Next to
A Siberian salt mine
After buying
With a diamond
(Where did she hide it?)
And eating
A can of salmonella
Infected sprats.
Soon I found myself
In Inchon
Three days
After the
armistice
Of a United
Nations
Led war
That masacred
Over three million
North Korean commies
Soldiers and
civilians
Indiscriminately.
Finding myself
Among fucked-up
American soldiers
And superfluous men
I did my bit
For humankind
Born as sometimes
Mushrooms do
Through asphalt
And stared bewildered
At bare breasted
Korean peasant women
Walk ten paces behind
Their husbands.
Still, when
The peasants’ daughters
Went from
cot to cot
Selling the meat
Of their thighs
In our ten man tent
I turned
to my other side
Wherefore I earned
The sobriquet
‘Stuck-up’.
I was trapped
And knew of
No way out.
No one
Had figured out
That country folk
(Their spirit killed
In the American civil war)
When driven north
To Chicago
(where they met up
With Lithuanian peasants)
Became an altogether
Different species
Hence called
City-folk.
Months later
In a Japanese hotel
In Kobe (Jerusalem
Of ancient Japan)
When Maya
(a peasant girl
And whore)
Asked me to marry her
And I said
”I cannot”
We embraced
And both of us wept.
Maya then took me
To the shrine
For fucked-up and
Aborted children.
I did not fully
Understand why
But months
later
While drilling a
sock
I had an
inkling.
Of her despair.
My last week
I told a sargeant
Brown-nosing his way
Into officers’ school
To ”go fuck!”
And was ordered
To dig a latrine.
Back in the States
I chose not
To ship over
And returned to Boston
Where
For reasons unknown
Boston University
Did not accept
My application
To the school of theology.
Wherefore
I took up English
And signed up
For a poetry seminar
Given by the poet
Robert Lowell
Who had written
Prize winning
”Lord Weary’s Castle”.
Indeed,
I had never heard
Of Lowell or his book
Or of confessional poetry.
I do not know how
I came to write:
”...bloodpost
Will become
Life again.”
Still, thereafter
I could no more
Make sense
Of anything
For what seemed
Like ages
My incoherance
Refused to cure.
I discovered
(Intuitively I suppose)
That life demanded
I live it through
Rethink my past
Before I dare say
Anything about it.
University bored me
And I became
An auto-didact
And tried my hand
At other arts:
sculpture and
paint.
These took no
words
to do.
When I said good bye
To mother
Before returning
To the all too quickly
Fucked up
‘Renewed Latvija’
Mother told:
”I have made my peace
With God”
As if it was God
Who had
Fucked her up.
So, here I am
Perhaps to meet
her
Soon again.
Oh, I nearly forgot.
The woman
Who endured me
For 30 years
Called me
‘finches mouth’
And during an argument
Pointed her finger
At her open mouth
And gaged me.
In an instant
Thirty years
Turned into a Neverland.
As a Greek vase painting
pictures it:
Here is Jason
Spit
From the serpent’s gut
Well cooked
In the heat of towering
Nuclear Cities.
