Sherman Marches to the Sea
To “make Georgia howl,” indelibly,
I bid the grasslands scorched,
then scraped bare—
by white ladies on all fours—
weeping (like slaves weep);
and still I torch their mansions and their barns.
Spare churches? Try to.
But I deem the Confederacy best off
as lapidary ashes.
To skewer plump cows and skinny calves—
every pretty, sweaty, greasy pig,
batter hen’s hot eggs
and then behead the hens—
and raze every white-tyrant town,
so that even pastors know miserable Disquiet,
That’s the inventory of Victory.
Death—Destruction—must be global.
Dixie must topple like a totem pole.
We must decimate the Rebs ten times over,
plus sack their crops and and hack their critters.
It is well within my remit
to commit
Devastation respecting no limit.
Miscreant massas and their silken damsels
don’t merit, generally,
an indiscriminate chopping down,
and I do urge the Union boys to be decent—
not too disdainful—
and gratify no brute blood-lust.
(Undisciplined Murder is undeclared Treason.)
We class our civilian enemies
as problematical scoundrels,
who can be handled with handcuffs,
not treated to summary massacre.
But their goods must get bad treatment.
We lay waste their palaces,
vandalize their memories,
their ink-scrawled tomes,
and smash their antiques,
rip up their portraits,
shred their wedding dresses,
crash down their fine china,
melt their silver into bullets that will kill their sons,
and set afire all that can’t be wrecked or smashed:
So, so much smoke and flame ensues,
the very sun seems dilapidated.
We unchain the blacks,
deliberately and accidentally,
so that Law is confounded by Reality.
(There’s no way to anchor birds.
Once free, the slaves display
the lightning flash of flight.)
By departing from Compassion,
we will deliver Lincoln
Georgia for Xmas.
See, we’re marathon warriors—
unruly traffic trampling magnolia stands
and peach orchards and onion pastures,
leaving heedless
Rebs homeless—or headless.
Such is our intuitive Gravitas.
Understand us as a shrieking tornado
plucking up the Confederacy, root and top,
then chucking all into fire
that not even blood can douse.
(Traitors must be transparently broken.)
I swear I condone no rape.
I condemn all rape.
I command all my Othellos—
“Wedge thy weapon into no white womb.”
Any United States soldier who flouts this rule
may as well stick his tongue down a shotgun barrel
and pull the trigger,
for my chastisement will not be slipshod,
but cruel to the umpteenth iota.
Any violator of a (white) female
will find himself become a bitch—
a “she-man,”
first gelded,
then cannonaded into jelly.
(Hark! I’m a mortal marksman.)
Once we reach the sea—
victorious
as the ranked waves ceaselessly coming,
then we can get as drunk as a wet rag,
soak up vitriolic alcohol,
and then we can wed willing women—
wild-haired women whose clothes are vines—
one-night only—
and press antinomian boots into springs,
and pound home till each quim brims and spurts,
and then we will commandeer locomotives,
leaning, inclining North,
chugging smoke, shunting us to Relief,
while Atlanta is yet smouldering ash….
Once we’ve won,
we leave the South’s Authorities gasping,
their bards choking, dust-crusted,
all cataloguing our accomplished ruptures.
Angels with chopped-off wings,
they’ll survey an extinct Eden—
a backdrop of cannonball-stumped-down pines—
a shivering mishmash of grey uniforms—
an ugly litter of faces, bearded or boyish,
those who erred on the side of Death.
Quintessential Conquistadors,
spectacular Assassins,
we’ll present Georgia as embers, corpses.
It will be a breathless campaign,
a viper-mouthed campaign:
Johnny Reb will wallow in his blood,
while we swallow his like Champagne.
When we establish our Pax Americana,
dawn will show an indissoluble gold light.
Men!
I spy that great morning
in the offing:
The grey dead bleach
ass-down in their grassy ghetto.
[Windsor (Ontario) 27 octobre mmxii]
1 Comment
Impressive, and hard to read imagining that history.
Johanna