POEMING AND ROAMING.

 

            🍸

A DRUNKARD’S

EPITAPTH

"Funnily!

I’ve Luved Hup

To You’re

Epecations."

 

CRUSADE

Outside my window

In the street

Are the sounds

Of drums and laughter,

And other campaigns.

 

A HOTTENTOT’S DREAM

Sun and rain,

green fields and cattle grazing.

A village waking.

Cook fires smoking,

Children playing.

 

Then the rattling sounds

of infernal machines.

 

Sun and rain.

 

WE CARRY OUR WOUNDS 

LIKE SWORDS

You know you’d just harry them—

any or all that come your way.

Like a terrier at a rat,

you’ll wring their necks

limp between your jaws.

Soon they’ll give up,

defeated or deformed,

usually both.

They’ll stay or else move on.

Also, usually both.

And so, it’s just as well

You’ll close the blinds,

close the day off from the night.

Then you’ll sit as still

and close as you can,

biting down hard

until your teeth crack.

 

It’s better this way,

better for all concerned.

Even for those who are not.

 

SINCE YOU WENT AWAY

Since you went away,

It’s long I’d meant to say:

That earth does sim’lar seem

to wend a likewise way.

 

PEANUT GALLERY

After the rainstorm,

An eclipse of moths

gathered to laugh

at Butterfly, who floated

disarrayed

amid the fusillade 

of water raining down

from the dunking trees.

Battered, bent,

brilliant and bejeweled,

with cloud-soft eyes

and wind-kissed wings,

she deigns one flick

of her proboscis at them,

then flits, like a crimson leaf,

up the airy stair

into the pool of sunlight,

and is gone.

 

ISLE OF CATS

They move about

in great mystery

and I am filled

with their silence.

Yet, they remain

indifferent

to my presence.

Cats! 😸

 

 

RUSSIA’S demand that Ukraine (or what’s left of it) adopt neutrality as part of its constitution to ensure no future NATO armies or munitions would be emplaced within its borders got me wondering about Austria, neutral since WWII, and how that country came to adopt such a status. So, here's a short and far from complete history of Austrian neutrality:

DURING the 1930s, Nazi-supported political parties in Austria campaigned for the reunification of German peoples under the banner of an expanded Germany. At the time, there was considerable turmoil and economic distress within Austria, that gave rise to a homegrown, fascist government, the “Fatherland Front”, which tried to maintain Austrian independence. But, the country faced growing pressures of assimilation from neighbouring Germany. “Anschluss” (‘joining’, or ‘connection’) of the “Volksdeutsche” (ethnic Germans outside Germany) with the motherland was a decades-long ambition for German nationalists that was realized in March 1938 when the German army entered the country unopposed and incorporated it into Nazi Germany.

AFTER 1945, Austria was declared the first “victim” of Hitler’s war of aggression, despite it being culpable in war crimes carried out by Germany as a whole. Cold War politics found Austria divided into four zones of influence between the victorious Allies (the USSR, the USA, France, and Great Britain), and it remained a hotspot of intrigue and espionage in Europe. Vienna, isolated in the USSR’s occupation zone, also was divided among the four victorious powers, like Berlin.

THERE was a consensus among the occupying powers that Austria would be given its sovereignty someday and that the expensive deployment of armies in the country would eventually end. Negotiations began in 1945 but it took years to resolve Austria’s future, with a major bone of contention being the Soviet’s confiscation of Austrian assets from within their zone. Gradually, a treaty formula was reached which stipulated Austrian neutrality “on the Swiss model”, along with guarantees of no future Auschluss, no foreign armies on its soil, and to never join an alliance (NATO, Warsaw Pact). With the signing of the “Austrian State Treaty” of May 1955, the occupying powers withdrew their troops, and a neutral Austria was able to join the world community as a free, democratic, and sovereign nation. On 15 December 1955, Austria became the 70^th member of the United Nations. Without the promise of perpetual neutrality, it is unlikely such a status for Austria would have been achieved.

 

IN EUROPE DURING WWII, several nations opted to be neutral or non-aligned* including Sweden, Ireland, Spain, and Portugal, and several “micro-states” such as the Vatican. Today, only Switzerland, Austria and Malta are officially neutral. (Recently, Finland⁺ has joined NATO and Sweden soon may become a member, as well.😟) In 2022, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prompted political debate within Austria about whether it should join NATO as a security measure against Russia. However, recent polls show over 70% of the population remains in favour of neutrality, putting any move to join NATO on the back burner.

 

Cheers, Jake______________________________________

 

* A “non-aligned” nation is one that “does not support or depend on any powerful country or group of countries.

+ In April 2023, Finland was granted membership in NATO. For decades, it had been a neutral neighbour of Russia, enjoying trade and peaceful cross-border relations. In recent years, domestic politics saw the rise of a pro-Western government in Helsinki which made the decision to join the military alliance. In response, Russia is establishing military bases along the 1300-mile long border it shares with Finland, under the newly-formed “Leningrad Military District”. The district’s name is a pointed reminder to Finland of how seriously Russia would view any buildup of NATO forces along its borders. 

Leningrad, of course, was where Russian defenders held off invading German troops for months during WWII until the siege was finally broken when Hitler’s armies withdrew in advance of the Russian counteroffensive. Over 800,000 civilians died as a result of the siege and blockade. Leningrad was renamed St. Petersburg in 1991. 

 

 

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