The high alps
the bone mountains
we kill each other coldly
for the nameless are not real
we cannot read the letters tucked next to their hearts
Anonymous
we share the void
death is our brother
we live in the vertical
Italian infantry on the attack
scramble over rocks,over corpses,
screaming,brandishing their rifles uselessly,
as the Austrian machinegunners above
annihilate rank on rank.with ease,
until,at last, even the Austrians are sickened,
and call out, “Italians!Stop!Go back!
We don’t want to massacre you!”
D’Annunzio bellows swooning blood-incantation
over the heads of the masses;
the adolescent superman
his greyhounds in Hermès livery,
wears war like a carnation in his buttonhole.
the empire of the ego his to expand
Rock.Wind.Rain.
The horned viper’s hunting ground
You could scrape with your spade
for a hundred years
and not make a dent.
How will you even dig your grave here?
“Attack, you cowards, you stupid dogs!
Battles are not won from the trenches!”
General Cadorna rants at his troops.
He remembers his father dying,
raising a clenched fist.
Advance,advance,always advance,
with will and energy to conquer all;
it is the age of action as wisdom,
violence as religion.
General Conrad assures his Italian mistress,
“I much admire your people’s racial characteristics”
Yet hers is a lesser race, the congenital foe,
to be crushed.
The empire is doomed, he knows,
but better to perish honourably
than surrender without a fight.
A hopelss struggle,but it must be pursued,
for an ancient monarchy
cannot perish ingloriously.
The weather:
the third army
the legions of the dead
The Italian soldiers know an attack is imminent
when the military police mount their machineguns
behind the trench,
ready to shoot down their own countrymen
if they loiter when the battlecry “Savoy!” goes up.
Decimation for “deserters”.
Ten men chosen by lot
Against a cemetery wall.
Skylarks above the maizefields.
The firing squad aim.
Smell of thyme on the limestone ridges
snow gleaming blue under the moon
constellations overhead
the ecstasy of war
never more alive
than in death’s mountains
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