WYNDHAM LEWIS(1882-1957)

In the end, you had dropped Jews

from the (long) list of people you hated

(having cheered Hitler for six years),

although you kept the antisemitic

version of Tarr as the 'correct one'.

This, to your apologists, means

that everything is forgiven. A

single act of sanity justifies all

the rest of your insanity to them

as they embrace you as one of

their own, those conservatives

and liberals and their hybrids.

But you were magnificent,

they claim - a British author

and painter riding the whirpool

of modernism like you knew

what you were doing. Not

one of those repatriated colonials

either. A magnificent beast.

Alas,

it's the destinations you rode

to which matter. Brilliance

on the way hardly matters

when the end result is white boys

in black making funny salutes

shouting slogans about blood

and soil and especially about blood.

Ends, as it happens old boy,

rather nominated your time

and ours. Those destinations

you wanted to paint white

for the boys in black and

with funny salutes to

perform in with their

guns pointed at us.

I rather think

we should have

hanged you.

08.11.2017