February/March 2005




The Enigma of Hitler
Against Illusion Lake
by
Jeff Crouch


*Enigma of Hitler by Salvador Dali*

 

Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial...[ .M]eanwhile[,] the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers[,]and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit.

white calm, clinical, Mengele
Walrus, Carpenter: shucking skull
head but an oyster on the Wahnsee
gold filling, crutch, veteran, prosthetic

obscene tenderly enfleshes mother
cooking the day’s catch over a drum
“I’ll give you a kiss” and squirting teeth
her marble skin, a sky made of twin

all the submarine never a blot
the missing face of the woman in cloth
masks no periscope, periscope
up and looks around, eerie, this illusion lake 

llorando por tu amor
Planet of the Apes, not Pythagoras but for bean
silver seashell, odd Venus
fingernail, castigate, Fritz Lang

hurry up this evolution, olvidar
in the grand music of confusion
tunnel to Llorando
escape, knot, what’s “Gift

a drugged Eichmann swirls, playa
con telefono
, olive branch, diarrhea, the tone
his greybrown batwing, his umbrella
angry molars, the caves must be near

salt sky of the sea, mirrors sand
lampshade made of skin, your clone
but Watson and Crick
that you alone, instrument of the state

a collector of corpses and death
in the name of God, in the name of science
in the Third Reich, muerte, the name of
a massive relocation project

Wahnsee Conference, Zyklon B
Madagascar, Odessa File, Brazil, Boys from
Simon says, tomorrow people
witness protection, negative

no carrier pigeon, no sky, no wire
Wahn, not Wahn—hop in and take a shower
Faust, the poodle , Gretchen
Mr. Chamberlain, the phone like a mammal

leftover message on the recorder
manufacture of corpses clouded
completely the sea wireless yet
Mulholland Dr  and pregnant

her marble skin, milk of porcelain
Hitler in another picture
The Enigma of Hitler, spit dripping tear
bigote painterly bristle

castrate, body count, Stalin, Hitler
big number, the score, the blood
Eva Braun-Peron pushing der Fuehrer
stairway to heaven, boco, tongue

that bloody bubble from the telephone
in the wheelchair, Helmut Netwon
absent as Rilke, violins violin
ich geige, ich geige fuer dich

glare crazily into the inspired audience
“I am not your friend”
forever watching The Matrix
by(e) Dali, re-, re-, re- incarnation

the tone, repeat the tone, tone back
bone network bone flying
2001, the mountain, the seeded plate
the beach, a sublime moment

llorando por tu amor, flying saucer
almost empty techtonics of tree, trunk and branch
Aldous Huxley was all he thought
the phone, by the way, is a hook


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