Looking through the window at the crowd
Anxious faces, tense  like sad, wild birds
I saw this city covered in a shroud.

I heard a violinist play with head unbowed
Yet all her  ears  could find was wild discord,
Why listen to the Nazis’ fathers now?

I  have felt the future disallowed
Communities turned into shuffling hordes.
I see my London bows down in her shroud.

A few can see, but they are not the proud
It’s  getting late, who saves their vision rare?
I’m looking through the windows at the crowd

The sun is bright so highlights black and blood.
Male politicians stroke their nuts and swear.
The shroud  in Selfies makes a  big, sweet cloud

How do they have the nerve, how do they dare
To sell to us the means to film despair?
Looking through the door at Friday crowds
I  touched their flames, red, urgent; hellish clowns

 

 

 

“That summer, Litvyak finally got her chance at combat. She flew defensive missions over the port city Saratov, an important strategic location on the Volga. Having succeeded in those, she and some of the other women in 586 Regiment were transferred to a male regiment within the vicinity of Stalingrad, during the early stages of the infamous six-month struggle for the city. On September 13, she entered a dogfight against Germany’s Jagdgeschwader 53 unit, among the most lethal fighter pilots on earth. Litvyak came through unscathed and brought down her first Nazi plane, piloted by Erwin Maier, who was immediately captured by the Soviets. Later that day, Maier’s captors introduced him to Litvyak. It took a long time to convince him that this tiny blonde woman—little more than a girl—had been the one to end his war.

Over the coming weeks, Litvyak flew further successful missions and gained the dubious distinction of being the first woman in history to kill enemy combatants in the air. Her legendary exploits spread to Germany where outlandish tales turned her into a vampish figure, a warrior femme fatale with a delicate white rose painted on the side of her killing machine. The flower was actually a lily, a reference to her first name, though she did keep a picture of a rose with her in the cockpit, as well as bunches of wild flowers, which she got up early in the morning to pick, and sometimes spread on the wings of her stationery aircraft in preparation for a mission.

Litvyak impressed everyone with her calmness and skill in the maelstrom of combat. ”

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/tag/white-rose-of-stalingrad/

I have never heard before about Soviet women who became pilots in the fight to defend Stalingrad in the air against the highly skilled German Nazis aerial bombardment.

Seminar cancelled

I am waiting for  the Royal male
The hawk wants to pray
The cat is eating the pigeons
My husband needs a gold meddle.
I’ve lost my seminary.
I’ve  lost my voice.
I feel permanently detached
The owl needs glasses
Durham is flooded
I don’t know
Move to Yawk?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I dreamed I lived up in Uttoxeter
Near the Peaks and Pennine landscapes high
I have a wife abroad, I   have just texted her

I married but never yet had sex with her
For she is cold and frosty ,can’t say why.
I dreamed I lived up in Uttoxeter

She said that she was moving down to Exeter
She’d changed her gender, good grief so must I.
I have a wife abroad, I have just texted her

Since I turned a woman.I’ve detested her
She’s a  man but tell me, does he lie?
I dreamed I escaped  back  to Uttoxeter

I got my  phone  and  told her, so bizarre
I’m a woman, hot with sultry thighs.
I have a wife, now male, I’ve been expecting her.

I rarely tell the truth unless I lie.
In  the Peaks I love the  Blakean sky
I want to liven up  Uttoxeter
I have a wife, I feel  too stressed with her