On the Centennial of the October (Bolshevik) Revolution: A Canticle
- On the Centennial of the October (Bolshevik) Revolution:A Canticle
Sooner or later, it had to happen….After workers got robbed naked, gaunt, starved,Their wages vandalized, their savings stripped,By oligarchical monarchs, posh scum—Czars and Machiavellian quislings—For whom iced vodka substitutes for blood—Syphilitic financiers, chartreuse-eyed,Drooling, all master pedophiles, eagerTo beggar kids, turn em into black-squadLabourers, penny-paid, their limbs buggeredIn sprockets and gears, or lopped by machines,Next to suffer absolute zero: Death….
Sooner or later, it had to happen….That slimy Theology, maggot priests,Domesticated whimpering, the scorched wasteOf Geopolitics, blood-gluttonous,The simpering dying off of millions(Millionaires excused), industrious plagues,Decay livid as rust, as snowed-overCorpses, faces sucking up mustard gas,As deformed as shadows, sprawling in pits—The muddy, low-down, low-brow-stuffed trenches—The once-tolerable Tragedy ofThe Eastern Front, all those pallid spooks…. [End Page 241]
Sooner or later, it had to happen….Bleeding over parliamentary pages,The civil strife of angina in schools,Ballet boxed-in tight—in boxing-rings—The pas-de-deux stymied by brute punches—The thundering damnation of cannon,Actually dirty, breeding pure dead-souls,Lacking all Allegiance—grisly, cold,Beautiful, dead things—eyes bumped, dumped intoBuckets; all had to—undoubtedly—Disdain the plaudits of poets, the liars(Plutocrats' propagandists), skulls squished flat….
Sooner or later, it had to happen….Dentures detonating Declarations ofWar; meat-eating voices, cesspool mouths, lipsClamping sewers, and peasants vomitingGreen-brown water (ex-red blood), scurvy juice,Loose teeth, Yellow Fever, Black Lung, gangrene,Heinous Bibliolatry, even thoughTheir pay is rats, botulism, rickets,Corrosion, Erosion, jail cells, tb,Monkey shoulders, chancres, paralysis,Bum tickers, strokes, diabetes, bilge, steepRates of debt, divorce, suicide, murder….
Sooner or later, a RevolutionHad to happen—Bolshevik, red-flagged Dawn—To stop fires from assassinating shacksWhere dull newspapers sulk, Tolstoy's belovedDirt-poor stooping where gas has clawed out eyes;Bare-assed, empty-handed, their HistoryFaltered, where Charity would sack palaces,Extravagant baubles, junk, FabergéEggs accounted less worthy than hens' eggs….But still the Revolution baffles cops—A "catastrophe," "conflagratory":"Unkempt décors frosted with tomb-like gilt…." [End Page 242]
Yes, let's boggle at that Revolution,Castigate "the butchers, the whoreson butchers!"But the idea uplifted '17.To put down monsters, unabated thugs!And sure quixotic! To dream that teamstersCould be prime ministers, that cooks could beJudges, and that all could share "Bread, Land, Peace";That doctors could go barefoot; that poetsCould draft Constitutions; that midwives couldPilot rockets; that daycare workers couldBoss banks; that cowgirls could be ceo's;That was the dream, and it was innocent.
Dominion-impressed soldiers weighed anchorFor the Soviet Union—to squash the "Reds":Yet, ideas run borderless. So was bornThe Winnipeg General Strike (or "Commune"),The Regina Manifesto, unions,Labour rights, credit unions, and publicHealth care, plus "The Welfare State"—simply.Russia's October Revolution wasA necessity. Never Tyranny!Though that Revolution turned sour, rotten,The ideals that citizens are equal,That governments serve citizens, are ours,Canadian—favoured at ballotingAnd savoured—grave—in our Constitution?[Kapolei (Hawaii) 19 octobre mmxvii] [End Page 243]
George Elliott Clarke is a revered poet and a prized scholar. An Africadian (African-Nova Scotian) of Afro-Metis (Cherokee) heritage, he has been a bestselling poet, acclaimed novelist, and groundbreaking scholar, having established the field of African-Canadian literature. A professor of English at the University of Toronto, Clarke served as the 7th Parliamentary Poet Laureate (2016–17).
