Fascist by the lb.

Fascist by the lb.

Alex: Welcome and here we are again
so let's play Jeopardy.
Ezra: I'll take the category
"Fascist by the lb." for 200 - Alex.
Question: The number of delicious obscure cantoes.
Ezra: What are 117 ideogramic measures?
Alex: That's right you certainly know this written recipe.
Ezra: You could say I invented poetic Jeopardy.
"Fascist by the lb." for sze-hundred,
which as everyone should know sze -
is Mandarin for the number 4
and is pronounced as I "say".
Question: This famous landmark shadowed you in Italy
and was the sight of Galileo's famous experiment.
Ezra: What is Pisa's leaning tower?
Alex: Correct where they placed you in stockade
for treason forced to confront
your own mad devils hour by
dreadful hour. And let's move right along.
Ezra: Fascist for 600 por favora.
Question: The year you were released from St. Elizabeth's
Mental Hospital for the criminally insane.
Ezra: What is the year 1947?
When the light brightens
in sprintime of dolphins that dance among clouds.
And I must return where they understand
when stars go down toward their rest.
Alex: Helped by your frothy friends
full of Bollingen rhyme ---
who claimed your crime was only of intellect.
          While you whined you were "protecting
          a constitution" you said you despised.
Guilt or your tortured phrases
indelibly etched on your face
that could never be exorcised
from your map of subterranean metro.
Ezra: Yes they cheered my pure artist's perogative
and followed my power over the wild beasts.
Alex: Some would say you were mistakenly catered to.
But while we take a brief interlude from our game -
Ezra to what do you attribute your status?
Ezra: Being more alive than they,
more full of flame and voice.
I was imprisoned unjustly because as everyone
capable of sentient thought knows;
I told the truth on my Milan radio show,
about how despicable were these Jews,
Roosevelt, America, and the other bourgeois democracies.
And yes I idolized Der Fuhrer  and Il Duce.
And yes I prayed for the Fascista would win the war.
And yes it is immoral allowing any interference
to theose in my postiton who are menaced by swine.
Alex: No...I meant your literary and academic accomplishments.
Ezra: Surely you and all the viewers are aware,
how I discovered and advanced the careers
of T.S.Elliot, Hilda Doolittle, James Joyce.
All the great versifiers of which
my palazo  would thunder
with my own magical moments.
Alex: We're certainly discovering a lot about you.
That your words still stand
uncancelled...So let's proceed.
Ezra: The same subject for 800 - The year 800
being the highpoint of the sublime T'ang dynasty,
with that period's wonderful ceramics
which defy words from the mouth of god
to define their beauty and purity.
Question: The name of the caves
just outside Rome where the Nazis
executed thousands of innocent civilians,
an event you denied on your broadcasts
all the while claiming this and other massacres
were just propaganda rumors spread
by the Allies who you still say-
are unworthy of your words.
Ezra: What are the Caetina Caves also known as Adreatine?
Where I would bring picnics and write verse.
          And no that could not have happened.
Because I was assured my words were truth!
And I feel suddenly overcome by thirst.
Give me that dark purple grappa.
Give me that honourable liquid prescription
coupled with bowlfulls of fragrant pesto.
The white and green of reggiano and basil
which reminds me of seasons of love.
When we drank from the sun in golden cups.
But now I am whipped by a tempest,
and I see my skin blanched thinly white.
My own genius shines through this delicate tissue
translucent as the finest pottery.
Much like all those naked bodies
stacked on top of one another in those camps.
A strange light eminating from their flesh.
Visions I am made to endure and live with,
repeated forever in those horrible newsreels.
Alex: All those atrocities
against nature you charge
never happened,
while you destroyed faith.
As if those humans beings were nothing
but expendable Chinese pottery.
Smashed pots discarded by an artist
searching for melodramatic perfection.
Outfitted in your black flowing cape,
always role playing as the high-priest of syllables.
Ezra: Could I halt now I feel queerly fatigued,
with this monograph about cake-eaters and  consumers
of capitalism's icy images because I would rather forget
the past and speak of poetry and masterpieces.
Alex: But you glorified this locus and intersection
of darkness and condemnation.
Using your skill to mock and destroy
while you licked jack-boots
which goose-stepped and kicked pregnant bellies
ripe with mother's milk.
And this is Jeopardy so you must continue.
Ezra: Andiamo, very well for 1000 then.
Question: The place in northern Italy
where you lived out your remaining years.
Ezra: At Rapallo and of course the festivals at Spoleto.
Which were attended by magnificent artists,
enjoying the pleasures of the senses,
paraphrasing the classical status-quo.
Voices already yellow with August
call to me from beyond the sunset.
And of the best; I among them am dead also,
or just condemned to everlasting memory
in some trivial game of my own creation
that refuses to allow somw respite.
Alex: You forgot to put your answer
in the form of a question,
all the while never asking
forgiveness from your twisted mind
full of academic bon-mots.
Ezra: Is this my final Jeopardy?
Alex: We still have endless clues
for a man of your exceeded condition of intelligence.
Because you were always weighed
on a special scale
without thought of consequence.
So let's begin again shall we.
with the only clue in the form of a question
that could be answered by you.
Question: Is a man one thing and his poetry another?