Bariloche

[smokingboot]

I am aware of the conspiracy theories around Hitler's supposed escape and exile in Patagonia; and it always seemed strange that a man so fervently dedicated to externalising his issues, to always finding an external agency to blame for whatever went wrong, would suddenly internalise to such an overwhelming degree that he would kill himself. However, such theories are unverifiable and actually,not particularly important. Still, maybe it is because of this, or because we are going to Munich again, that this rather horrible but haunting little poem came to me, like someone saying it in my ears. There's an underlying nastiness to it, not indelicate but repulsive, perhaps because of the subject matter. But it lives and has an internal consistency, so it can join all my other work.

Bariloche, Bariloche
A still lake and the mountains rising
as they once compassed an Eagle’s Nest
Somewhere not Bariloche.

Shall we go down into town?
Shall we smile at the clocktower?
We shall sit here and remember
A place like Bariloche

Cool and sweet in Summer
Impassable in Winter
Red and Black and Gold for the victor
For us there’s Bariloche.

Over his dreamland, the Eyrie
troubled him with vertigo
For all he dared not admit it
He prefered Bariloche

We rebuilt him from photographs,
Newspaper cuttings thrown into the lake
time-torn apart; all for the dreaming dead
who walk in Bariloche

© Copyright and all rights reserved Debbie Gallagher June 2014