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Whatever Happened to Issac Babel?
Whatever happened to Isaac Babel?
And if it comes to that –
whatever happened to those old men of Hackney
who sat around a wireless, weeping tears of pride
at weather forecasts from Radio Moscow?
Whatever happened to us? The Lovers of Peace?
And to our proud banners?
Whatever happened to our son?
And to that Picasso dove of Peace
We brought him back from Budapest?
Whatever happened to that little man
who tried to leap above himself?
He had a fire in his eyes;
a certain beauty in his eyes.
Or maybe that was merely poverty.
Whatever happened Vladimir?
Mayakovsky? Sergein Esenin? And Leon Trotsky?
Between the Instant Quaker and the Colour Supplement
we are apt to find no time to talk to them.
But then, we are apt to find no time to talk.
Now it is day,
and rather late in the day.
Whatever happened to us?
We are the worm contractors;
Lusty youths of fire have become tweeded teachers,
with a swish Hi-fi that was bought for cash
and a smashing collection of Protest Songs.
Oh ye dreamers of peace!
Dreamers of bright red dawn!
Whatever happened to that dream?
The dead are buried and the years
and forests of computers cover us.
We are crushed within the heart.
We are gone like prophet Leon
with ice-picks in our brain.
But there is no red stain.
We leave nothing behind
Except volumes and volumes; such beautiful volumes.
Unread but rather splendidly
displayed upon tasteful teak.
Oh ye sitters down for peace!
Only the pigeons protest
these days down Whitehall.
Oh Comrades of Slogan Square!
This is a windy Judas corner;
This is the fraught, frozen-over winter park.
I smile and walk backward.
If you insist I am also part of this.
But through my clenched teeth.
I somehow cannot stop myself chanting.
Whatever happened to Isaac Babel?
Whatever became of me?
I think often of Isaac Babel,
Of his unsung death.
And as I walk away from you
I know that I am all full up.
I am all full up with people.
I have no vacancies.
Suicide at forty would be mere exhibitionism.
Besides, I have songs to sing.
Songs for myself;
songs to keep me warm;
songs to feed into mouths.
And I have one mouth in particular to kiss;
and eyes above that mouth from where I draw my songs.
He was a funny little man, Isaac Babel.
And one would have thought him a nonentity,
had they not needed to dispose of him
so thoroughly in the dark.
You have to draw the line somewhere.
Yes, I think often of that little man
“with glasses on his nose and Autumn in his heart”.
Isaac Babel! Can you hear me?
I think often of your untelevised death.
Whatever happened to us
returning from Whitehall
our banners smudged with rain,
our slogans running away?
Us waving, shaving, running after
our going youth and euphoria.
Hurtling through these fattening years
of hollow laughter.
And incidentally – who are we and
where are we?
So dreams die.
My dreams.
So can you blame me for building
barricades in West Hampstead?
Nice flat. Garden flat; unnumbered,
somewhere behind the Finchley Road.
With children laughing and children crying
and within me still one thread of longing.
And one wife calm and warm, belonging.
So – where was I?
Oh yes! Whatever happened to –
What was his name?
Never mind, nothing really changes;
Except children grow,
and we realise there is nowhere else to go.
There is only us now. Us alone.
And not forgetting that rather funny
Little Jewish Cossack fellow
who at the moment slips the mind.
Not to worry, they’re bound to know his name
in Better Books.
There is a certain joy in knowing;
but then again a certain peace and quiet in
half forgetting.
1998
