MERCEDES WEBB-PULLMAN I Am the Real Fidel, in 14-sections
poetryrepairs #199 v14.04:045

Sierra Meastra
Power is necessary
The Argentine
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Sierra Meastra
How easily we're beaten in that sugar cane field in Algria del Pio; see how our revolutionaries fall like skittles to Batista's men. They hack us into quarters. Twenty dead, twenty-one captured and sent to prison; twenty-one escaped to go home, and the rest of us like whipped curs pissing with fear, tails between our legs retreat up into the mountains. Beaten by air force and army. We need to learn that discipline to change, adapt, turn defeat into the first step to success. Peasants keep us alive. We train, rehearse, discuss, learn – Celia is a man too. Lenin's words about the proletariat finally make sense to me here, hiding in the cold mountains, sense they didn't make in the city. I'm sure I dream his dreams. The Revolution is imminent. The Revolution never ends. We fight on our terms now strike and flee. The army comes in summer during winter we plan. We weld a unit designed and tuned for revolutionary war. One last battle at the end of the second summer at Jigue and three hundred rebels defeat ten thousand soldiers. Now we have an army.

poetryrepairs #199 v14.04:045

All the fine arts are species of poetry--Samuel Taylor Coleridge

poetry repairs your heart
even as it splits it open.
VIRGINIA WOOLF
The Art of Reading



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Power is necessary
We, the 26th of July team don't like other factions; Revolutionary Directorate Second Front; we stay ahead of independent guerrilla armies by executing them. We levy tax; businessmen fund our revolution. Landowners beg the Yanquis for a new rule without Dictator Batista or Communist Castro. And they beg me to let them harvest their sugar. Batista flees denied entry to American territory. Two whole army troops revolt and join us as we enter Santiago. Soldiers, rebels and citizens a revolutionary coup d'état. Already the CIA conspires against me against the army: all the factions including communists conspire against each other and against me. I harness and drive them all for the Revolution. They can't do just as they please. My temper flares violently when I'm opposed. I want to set fire to Santiago; I make it the new capital instead proclaim a new president for Cuba then head down Central Highway my Sherman tank leading the convoy. Now Batista's forces are defeated I'm already wondering how to create the next substantial enemy, to keep the Revolution engaged and strong. Yoruba's supreme god blesses me. Two doves land on my shoulder.

poetryrepairs #199 v14.04:045

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The Argentine
What can I say about Che? Raul brings us together, 1955, Mexico City where we're organizing the Revolution he wants to join in. I'm impressed. He's always in the action. He's a doctor but not mine, knows Marx/Lenin theory and he's a cold-blooded killer too. I swing between pride and jealousy. Always scribbling in his notebooks. He and Raul together are dangerous but I can control Raul. They want Cuba with Communism and I don't want the Revolution to end. It's my Revolution. Che may understand why I keep him running around the world with cases of bribe cigars, Revolutionary pin-up boy; my only mission is to protect the Cuban people. I mustn't lose control. There's a lot of work to do. I keep him busy. There's no Communist Party of Cuba until 1961, when I need to play the Russians against the CIA and the USA who don't necessarily always work together. I admit Che is a brilliant guerrilla commander, men adore him. Latins are always looking for miracle workers to follow; his asthma makes him vulnerable, they love him more. I am the world's most popular politician Communism's strongest modern icon more attractive, more original than Kennedy but the world's most famous photograph is of him. By the time that Korda picture comes out Che is already dead. He surrenders to the enemy. A traitor. He has to die. The Revolution needs a martyr. They send me his hands, later the rest of his body, the tobacco pouch from his final smoke. I had to give up cigars. I still dream of smoking. I bring his body back from Bolivia eventually.


poetryrepairs #199 v14.04:045

Poetry endangers the established order
of the soul - Plato

REPAIR: resort, frequent or habitual going; concourse or confluence of people at or in a place; making one's way; to go, betake oneself, to arrive; return to a place; to dwell; to recover, heal, or cure; to renew; to fix to original condition.
-- Oxford English Dictionary



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Sierra Meastra
Power is necessary
The Argentine

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MERCEDES WEBB-PULLMAN I Am the Real Fidel, in 14-sections
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