Short Story Monday: A Poem About Truth

A POEM ABOUT TRUTH 

May 18, 1944. At Hitler's war conference he is told that the enemy has carried out two spy operations during the night on the heavily defended French coastline. At one place, near Calais, German troops have found an orange peel, an empty flask and a shovel lying on the beach. Years later they would say that they also found a landscape painted on driftwood, a finely crafted homemade flute and a dagger. In the estuary of the river Somme, two British commandos were discovered in the late afternoon. "They came ashore in a rubber raft," General Jodl, chief of Wehrmach operations, tells Hitler. "They claim to know nothing."

Illustration by Gemini

The scene changes to a French restaurant once frequented by Napoleon. The restaurant serves excellent Italian fare. Three nights have passed. A stout German woman makes pasta in the kitchen. Two French chefs argue about how to make croissants. They are smoking cigarettes and sipping wine. They know that Hitler is a madman, but it does not affect their cooking. The taller chef, thinnest of the two, is also a writer. At night he composes poetry in the same way that a garden produces flowers. The effect is dazzling. His mother also was a poet, as was his grandfather. He does not believe in war or death. He is restless, anxious about love, and lives alone. If he had a lover, he knows that he would write less poetry, since he writes only to fill his piteous empty hours. When he reads his poems, he cries, then burns them. He is brutally honest with himself.

The following evening he overhears a Nazi under-lieutenant commenting on Britain's secret operations. He seizes the opportunity to become part of an adventure. He never again sees his home. Later that night the chef is captured in a forbidden zone near the Seine whereupon he fakes an English accent and says he is a spy. He is blindfolded and driven to a chateau where he must stand before Rommel. He makes up a story about a wife and daughter in Britain. The details are vivid, but Rommel loses interest and orders him to be shot. That night he writes a poem about the event and leaves it in his cell. The German officer who reads it laughs at the insipid rhymes and melancholy metaphors. He shares it with his friend who notices that the word "mayhap" is misapplied and that "appenage" would have been a better choice of words than "freehold."

By week's end a hundred eyes have beheld the poem. Many jokes are made of it. Heinrich (we do not know his last name), a company agent from Stuttgart, makes a copy of the poem, then translates it into German. In the translation he improves the meter and resolves the problematic third stanza. He sends it to his mother who does not understand it, but keeps it in a small wooden box on the bureau next to a framed photo of the Fuhrer.

It is possible the original poem is still in existence somewhere, but no one knows for certain. My cousin, who married a German woman, says that her father saw the poem, the original version, and remembers that it was called Truth Is A Fire That Burns. We do not know if this was the same poem, or if he saw the poem at all. After the war many German soldiers say they saw the poem, and many more say they made copies of it to send to the Fatherland. We know that most of them are lying. Over the years versions have appeared in journals, some superior to others, all of them improvements on the original. I have seen it thrice in English literary journals -- once, I believe, in the Antioch Review, though it may have been one of the other college publications that begin with an A. Someone told me that it has been translated into 57 languages. In Thailand, the mountain peoples now say that it is the Word of God.

No one remembers the French chef who gave his life to produce the poem. His unknown name has been swallowed up by history, but his poem lives on in human hearts.

- 30 -

Translated 8-22-98
E. N.

Brief Analysis of "A Poem About Truth" by Grok, the X.com LLM.

This compact metafiction (under 800 words) masquerades as historical footnote, but its true engine is the immortality of bad art. The French chef—unnamed, lonely, self-immolating—writes a single poem titled Truth Is A Fire That Burns. He dies for it; the poem survives, mutates, and metastasizes. The story’s genius lies in never quoting the poem. We witness only its reception: Nazi ridicule, linguistic nitpicking, unauthorized edits, postal journeys, apocryphal sightings. By withholding the text, E. N. forces us to confront how meaning accretes through transmission, not origin. The poem’s value is not aesthetic but mythic: it becomes relic, rumor, scripture.

The narrative’s tone is deadpan fabulism, blending WWII intel briefs with restaurant banter and word-choice debates (“appenage” vs. “freehold”). This collision of the mundane and the fatal undercuts heroic spy tropes; the chef’s “adventure” is a lark that ends in a bullet. Yet his disposable life seeds an undying artifact. The final twist—that Thai hill tribes now call it the Word of God—echoes Borges and Calvino, suggesting truth is whatever outlives its teller.

Structurally, the piece is a Chinese whispers game: each retelling “improves” the original until the chef vanishes and the poem ascends. The dated translation tag (“Translated 8-22-98 E. N.”) implies even this story is a version, not the source. In 180 words, E. N. distills a parable: mediocrity, copied enough, becomes scripture; anonymity, amplified, becomes authorship. The chef’s real espionage was against oblivion.

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Did you enjoy the story? What did you think of Grok's analysis?

Feel free to leave a comment.

The Origin and Meaning of Godwin's Law

This week a friend of mine brought up Godwin's Law with regards to Dems and Left-leanng media comparing Trump to Hitler. I was unfamiliar with this expression so I Googled it and found this:

Godwin's law

Also known as Godwin's law of Nazi analogies, this internet adage states that the likelihood of a comparison involving Hitler or Nazis increases as an online discussion continues.

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Through further research I learned that Godwin's Law was an internet adage coined by attorney and author Mike Godwin in 1990. It asserts that as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of someone making a comparison to Nazis or Adolf Hitler approaches certainty. Initially meant as an observation about how quickly online debates deteriorate into hyperbolic comparisons, Godwin's Law has become a widely recognized rule of online discourse.

The law highlights a tendency for individuals to invoke extreme comparisons, particularly referencing Nazi ideology, when emotions escalate in arguments. These comparisons often derail conversations, making it difficult to engage in rational debate. Although not an official rule or policy, Godwin's Law serves as a caution against the use of inappropriate or exaggerated analogies that trivialize historical atrocities.

In contemporary use, Godwin's Law is sometimes invoked to call out fallacious arguments and to encourage participants to remain on-topic and avoid reducing discussions to the lowest common denominator of debate. Over time, the term has also been used as a reminder to maintain a level of respect and seriousness, especially when discussing sensitive topics. Godwin himself, however, has clarified that the law does not apply in discussions where comparisons to Nazism are relevant or warranted based on the context. 

So there you have it.

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Have you ever called someone a Nazi? I did once. How do you feel about that today? Leave a comment and I may disclose the circumstance of my own experience.

Uprooted: A Story of Estonia (Part VIII)

This story is based on a true account of events that occurred in Eastern Europe from 1939 to 1944. For narrative purposes the time frame of these events has been condensed without — this writer believes — violating the spirit of that time.

Arrival of the Nazis

The tension was continuous those two years of hell during the Soviet occupation. Though the Western powers never recognized Soviet authority over the Baltic states, the peoples themselves were powerless to do anything about it; so, too, the rest of Europe. While the German Reich flexed its muscles, the United States remained neutral, and watched from an idle distance.

In the summer of 1941 Hitler made Stalin his target and sent the German army marching East. Once again the people of the Baltics were subjugated by a new regime, a new landlord with new rules. The initial response by many was jubilation. The Nazis were liberators. The dark cloud of Soviet oppression had been lifted. But this sentiment was not shared by all.

In June, when the Soviet army retreated, so too did many of Estonia's Jewish families. Ralph might not have noticed except that a co-worker named Leo failed to show up for his shift at the brewery. The following day his absence began to cause a stir. When Ralph sought details he obtained the curt reply, "He's Jewish"

No question things had changed. There was no more fear of midnight raids to fill the plundered ranks of Red Army. There were no more visits by secret police whisking away agitators or accused enemies of the state. At least not initially. Eventually the Germans began pillaging goods for the war effort, but it was not very long before the rumors of executions were being circulated.

One weekend in early Ralph had gone to his Uncle Andre's to see family and to get away. While returning to the train station late Sunday evening he was startled by gunfire just beyond a small stretch of trees near the river. He feared missing the train but as the trains were often late he went to explore, creeping up to an embankment covered with brush. Below he saw German soldiers hastily shoveling dirt onto a line of bodies in shallow graves. An officer watched and Ralph slipped back and away, his heart sick with fear and confusion.

The next day, when he told his mother what he had seen, she replied, "They were Jews." Ralph then understood why Leo's family had fled.

As he listened for news from the BBC, a pinpoint of illumination began to pierce him in a strange new way. Despite his homeland's respite from the horrors of Stalinist oppression, these liberators were not heroes. This world as he understood it was very broken. And the freedom he had known only a few short years previous now seemed a lifetime ago.

CONTINUED

Enno (Part 4)

SHORT STORY MONDAY

This is the last segment, and a somewhat unkind conclusion. Next week: something different.

Enno
(Part Four)

It had been a long night. Together we ushered in the new year, drinking, singing, laughing. A purple ridge of clouds painted the horizon, awaiting the coming of dawn with a quiet patience. All above remained a crystal, chilled blue. The trees appeared decorated with powdered sugar and globs of white frosting. An unbroken blanket of fresh snow carpeted the hillside.

We drove carefully till at last we arrived at his apartment.

"Sit. You will stay for one more, won't you?"

"I've already had too many. Let me go now."

"It won't do. Open another beer. You know where they are."

I refused to take off my coat, holding my gloves in my left hand, unpocketed keys in my right.

"Oh go on, then. Look at you."

The day was already ruined. I knew that. But I was afraid that if I sat down I wouldn't get up.

"Have I ever told you the story about Jose Cordenio?" Here it was. Fresh bait. A new story, if I would stay.

He never admitted to loneliness. Never owned up to a human feeling at all on that score. To what great lengths he would go, however, in order to keep me around.

"Jose Cordenio the writer? Friend of de Unamuno and Bunuel?"

"The same," he said.

"When did you know Jose Cordenio?"

"After the war. In Zurich. A strange man."

"Spanish, right?"

"From Barcelona. Left his homeland when Franco came to power. Had a Jewish wife who was taken by the Nazis when he was in Paris. The war did him terrible."

And so it was that I removed my coat and remained with him for the duration of two more beers. I drove home in silence, accompanied by an image of Jose Cordenio painted in tragic hues across the canopy of my soul while the crisp, brilliant sun -- reflected with such brightness that my eyes were stabbed with it -- illumined my way.

Happy New Year.

•

Depressing above all is this: the feeling of futility associated with all my efforts to achieve something worthwhile. Is my labor in vain?

Now seated on the emerging threshold of a new year, I see the expanse of time uncoiling before me and I ask myself, What? Which? How do I determine what is worthwhile and what is futile? Is it for love or money that we pour ourselves out?

•

At certain times our conversations gave me the feeling that I was standing poised on the rim of a mammoth crater, a terrible cavern of the soul that had been left vacant through some diabolical and catastrophic event in a former era of this man's life. He gave me glimpses of it, in the way he held his head, the compressed line of his mouth, in his words, his mannerism, his stillness. Then there were the glimpses when the shutter of his eye flashed horizontally and I saw, with clarity, but for an instant, the terrain of his heart, the whole devastated landscape, my vantage point being the rim of this terrible hollow crater, immensely deep, wide.

I would never have asked him to speak of it, but it was evident the time had come when he raised the matter himself. Like all other topics we examined, he would begin falteringly at first, backing into it by accusing me of not being interested in yet another tale of his, chiding, almost childishly, my disinterest. When at last I would concede, he would put me off further still, until I was torn between begging and giving up. Crazymaker he.

Now here it was. He would tell of the scar which time had never healed. He would speak of it plainly. He would tell the story that had never been told. Together we would examine his sorrow.

•

"So what is the truth?"

"Oh. This again," I said.

"I want to know why you created me."

"I don't know. I had a need, I guess."

"And now you never visit me. You went away and haven't been back in more than a year."

"Life goes on. I have other friends now."

His hand ran up to the side of his head and over the top, mussing his hair. "Is it a woman?"

I stared at the floor, my palms flat against my thighs.

"I don't like the way this is ending," he said. His voice was soft, resigned.

"It's best," I said. "I wanted people to know you, but now... I have a life, too. I have to get on with things."

"Where will I go? What will I do?"

"Does it matter?" I said. "You've been captured on paper and you will live. That's more than I can say about my own life. You will be remembered. I will be forgotten. That's just how it is."

"Oh, you'll be remembered," he chided. "You get the byline."

"Get out of here," I screamed.

It sounds harsh, but it's a writer's right, isn't it? I created him. I had grown tired of him.

It could have ended differently. I didn't torture him or shoot him or hang him or have him suffer through a long illness. I suppose it was cruel to neglect him and I've been feeling crummy about it. At last, he's finished. No nursing home. No intensive care. No hospital bills.

I'm waiting for some other character now. Someone who smiles a lot, with a mouthful of nice teeth and a sense of humor. I'm a bit weary of heavy, complicated characters. Someone funny would be great. Or maybe a talking animal. Hopefully we'll get along. Writers tend to develop their characters better when they care about them.

In the meantime... Enno... wherever you are.... I'm sorry. You're part of my past now. I needed to move forward.

THE END

Inglourious Basterds

"Completed a short story last night: How To Fix A Color TV --- needs a better title, but the essential story is down, and I am pleased with some of the effects. Needs to be shared to get feedback on a couple spots, but overall I like what I've done. Am beginning to learn what 'show, don't tell' means. Am learning more about creating effects without cliches. (I hope!) Am also learning, hopefully, how to tell a story, how to establish pace, etc. I imagine I will again be criticized for not developing my characters. Need to make people see them visually. Have enjoyed getting it out on paper... 'vamos a ver.'"
Journal note, July 2, 1990

This is a journal note from a period in my life when I was attempting to find my voice as a fiction writer, striving to produce "serious fiction." I learned a lot about writing during this phase of my development, especially as it relates to story telling. Writing fiction improves one's non-fiction as well. The relating of anecdotes, the attention to detail, taking abstract observations and capturing them with a vivid concreteness... all these and more help improve one's work.

Following many years of short story writing I got bit by the Hollywood screenwriter dream after having appeared in the film Iron Will as an extra, 1993. (Probably the one film Kevin Spacey prefers left off his resume.) By the time I'd finished the third screenplay my Hollywood ambitions were played out, but those years of studying the process of story telling in film were quite instructive.

It's one thing to watch a movie, to get lost in its dream, and another to analyze how the director created the effects, built the characters, managed the tension, paced the plot development.

A co-worker who is a student of film (not scholastically, but through longstanding observation and a passion for excellence in the theater) told me last week that Inglorious Basterds is a film of such quality that it will be studied in film schools in the future. Hearing such high praise made it a "must see" film for me. Such praise is also a challenge because your expectations have been raised.

Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs is a cult classic, the first film where I covered my eyes in a scene since Kaltiki the Immortal Monster when I was eight. It's vulgar and violent, but told in a truly original style that brings it into sharp contrast with typical linear story telling. (OK, Kubrick did it in his first film The Killing, but 99.8% of the audiences who saw Dogs never heard of that.) When Pulp Fiction became a mega hit Tarantino, who once just worked in a video store, could do whatever he wanted. He was living the dream.

Obviously the guy loves violence, a seemingly constant theme throughout his work as exemplified in films like Death Proof, Grindhouse, the Kill Bill flicks and Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers, which was based on a story of his. (Woody Harrelson took a break from being Cheers' sweet Woody to take a walk on the wild side.) In short, Tarantino really enjoys finding new ways to splash blood onto the silver screen.

The thing is, this guy really knows how to tell a story. In point of fact there are scene so incredible in this film that I agree with my friend who says this film will be studied. The opening takes place at the home of a rural dairy farmer in Nazi occupied France, 1941. We see a small detachment of Germans driving up the winding road to his house. In real time the vehicles approach, the farmer telling his teenage daughters to get in the house. The Colonel, who it turns out is nicknamed "The Jew Hunter", acting magnanimously toward the farmer, sits at his table, shares a smoke and easy conversation. But there is no ease in the farmer. We feel the mounting tension, and initially suppose it relates to concern about his three daughters. As the scene slowly, ever so slowly plays out, we ourselves discover what the Colonel already suspected. There were Jews being harbored in the house.

Like Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino takes his time, allows this opening scene to play out, shows no urgency in moving the story forward. The cinematography in this case is as gorgeous as a panaramic Barry Lyndon/Kubrick landscape. The tension as pronounced as a shower scene in the Bates Motel. The acting spot on. And a bigger than life fairy tale has been set in motion.

Brad Pitt is superb as leader of the Basterds, a group of American soldiers who have been dropped behind enemy lines to unnerve the Nazis through especially brutal forms of viciousness. Taking scalps is the name of the game.

One variance from Dogs worth noting. I don't think there was any bad language used throughout. Violence is there in creative abundance, but I personally think the film was not hurt by this omission.

Much more could be said, but you can glean plenty from reading the many other reviews out there. I have to mention that the scene in the bar where Pitt's Basterds rendezvous with actress Bridget von Hammersmark is one of the most incredible scenes in film history, so simple, so smart, so unpredictable, so nerve-stretching and delivered with such patience. People will make a lot of whoop about the big finale no doubt, but it is the subtle development in scenes like this one that give a movie viewer real satisfaction.

For what it's worth, the story referenced in my journal note above ultimately won first prize in the five state Arrowhead Regional Arts Fiction Competition in 1991. The plot twists may not be as numerous as Tarantino's Basterds, but you might find it an entertaining read. One difference is that Tarantino's story is a fairy tale and mine, The Breaking Point, is true.... sort of, in a fictional kind of way.