#leniriefenstahl
Lovely angles, muscles, motion
roused the pitch of hot devotion.
Banners raised as standards flapped
orders barked, salutes were snapped:
volk emotion.
Olympiads and warrior rallies
Mountain maidens, Rhineland valleys
showed forth her visionary arts.
This Überfrau demands our hearts’
analyses.
Leni filmed it with a flair
made us feel that we were there;
over, under, moving through
a merely mortal flaw: her true
**** affair.
Misbegotten Roman signs
intensified her visual lines.
Cinematographic blame
forestalled by Leni’s optic frame;
her vision shines.
She’d tackle any reef and stall
to answer nature’s filmic call
diving deep and wrestling Kau:
light in Sudan’s darkness, how
it can enthrall.
Has history been unkind to her,
this cinematic Lucifer ?
Or is she vindicated
and rightly adulated
as memories blur?
No one dares excuse, nor coddle
propaganda’s super-model.
Yet, the audience must admit
Leni was no hypocrite,
ours to throttle.
Liebfraumilch-maid ? Much depends
upon the angle of her lens
Leni makes the cameras falter,
wondering if film can alter
history’s ends.
Apr 15, 2018
Apr 15, 2018 at 9:25 PM UTC