LETTER FROM VIENNA

I am the last of my kind. The gates have opened. The ovens have been closed, forgotten like the

last snow in the mountains, there are no rescues to report from the millions of red eyed souls on

dying faces in black and white printed about on broken press releases at the end of the last war.

But this is another last battle to report. The West has died but hardly anyone bothered to know

and certainly to acknowledge the surrender on the news round-up or on the obituary page.

London, Paris, Brussels and even Jerusalem's headlines do not write of it. There are no deadlines

to speak of. It would not to politically correct to confront civilization's enemies; after all free

speech is no longer speech or free.

Here the once wise,the disguised, the despised are speaking again on exiled passport whispers

while shopping for bread or bottled wine.

Oil it turned out was life, energy and hope, as only a few have the anointed oil on their body and

soul for a spiritual war and the Christian armor is for knighthood or armies of the Crusader's day.

Never a loving prospect for me or you anyway.

To be free one must have good eyes to report what is going on. Civilization is under the rug,

disposed of.

Yet the love of God, literature, culture, Bach, Mozart, Freud, Auden, Weil will live on in books or

on the radio. But for how long.