Poems
39. Death in Vladivostok
Another one bites the dust,
like dozens close to Putin,
but why and how we don’t know.
Not an oligarch this time,
young Colonel Boyko,
found dead in his office.
Putin’s man in Vladivostok,
his death a great shock
to his young wife
and young children.
Seemingly happy, seemingly sane,
rounding up conscripts
for the war in Ukraine,
strangely, awkwardly
shot in the chest,
four pistols and five bullet casings
there on his desk.
What said the inquest?
“It’s strange, is it not,
that a trained soldier
should need four pistols
and five bullets
to take his own life,
when one shot to the head
or one to the heart,
would surely suffice?
We can only declare
the method was cagey,
one might say dodgy,
gauché and inept,
but the motive is clear,
the motive is death.
This inquest is closed.”
Another one bites the dust,
like dozens close to Putin,
but why and how we don’t know.
Not an oligarch this time,
young Colonel Boyko,
found dead in his office.
Putin’s man in Vladivostok,
his death a great shock
to his young wife
and young children.
Seemingly happy, seemingly sane,
rounding up conscripts
for the war in Ukraine,
strangely, awkwardly
shot in the chest,
four pistols and five bullet casings
there on his desk.
What said the inquest?
“It’s strange, is it not,
that a trained soldier
should need four pistols
and five bullets
to take his own life,
when one shot to the head
or one to the heart,
would surely suffice?
We can only declare
the method was cagey,
one might say dodgy,
gauché and inept,
but the motive is clear,
the motive is death.
This inquest is closed.”
38. The Battle for Kherson: A Prelude
It is a weird but fitting irony
That a critical battle of Putin’s war
On Ukraine could take place in the hometown
of revolutionary hero, Leon Trotsky,
The great Bolshevik thinker and leader,
Persuasive genius and founding creator
Of the once mighty Red Army,
Leon, tragic Leon!
The most radical, passionate and humane
Of the original Bolshevik trinity,
A deep thinker like Lenin,
An able organizer like Stalin,
A more compelling speaker than both.
You alone, in one stirring speech,
Convinced Tsar Nickolas’s forces
To join the workers’ insurrection
And secure the Bolshevik revolution.
This was the fabled, auspicious origin
Of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army.
Yet your oratorical powers cost you
When your rival, post-Lenin,
Jealous comrade Joe Stalin,
Had you murdered in Mexico,
Stabbed with an ice pick
By a cold-blooded assassin.
Now the Red Army’s no longer a proud, disciplined force,
But an unruly rag-tag outfit taking orders directly from Putin
And betraying Marxism, Communism and Russia itself,
Willing to roll through Trotsky’s home in Kherson Oblast,
Wreaking death and destruction on all in its path.
This Russian army is not the army of old,
Not the army of Trotsky, nor even of Stalin.
It is tired, weak, chaotic, corrupt, and depleted,
Ill-equipped, ill-trained, badly led, and defeatist,
More interested in raping and plunder,
And going home with stolen treasure,
Or merely surviving the mission,
Than winning the hearts of Ukrainians
Or just winning the war.
This army, disarrayed, will stop,
Or be stopped, in its tracks,
And the troops will lose heart,
Seeing their once proud army collapse.
It is a weird but fitting irony
That a critical battle of Putin’s war
On Ukraine could take place in the hometown
of revolutionary hero, Leon Trotsky,
The great Bolshevik thinker and leader,
Persuasive genius and founding creator
Of the once mighty Red Army,
Leon, tragic Leon!
The most radical, passionate and humane
Of the original Bolshevik trinity,
A deep thinker like Lenin,
An able organizer like Stalin,
A more compelling speaker than both.
You alone, in one stirring speech,
Convinced Tsar Nickolas’s forces
To join the workers’ insurrection
And secure the Bolshevik revolution.
This was the fabled, auspicious origin
Of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army.
Yet your oratorical powers cost you
When your rival, post-Lenin,
Jealous comrade Joe Stalin,
Had you murdered in Mexico,
Stabbed with an ice pick
By a cold-blooded assassin.
Now the Red Army’s no longer a proud, disciplined force,
But an unruly rag-tag outfit taking orders directly from Putin
And betraying Marxism, Communism and Russia itself,
Willing to roll through Trotsky’s home in Kherson Oblast,
Wreaking death and destruction on all in its path.
This Russian army is not the army of old,
Not the army of Trotsky, nor even of Stalin.
It is tired, weak, chaotic, corrupt, and depleted,
Ill-equipped, ill-trained, badly led, and defeatist,
More interested in raping and plunder,
And going home with stolen treasure,
Or merely surviving the mission,
Than winning the hearts of Ukrainians
Or just winning the war.
This army, disarrayed, will stop,
Or be stopped, in its tracks,
And the troops will lose heart,
Seeing their once proud army collapse.
1. See Darkness, Feel Love
See the darkness of war as it issues from Putin,
The coldness of conquest as it flows from his will,
The starkness of hate, the lack of what’s human,
The boldness to punish, demolish and kill.
See the madness of war as it issues from Putin.
Feel love rouse Russians to freedom at home,
See love raise the flag of Ukraine's independence,
Hear love stir the hearts of Slovaks and Poles,
Know love lift the minds of all Europeans.
Feel love rouse Russians to freedom at home.
2. Flowers for Putin
Let me offer flowers for Putin
He has not always lied
He has not always killed
His eyes were not always cold
His smile wasn't always a sneer
He was born of woman
His father was human
There must have been playmates
There must have been schools
There must have been teachers, lessons and rules.
But Hitler, not Tolstoy, looks out of his eyes
Stalin, not Trotsky, speaks in his ears
Goebbels, not Chekhov, comes out of his mouth
Lenin, not Pushkin, has hands round his heart.
So let me place flowers
Where the eyes are dry wells
The ears are just holes
The mouth is a cave
And the heart has been squeezed empty.
