Valediction

From a collection of war poems

The creaking, groaning machinery of bellicist tyranny swarms out of night,

Cackling gunfire and the thunderclap of carronade now the drumbeat of invasion.

Panzer columns encircle the cowering crowds not cowed but crouching in shadows.

Above ground, defence of patronage and heritage resists,

While underground the heartbeat of a nation beats silent clinging to those lost for words.

Hidden behind high-rise drapes, the housebound look down upon the termite assault.

Hollowed-out apartments divulge the modest aspirations of once civil society,

Slipping down from their broken foundations, like bloodletting from carcass.

The roof of their existence collapses, the ground beneath them ablaze and scorched,

Tainted for ever with the stain of inhumanity,

Crimson red on blue and yellow.

In dynastic imperial citadel, successor to grand dukes and tsars calculates,

Remote, removed, intent on building legacy by dominion,

Pulling the wrecking ball strings that strangle the dissenting voice of reason.

This shark-eyed supremo demands a nation of sycophantic obsequity,

While his generals bow and cow-tow, the unthinking heroism of cowardice,

And his militants obey their puppet master, like soulless clockwork soldiers.

In Kyiv, this stand-up revolutionary rouses the beleaguered, man of the hour, man of the people,

Sleepless in army fatigue, he leads a nation in a raised-fist blood pact of brother- and sisterhood.

His indignation, the muster call to arms to the Free World, the war cry that is willing to die.

No doubt, no fear, no contingency, no going back, this is where we stand and this is who we are.

So if you dare, come with me, rise up, resist,

For our suffrage is imperilled, and we will leave every nation, every leader, every wide-eyed child assured that our defiance here now is our right to exist.