with a note from mother

after all,

there were voices

from far down the hall

listening for a coded call

out on the rural road

where winter wheat were already mowed

but the mud is deep

and the escape routes steep,

sudden death taking a last breath;

Russian noses in senseless poses

looking for a safe place to sip their cold beer 

wondering why the beautiful women won't come near

and they can't remember their names:

the wild animals are all looking the same;

some with crowns and some with short hair,

coming undone from god knows where,

roaming the countryside with a gun in hand,

causing mayhem but why for the life of me i simply can't understand,

while hiding in my deep hole with a note from mother.

children, stay on the bus

the threatening red horizon 

of another early dawn,

with no birds singing

in winter weary trees,

and house doors swinging noisily,

opening

to frigid air,

was prophetic from where i stood.

everything seemed strange,

with loud thunder claps exploding,

but no rain.

in the maternity room,

pregnant women cried in pain,

waiting for a birth that might never arrive.

the trains hadn't been on time for several days.

someone on the station platform imagined an end to the day 

which had begun

with a strong smell of danger in the air.

on the only straight road leading west out of town,

an old woman struggled to carry her life's memories inside a small, torn bag.

there were hollowed-eyed people digging

communal burial trenches,

under the threat of their own sudden death.

a farmer's field remained unplowed,

and soldier's boots filled a property line ditch.

mother, a voice calls, where are your sons?

an answer arrives:

father, is your gun clean and ready to fire?

yes! children, stay on the bus heading to paradise.

with love to Russia

from Ukraine,

with love to Russia:

"Momma, your son will not be

coming home!"

the dictator with his pet baboon

while i'm reading by lamp light

about our futuristic tools

a dictator is having his lunch

but he's angry at those he rules

for mixing fresh lettuce with day old bread

and now he wants the kitchen staff dead.

they know the way out the back door

but it's blocked by an alligator

who tells them to come back later

when all should be well.

they grow impatient because they recognize the smell

of their own fear:

nothing is as it seems to appear.

so out a side window they jump

hoping to ditch the dreary dump

before their lives completely diminish and erode,

using a moral compass to find the higher road,

leaving the dictator alone with his pet baboon,

hungry and howling at the waning moon.

he's still angry at those he rules

but momentarily content 

as he strokes his family jewels.

sleeping in an old Soviet kitchen sink

i know well:

you're in a prison cell

shuffling down the halls

bouncing off the walls

romancing like a thief

while shuddering like a wind-blown leaf

trying to think for yourself

without falling from the shelf

but it's a trap where you breathe

and you're forbidden to leave

i know well

your life is hell:

unable to speak your mind

unable to acknowledge whatever you find

when adding 2 plus two

three open-toed sandals and a blue suede shoe

it's five but someone has been telling you

and you've been told what to think

as you're sleeping in an old Soviet kitchen sink

shuffling down the halls

bouncing off the walls

romancing like a thief

while shuddering like a wind-blown leaf.

June 1st, 1962

On June 1st, 1962,

The Communist Party press

in Novocherkassk

reported that the price of butter and meat

would rise by 25%

and workers' wages would decrease by 30%.

On June 2nd, seven thousand workers from the

Electric Locomotive Works stormed to the police station

and the Communist Party headquarters

in an effort to protest.

Soviet Army General Matvey Shaposhnikov, 

put in charge of the armed detachments 

stationed nearby, 

refused orders to shoot at the workers,

but many soldiers simply couldn't resist the impulse.

the dead were loaded into trucks and disappeared.

later, 

Shaposhnikov wrote:

"The Party has turned into a car which is steered by a reckless,

drunken driver who is always breaking traffic rules.

It's high time to take away the driver's license and prevent

a catastrophe...

Today it is extremely important that the working people

and the intellectuals should see clearly the essence of the political

regime under which we live.  

They must realize that we are under the rule of the worst form of autocracy

which rests on an enormous bureaucracy and an armed force...

It is necessary that people learn to think.

Our blind faith is turning us into mere living machines.

Our people have been deprived of all political

and international rights."

The KGB were not amused.

He was quickly stripped of his army rank

and his membership in the Communist Party.

Subsequently, he lived in modest retirement until his death in 1994,

always convinced he made the right decision.

In 1920, Stalin said

In 1920,

as a young revolutionary,

Stalin said,

"May the god of history help me."

perhaps he knows that the god did not

help him,

but still demands to be thought of highly.

And on the world stage we have one of his successors

making demands,

thinking highly of himself.

what a waste to appeal to the god of history:

his fate is sealed.