Read Poem: UKRAINE, by Antonia Hildebrand

And I will take away the stony heart
Out of your flesh and I will give you
An heart of flesh.
Ezekiel 36:25-27
They have hearts of stone, these men.
These authoritarian killers
Sanctioned by state power
To murder entire families.
Like Stalin.
Like Hitler.
Like all of them.
A conga line of brutes
Stretching back to the cave age.

These old psychos send young men
Out to commit their crimes.
Young men who weep and want their mothers.
Conscripts who have been lied to.
Truth being the first casualty and all that.
But not the last.

Bodies strewn around the streets.
Unarmed civilians murdered so that,
Far away in the Kremlin one man can feel
That his life has not been in vain.
The corpses are his legacy.
The bombed buildings, his monuments.
Alone in early morning silence,
He remembers an inescapable fact:
Memento mori.
Others must die so that he can forget.
Ring the panic bell,
Ting-a-ling, ting-a-ling.
Turn a heaven into hell.

Antonia Hildebrand © 2022

Author: poetryfest

Submit your Poetry to the Festival. Three Options: 1) To post. 2) To have performed by an actor 3) To be made into a film. View all posts by poetryfest