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| MOSCOW, Dec 29 (Reuters) - President Vladimir Putin on Monday told his army to press on with a campaign to take full control of the Zaporizhzhia region in southern Ukraine after a Russian commander said Moscow's forces were 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) from its biggest city. |
Goodbye
to the merely discarded
wrenched from their clutches
and penchants
and bright pearl-knit bags.
Goodbye
to the voices of
the ironclad poor
and the hapless yank,
the misanthrope’s trope
adrift in the mainstream
at the salon or the square
where Vicky’s mint cookies
and yesterday’s masts read
The Waters Run Red
From Putin’s Unprovoked War.
These unprovoked lies
rise up like smoke
over the grim granite markers
in Kiev or Donetsk,
over the lit cherry blossoms
and redneck ears
of the keeper
in pursuit of the truth
because there is only one truth
that will huddle the masses.
So live and let live, the gravekeeper pled
and watched from a distance as the leftovers fled.
James Gage is an anti-war poet and songwriter whose work has been published in dozens of periodicals and literary journals including Main Street Rag, Inkwell, Wordrunner, Sand Hills, New Verse News, Mountain Gazette, Oyster River Pages, and others. His first two books of poems True If Destroyed (2016) and True If Not Destroyed (2025) are available from Finishing Line Press.
