Best Crimean Poems
In an effort to immortalize you,
I gilded ocean size frames in gold leaf
and painted your portrait with peacock feathers dipped in oils.
I spelled out your name in bumble bee wings
still quite attached to tame bumble bees
hovering in obedience and formation in the sky
I built a piano from felled red wood trees
and carved your likeness on each key
which I then filled up with ebony and abalone polish
I traveled to Old Russia to the Crimean forest
and pulled every wildflower up by it's roots
and replanted them just for you, on the cliffs, overlooking the Black Sea.
I tamed a black leopard and rode on her back
'round the world, with a banner, a list of your accomplishments
flowing in silk for miles behind me, past onlookers reading your life.
I sang gypsy music, as a siren on the wind
while I wept and flooded each street with the depth
of one tenth of the emotion you harnessed and kept at bay in your infinite quiet.
I started with one person, your granddaughter, with your blue eyes
her sitting on my lap, looking at me with a maturity past 3 years of age,
and imprinted every memory of you in the air, for her to grab.
You are not immortalized in portraits, or wings, or notes.
You are not immortalized in flowers, or banners or sirens.
You are immortalized, forever remaining, in the humble prayers of this innocent child.
"The Lady with the Lamp," Florence Nightingale
Icon of Victorian culture. Her life, an exciting tale
White pinafore over colonial dress, she wore
She served as first woman nurse in The Crimean War
Putin rides Russia’s pride
Cheers ring nation wide
Swept along by the tide
No matter, Putin’s stride
Putin derides all global calls
Jeering at the soft flung balls
High on the home-pep of it all
Playing pride before he falls
Before today Putin was creaking
Students raised aside his speaking
Syrian brokering coated his ceiling
Olympic grandeur won a believing
The party swings high on the pep
Unseeing past the next high step
Boozed out to the dawning inept
Recessions pill awaits there, swept
Putin cynically prides pop calls
Crimean homing serving the all
But the gain will pain, come the fall
Come the reality of Putin’s new wall
It’s swallowing will cost his people
Harpooned by his Bolshevik needle
Freedoms put-on by the Putin spiteful
And recession bites like a razer-ball
Putin’s pride, his hoodwinking call
Subterfuge designed for his win all
Knowing oppression awaits cat calls
When pride bites deep... before the fall
No Sleep Till Death
Some Russians are like insomnia. Always there and always evil. No let up on the pressure. A wave bursting out of your skull. A physical presence so real it becomes surreal. Invisible, not there, not existing.
But eight thousand nuclear warheads, massive human rights abuses, Crimean annexation, Ukrainian invasion and a delusionary paranoid dictator give pause for thought. Let us touch reality. When sleep does come, its broken.
You awake feeling bad, unrested, on edge, that something is up and bad things will happen. That's Russia peering over your shoulder. The bit of sleep you have is punctuated by dreams, bad ones. Nightmares of unseen imagery, enemies too evil for words.
For insomnia is Russia, Russia is insomnia. And when Russia blows, it'll affect every single one of us. We'll all be wide-awake then. Only sleeping as the final nuclear curtain falls.
The western media will report less on the Ukraine
As the worthy underdog.. as putin closes his grip
There, there is real understanding now that Russia
Is able to influence food supplies.. And energy
Also there will
Be reports soon of Ukranian atrocities, as putin holds
More cards the western media will have no choice
Other than to balance their content the pope is the
Way in for them ' he has gone from decrying putin
Although I believe he will say anything he's told to
Say by his cabal leaders..Maybe He's one of them?
Anyway to saying he may have been provoked?
Well he did
See 23 places change allegiance, after the west
Promised not to move nato one inch further east
After East Berlin was annexed in the 1990s ) also any
Idea that Russian ships in Crimean ports are unusual
Will not be heard, neither will it be reported that British
Navy ships in Southhampton mean Britian will invade
Dorset.. I couldn't help that one ' LOL))) So there
we have It.. Let's see if it pans out as I have written it.?
The Charge of Boris's Parliamentary Cohort of three hundred lawmakers
I
Forward the light brigade!
Was there a dude dismayed?
Though most should have known
Cameron had blundered.
Theirs not to make reply!
Theirs not to reason why!
Theirs but to do or die!
Spurning the fear of Death
rode the three hundred.
II
Farage to the right of them,
Corbyn to the left of them.
Bannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered.
Stormed at by the press,
Onward they rode in stress
Into the wilderness,
Oh, what an awful mess!
Rode the three hundred.
IV
Can ever their great deed fade?
How high that price they paid!
All the world wondered.
Praise to the charge they made?
Praise to the Light Brigade?
Intrepid three hundred!
My prayer for Mykhalylo Tyaglyy* in his tasks as researcher, writer, and editor:
Desirous to serve God, work toward His kingdom advancement-height
Be useful for His glory, with cooperative, humble, joyful disposition-light
Contribute your necessary part, being a blessing by faith-might.
1Corinthians 12:22 …Much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary.
*Mykhaylo Tyaglyy has been working for the Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies doing research on the National Socialist genocide of Roma in Ukraine. He is also managing editor of the scholarly journal Holocaust and Modernity: Studies in Ukraine and the World published by the UCHS. In 2011-2019, he was part of the international project “Protecting Memory” aiming at transforming the neglected and forgotten mass graves of Jews and Roma into dignified places of remembrance. Mykhaylo is also an expert in Ukraine for the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure and for the USHMM’s Archival Acquisitions program, as well as for Yad Vashem’s “Untold Stories” project. In 2005 he authored the book Sites of Mass Murder of Crimean Jews during the Nazi Occupation of the Peninsula, 1941–1944. (https://www.imre-kertesz-kolleg.uni-jena.de/fellows/incoming-fellows/mikhail-tyaglyy)
May 22, 2019
Edited on July 29, 2022
2ND PLACE, "Dr Mikhail Tyaglyy" Poetry Writing Contest
Sponsored by Joe Maverick; judged on 7/31/2022.
Part 5 -- Si Monumentum Requiris …
Some tattered banners (from the Crimean War?
so who on earth was fighting – and what for?)
That Holman Hunt thing, over on the right,
with Jesus and His lantern – “I’m the Light”:
the Whispering Gallery, up inside the dome:
the opulence: as if a bit of Rome
had landed in gray London: Nelson’s tomb,
designed for Wolsey (were they short of room,
and had to double-up?) This is a place
to marvel at the fearless use of space,
the geometric thrill of pillar, arch and vault
in endless permutations! And the salt
which gives this feast its flavor? There’s no stone
or statue, stele, thanatory throne:
Sir Christopher, with modesty and tact,
declined memorials, but was in fact
the first man to be buried in this ground.
You seek his monument? Just look around!
Sonnet: The Ruins of Balaclava
by Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855)
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Oh, barren Crimean land, these dreary shades
of castles?once your indisputable pride?
are now where ghostly owls and lizards hide
as blackguards arm themselves for nightly raids.
Carved into marble, regal boasts were made!
Brave words on burnished armor, gilt-applied!
Now shattered splendors long since cast aside
beside the dead here also brokenly laid.
The ancient Greeks set shimmering marble here.
The Romans drove wild Mongol hordes to flight.
The Mussulman prayed eastward, day and night.
Now owls and dark-winged vultures watch and leer
as strange black banners, flapping overhead,
mark where the past piles high its nameless dead.
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz (1798-1855) is widely regarded as Poland’s greatest poet and as the national poet of Poland, Lithuania and Belarus. He was also a dramatist, essayist, publicist, translator, professor and political activist. As a principal figure in Polish Romanticism, Mickiewicz has been compared to Byron and Goethe. Keywords/Tags: Mickiewicz, Poland, Polish, Balaclava, Crimea, war, warfare, castle, castles, knight, knights, armor, Greeks, Rome, Romans, Mongols, Mussulman, Muslims, death, destruction, ruin, ruins, romantic, romanticism, sonnet, depression, sorrow, grave, violence
Eight decades past world war two was at its last gasp.'
Parades were to folow.' Nazi Germany was beaten hollow
Like a drum..'Some scenes echo.' And make me dumb my
Mouth, silent my eyes observe the violence shaky screened
Whirrs my mind.' On the real actions of nazis and horrifc
Finds.' Humans dehumanised stacked like sides of pork
Or cords of wood.' The simple pathos alone talks..Today i hear of nazis again.' I see one was feted in Canada and
That two leigions there gained.' New lives and citezenship
Can this really be.' Then zelensky sends troops to Isreal i
See.? Meanwhile (yuroslaf hunka) the ss soldier he elevated.' anongside trudeau.' Both looking elated' clapping
Hands this in parlieament setting' well after their earlier
Meet and greet and narration.' He was a freedom fighter
Against the ussr.? I beg your pardon.' And I state I am no
Czar.' Of lineage or of lies.' And the truth?? Well thats been
Battered.' Just as eight decades later.' With Ukraine really in
Tatters.' And claims of nazi elements.? Whats with historys wheel? No matter the narrative.' Whats real is 'still real' I
Can't trust drainsteeam-media..To tell the time of day.' I conject on all their outrageous info but hey ' even should i
Be told California has gone rouge? Letting in American
Warships to attack America.?? Do you think that story could be told.? Yet when ships sit in Sevastopol i'm told
Crimea might get invaded 'and they'll soon be speaking
Russian.?? But I thought they did? Whats this all in aid of, kids?
Well it can't be the truth? I re-check on history, and the Crimean war fought in 1853.'
The Russo Ukranian War dates back to 2014, with the invasion of the Crimean peninsula and the Donbas War
which was fought by Pro Russian separatists in the eastern half of Ukraine.
This has been going on for a long time, even before Russia launched it's 2022 offensive on Ukraine, when everyone in the US began to show it's Pro Ukrainian support.
Putin has denied that The Ukraine was ever it's own
country. He has said that the land is not theirs, but was a part of Russia that was given away by Khrushchev and Lenin. It was a part of Russia, in the 18th century, also referred to as in Russian "New Russia".
This Ultranationalism that Russia exercises today
is not good for the future, it's been estimated that
hundreds of thousands have died in this bloody
conquest for land. I don't know if it will end anytime
soon. I doubt it. I don't think a leader like Putin would
do such a thing, seeing how he has turned the Russian Presidency into something like a dictatorship.
Look how he has kept his power and then you will
realize that this war won't be the last of him.
Wary of right causes
needing less courage
than the wrong ones
Fate shunning reason
when true glory
comes to light
Humans get killed
but humanity
sorely lingers
The measure of intention
what is written
— and retained
(To Lord Alfred: June, 2024)