PONDERING TANKA THOUGHTS ON JANUARY 6, 2O26
January 6th celebration:
Military invasion—
A polity’s crime:-
White House invasion paid off:
Venezuela, even more:-
Celebrating crime,
Has become our polity’s
Bigoted pastime:
Nixon and Khrushchev down there,
In one hell of confusion:-
What a well planned day!
And more hell is on the way:
Maybe, on this day:-
Is this what was voted for?
Oh yeah, “You reap what was sown:-
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.
Assassination of President Kennedy
The tank ship was on the way to Kingston in Jamaica
The sea was deep blue, the weather calm, In a few hours, we could stretch our legs and have a beer because the ship was dry, the charter in Houston, Texas, had insisted on this.
The radio operator came down and said “Kennedy had been shot and killed.”
There were shocked voices, was it true?
We all looked up to the president he, like us young and represented, the future and
now taken away.
Of course, we blamed the Russians
until news came and said the assassin was an American.
He Kennedy had stood up to Khrushchev and told him to leave Cuba.
Later, some of us understood that Mr. Khrushchev had saved
Kennedy and his hint of using nuclear force, what would he have done if Russia had not yielded?
We loved Kennedy, we saw him as a harbinger of better times when world leaders could talk and find peace.
I was young at the time and it was a good time to be young
Years later, I saw Walter Concrete in a recording announcing Kennedy's death, and he said it all.
One minute to midnight
On The Nuclear Threat Clock
The world suddenly started
To reel with shock.
Nineteen hundred and sixty two,
Khrushchev shared,
Fidel Castro dared,
John F Kennedy declared,
And the world trembled
As two fleets assembled
On the Atlantic Ocean
Bound to converge.
With bated breath we waited
For a winner to emerge
As the world’s two bullies
Played potentially lethal games
Seemingly a bit more serious than
Sabre rattling and calling names.
They strode the world,
Fought the odd proxy war
But this time it seemed
Just a little more.
And then all of a sudden
One backed down
One fleet sailed for home
As the other turned round.
The victor crowed as
The vanquished lost face
And they started off again
With their power race.
The school yard trembled
And then settled down
As each continued with
Another propaganda round.
The schoolyard bullies
Put their toys away
But readily available for
The next time they played.
On The Nuclear Threat Clock
They moved the hands back
Until the next time the world
Again feared a nuclear attack.
Unthinkable
Unimaginable
Nightmarish
Devastating
Heart-rending
Knee-trembling
Insanity
Derangement
Untethered
Unhinged
A madman
almost pulled
the Nuclear trigger
in Ukraine
'cos things weren't going his way
Horror of horrors...
Kennedy faced down Khrushchev
Reagan toppled the wall
But JFK and Ronnie are long gone
We must stop Putin
Led by YOU, Joe Biden
We must stop Russia
Led by YOU, Kamala Harris
You are the leaders we've got ~
Get up off of the sidelines
and enter the fray
Take some pride in the USA
and its armed forces
ready to spring into action
at your command
Activate the best military
in the world to STOP
Russia and Putin, to
REMOVE Evil Incarnate, to
SILENCE this Monster
and his cursed countrymen
FOREVER ~
before it's too late
From Lenin to Stalin
Khrushchev to Gorbachev
The USSR tried to
choke the West off
Now with Vladimir Putin
Russia's back and shootin'
Masters of duplicity
Executions through toxicity
________________________
Note: The last syllable of each
name in the second line can
be pronounced like the English
word 'off.'
About an hour later she slipped
Yuri Andropov into the conversation:
*“I have to drop off a blouse at the dry cleaners.”*
Suddenly it was May Day &
I’m back in Red Square,
Dwarfed beneath larger than life
Lenin, Engels & Marx mug shots.
Inter-continental ballistic lorry loads
Roll past the reviewing stand, while
Geezer Reds in Ushanka fur hats,
Soused on *Stoli,* reeking of borscht,
Chain-smoke cheap Soviet Belomors.
I share these thoughts, handing
Mrs. Khrushchev the car keys.
Having cowered herself in terror,
Having ducked & covered many
Burial promises & shoe-pound threats,
She gives me a tired babushka smirk.
We are conjugal Cold Warriors,
Both weary now, creeping up on 70,
Skirmishes & brinksmanship behind us.
Tolerant of each other at last;
Lukewarm *détente* between us.
Ballistic nukes departed Sayda Bay,
A CIA sitrep affirms French Intel,
A fleet of Russian ships was under way,
Their course at flank arrival point Mariel.
Kennedy and Khrushchev both have calloused skin,
The weeks at DEFCON2, really clipped our wings,
Aboard the sub our nerves were frazzled thin,
A war of nukes was chess without the kings.
The Captain's voice is Armageddon’s end,
ComSubPac orders are to stand us down,
The Cuban blockade ends amidst amen’s,
The Soviets have turned their fleet around.
A year of shaky peace; deceptions bed;
To arms again, our hero JFK is dead.
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.