Slava Ukraini!
shroud the gallery's glass doors,
a solitary scene of grazing goats,
greets the guests along with music.
Confident, brush strokes curl muted
colors of rustic farm houses
behind broken, split-rail fences
on a cloudy Carpathian
day drawn by an artist sitting
in ruined, ravished Kherson -
a limping dog of a city
with patches of bare skin showing.
Other pictures, different story;
dark, dreadful, desolate people
in burnt, battered, bombed-out cities;
children clamber over charred wrecks
in streets strewn with bricks and debris.
Is the first picture - real or dream?
Drawn by an artist 'neath fiery missiles,
scene the artist pretends exist
to get through one more day of war?
Amidst rows of trees
Besides swift cars passes by,
A limping dog rest.
Damn my hourglass eyes--
This I think I see I cannot hide--
Things to be for those who go before--
Concerning only me and nothing more--
I first died at sixteen this I cannot hide--
Bumped the head and bruised that which was inside--
Now a broken toy-- a limping dog with two legs--
Won't have the chance to learn that giving dance--
My only reward I'm told,
Is that violent forgetfulness when I grow old
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