RANDOM JACK POETRY HOUR: GLOBAL POLITICS
Courage
under Fire
“You
will see our faces, not our spines.”
--
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
The
Ukrainian people have pledged
To
fight for their freedom
For
their homes and their lands
For
their independence from tyranny
They
oppose the mighty army
Of
the world’s great oppressor
They
oppose the heartless
The
monstrous the merciless
Leadership
of the Great Dictator
They
oppose imperialism
The
politics of military conquest
The
history of colonialism
They
know they cannot defeat
This
enemy on the battlefield
They
cannot match the enemy’s
Missiles,
tanks, and soldiers
Yet
they can win by surviving
They
can win by holding on
They
can win by fighting back
By
folding into the cracks
By
exacting a daily cost
To
the occupation of their land
As
a great American* once said:
You
can take hold of it
But
how long can you hold it?
A
decade?
A
century?
A
millennium?
When
every day exacts a cost
In
blood sweat and treasure
The
outcome is most certain
You
will lose this war
And
you will go down in history
As
the bloody evil tyrant
That
you are
(*
Paraphrasing B. Franklin)