Putin tries to poke holes into the body’s work of a nation
but the body’s work of the nation cannot be poked through—
gut-shot punctuation, terrorist renderings, vocabulary of madness
and Russia bleeds fire, cruelty, vocabulary of an insane man's mind.
He walks into the noise more than once,
and now he must exit from the room:
You do not have to follow a leadership lodged in evil.
Following orders is not a defense.
How do you fight a courageous people, Putin?
You do not. Geocide is murder. Murder is murder.
| Copyright © 2022 by Michael H. Brownstein Michael H. Brownstein’s volumes of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else and How Do We Create Love?, were published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018 & 2019, respectively. |
This poem is more like prose than any other of yours I can remember reading. Reminds me of Paul Clark's question leading off his recent prose poem, “Westward,”:
ReplyDelete[Mary Oliver’s] writing is sparse, vivid, brilliant prose. But is it poetry – and is she a poet, as she is generally described?
He [and I] were hoping you might comment on that, since you had twice mentioned Mary Oliver, in significant ways.
Indeed. Not following a leader who is mad as a hatter might be applied to more than the Russians.
ReplyDeleteIf you can get Mary Oliver's book, The Leaf And The Cloud: A Poem, any suggestions she is not a poet will be permanently put to rest. I do not read a book over and over--with few exceptions. This book I have read at least fifty times.
ReplyDeleteRandom excerpt:
ReplyDeleteWhen loneliness comes stalking, go into the fields, consider
the orderliness of the world. Notice
something you have never noticed before,
like the tambourine sound of the snow-cricket
whose pale green body is no longer than your thumb.
Stare hard at the hummingbird, in the summer rain,
shaking the water-sparks from its wings.
Let grief be your sister, she will wither or not.
Rise up from the stump of sorrow, and be green also,
like the diligent leaves.
A lifetime isn’t long enough for the beauty of this world
and the responsibilities of your life.
Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away.
Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance.
In the glare of your mind, be modest.
And beholden to what is tactile, and thrilling.
Live with the beetle, and the wind.
–Mary Oliver, from The Leaf And The Cloud: A Poem