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Sunday 22 May 2022

UKRAINIAN CHRIST-CHILD a poem by Tom Leonard

                                                   UKRAINIAN CHRIST-CHILD


                                                                by Tom Leonard


                     

               

                      

         


                                                                               

                                                                                    


                     

                  Her gammatas cruelly branded  on  her breasts

                  by der kleiner Mann von Staryi Uhryniv, 

                  sweet Anichka of Ukraine remained untamed 

                   until the Yankee diplomats came

                   in jovial twos and threes,

                   and the faceless ones from D.C. 

                   abused her body on the BDSM cross,

                   strapped her wrists

                   to their unhinged master's sling,

                   and drooled like lascivious fools

                   while he his circus act buffooned.                    

  

                   Olek, a joiner from lauded Kyiv,

                   paid the grim priest a day's wages    

                   to descend to the red-light temple

                   in the rubble of  backstreet Donetsk             

                   where he met Anichka 

                   in the Cavern of Lustful Gratitude

                   beyond the Altar of  Past Turpitude,

                   and perpetrated carnal sin 

                   like a dispassionate Scythian warrior

                   for only three thousand hryvnia more,

                   his way of giving to the suffering poor.

                 

                   Feeling, overnight, a sorrowful remorse,

                   And a deep love for humanity

                   amidst the pitiful strife,

                   Olek re-entered the bleak cavern

                   as the grotesque gargoyles glared,

                  and took Anichka to be his much respected wife.

                  

                  The love-birds entwined as one in the family cottage

                   by the trout-filled river,

                   and ventured hand-in-hand

                   around Olek's grandpa's piece of land

                   while the time glass emptied of its sand,


                  Taunted by NATO and Nazi-esque plots,

                  the soulless playboy oligarchs spewed their anger

                  against that entire Oblast,

                  with scant regard for noble Muscovy,

                   To death and ignominy across the border;

                  their turd-brained guttersnipe thousands of conscripts sent

                  Their midget soldiers attacked Donetsk,

                  only to run in adolescent hordes

                  onto brave Ukrainian swords.

                  

                  Olek escaped with his much adored Anichka,

                  now great with a fatherless child,

                  through the mud, injured bodies, and shells,

                  towards the village that stood beneath the fiery star,

                  as the wise men came from afar,.


                  No room in Opytne left for inns, 

                  the soul-mates to a wrought iron hovel fled,.

                  while  their  countrymen burnt  and bled.

                  When the child  from her mother's womb emerged

                  Olek thought his sins were purged.

                  They wrapped the baby in a fallen soldier's  tunic;

                   But there was no mangers amidst the gruesome danger.

                    


                  The shepherds were dead,

                  as were the sheep.

                  But it was injured Melchior from out of dire Kabul

                  who moistened the baby's brow.

                 with scented myrrh,

                 while gorgeous Caspar, 

                 escapee from discriminatory Chechnyan torture,

                 in agony from a shell-fragment writhed,

                 and Balthazar of treacherous Yangon

                 dead on the half-living heap collapsed.


                "Unto God a daughter is born," croaked Melchior,

                 before the sniper's bullet tore through his throat.

                 "She will be called Olga the Strong,"

                 proclaimed the voice of an archangel, 

                 "and  she will bring everlasting peace 

                  to all decent people, and food to the entire world."


                 Olek and Anichka rose with the Christ-child 

                 and in Saint Michael's chariot of fire. 

                across the Dnieper to Kyiv rode.

                Blessed by their staunch Volodymyr, 

                they dedicated Olga to God and the nation,

                at the altar of St. Sophia of  Milan.

              



                                      


                  



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