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.
