The news in November that a beloved family member had been diagnosed with cancer knocked me off balance. The suffering the family has gone through seems unbearable, and the road we are traveling can turn at any time. Today, we are happy, grateful for the medical personnel in hospitals and labs across the country who spend their days working for patients.
This occurred in the midst of a plague that has taken six million lives worldwide, an undercount by most who follow that news. Although this plague is not over, governments all over the world have loosened mitigation measures and many people are going about their business as if it is gone. It is not. While others think it will become less lethal and endemic, I wonder if it is just practicing its ability to spread before it wallops us with a big variant. Some say I am negative. Cynical, sarcastic, yes. One of my jokes in college was pessimism is realism and optimism is masochism. Joke. Not funny, but it fit the time.
And now, Putin has gone berserk, leading five wars in 28 years. I think it is time I publish my Putin Poem. I wrote this in 2016, after reading A Russian Diary, by Anna Politkovskaya, translated by Arch Tait.
A New Adolph
Such a good-looking devil.
We see the cunning in your face.
Others use you to secure their power,
only to find you’ve used them
to steal yours.
Official duties in Leningrad gave you
connections to siphon foreign aid.
Moscow called and you answered,
assets and contracts in your pocket.
Once President, you used your power,
stopped the questions concerning Yeltsin.
Politkovskaya and Litvinenko died for speaking truth.
Opponents drugged, abducted, put in prison.
Soldiers in Cechen and Ukraine froze
while elites splurged, all to feed the Russian bear.
Your KGB skills serve you well.
