Archive 08/11/08 - (2)

   

Footnotes

Few would argue that, prior to August 7, 2008,

Georgia, a breakaway state of the defunct Soviet Union,

Proclaimed itself a provocateur, by invading South Ossetia,

 

Incited the ire of still-fulminating Russia,

Under whose Cold War reign it existed,

Relatively content to be ruled by the Kremlin's ukase.

 

But last Thursday, that democratic, West-leaning nation,

Only four million strong,

Made the gargantuan mistake of barbing the contentious giant,

 

Bristling its nationalistic pride, its militaristic might,

Forcing it to retaliate, begin reasserting its former control,

Regroup, bring the renegade back into its fold.

 

And what more formidable adversary than Vladimir Putin,

A phoenix rising from the NKVD, KGB,

A successor to Stalin, if ever there was one,

 

Ordering his oil-funded tanks, jets, ships, troops

Not only to repulse the army of freely elected Saakashvili,

Which was attempting to quell upstart South Ossetia,

 

But to decimate Georgia's Gori, threaten Tbilisi (its capital),

Bring this sovereign land back into the Russian galaxy,

Reannex it, reappropriate it,

 

Sinisterly reabsorb its hapless people,

Who, in the not-so-long-ago time of perestroika,

Believed that human rights, freedom, were possible?

 

But four days ago, hope came to a sudden halt.

The globalized world shuddered,

With the prospect of another Five-Year Plan of repression.

 

Tonight, as Europe and America hold their breath,

Moscow is poised to pounce on the Caucasus,

Reconstitute hegemony over its "satellites."

 

Only, now, all these nuclear years later.

Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the Cuban Missile Crisis

Are but quaint, esoteric footnotes in the Book of Doomsday.

 

 

 

08/11/08 - (2)

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 
       

 

 
   
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