The Mozzie has published a poem by Andrew in its May 2022 issue (Volume 29, Issue 10). A bitter lament at the plight of the Ukrainians at the hands of the Russians, it is reproduced below:
Ukrainian Villanelle
How we admire them as we watch them die,
the brave beaten unbowed people of Kyiv,
how they lift our spirits and make us sigh.We applaud as they refuse to comply
with the demand that they lie down to live
and we admire them as we watch them die.A kid lifts a Kalashnikov to his eye,
a pensioner arms himself with a shiv—
how they lift our spirits and make us sigh!A husband lingers on a last goodbye
a mother howls a hurt she cannot forgive—
how we admire them as we watch them die.Who’ll answer tyranny, and how and why?
Let them—they’ve valour enough to give.
How they lift our spirits and make us sigh.Cowering behind Covid masks, we cry
with all the pretentiousness of a spiv
how we admire them as we watch them die,
how they lift our spirits and make us sigh!© Andrew Lansdown
Feature image: Homoatrox, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Given the present depredations of Russia against the Ukraine, Alfred Tennyson’s sonnet, “Poland”, seems hauntingly relevant.