Coming, Ready or Not

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

"Only the dead have seen the end of war." - Plato

"The god of war is impartial: he hands out death to the man who hands out death." - Homer

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues enters its 6^th day, it continues to encounter a stubbornly fierce and equally inspiring resistance. Meanwhile the world can but watch on various media as a convoy of armoured tanks, a good 40 miles long, approaches the capital, Kyiv.

Tragically, but predictably, while approving severe sanctions against Russia, and sending weaponry and food/ medical supplies to an increasingly beleaguered Ukraine, NATO’s refusal to send troops suggests that Russian forces will, sooner or later, seize control.

Hearts and minds the world over are with the people of Ukraine, also the many in Russia itself who condemn Putin’s actions and the lies his government continues to feed the Russian people by way of justifying the unjustifiable.

As thousands descend on border checkpoints, desperate to escape the escalating violence and rising death toll among invaders, defenders and civilians, too, including children, those in neighbouring countries offering supplies and safety cannot help but ponder on the long-term implications for their own...

COMING, READY OR NOT 

People may well anticipate me,
brace themselves for a pernicious assault
on personal space,
with universal implication, depending on
how you see your world
and whether that the world is sensitive
to your fate, whether or not
too late, already, to steady your straining nerves
against rising storm, gale force winds

I care not for others’ personal space,
determined as I am to make my presence felt
if only to prove
to resisting life forces that I can do what I do,
less for the sake of it
than to shatter than to shatter self-confidence
in the natural order of things;
Finders, keepers, and I will oust you from wherever,
sure to haunt mind-body-spirit forever

Should I underestimate the strength
of your resistance to my dastardly attempts
to bring you harm and grief,
reduce to a quivering mass of weepy flesh and bones,
needs must I exercise control,
settle for your tears and whatever injuries
I can inflict, our conflict
not over, for which, I will yet conspire to make you pay
if only to reassert myself another day

I am the politics of fear, yet. time and again my strategies
prove no match for such life forces as a free spirit inspires 

Copyright R. N. Taber 2022