ARC
(for the dead soldiers
and civilians in Ukraine)
shallow grave after shallowg grave
Each marked by two crossed twigs
this is
what we are
this is what
we have become
(yes, little Oscar, my
beautiful refusenik,
beat that drum
beat that drum)
you can sing the nation’s song,
recite its story
yet
again;
yet again
can match with the people
to the city on the hill, to
the Winter Palace
yet again
(what was it the Jew of Trier said
about history as
forever repetition)
whatever you decide
power had decided for you
has decided
what is needed
who
is dispensable
under what authority
text is scribbled on the chalkboard of centuries,
the lessons that are to be learnt
coded, ratified
published in pristine volumes, broadcast
Universe-wise
who is remembered
who is forgotten
allowed to live
left to die
pretty severe these equations
meant to solve for everything linear
and quadratic
resolve the Hell
that is human life
and let us not extrapolate into
dystopian future, or survival post-nuclear
but select reverse gear
and Delorean
to Plato’s time
those regulatory Greeks (Pythagoras, Euclid,
Archimedes)
measuring the soul, circling
around love
hearkening towards some, call me crazy,
theorem of perfection
who now
is open
to that axiom
all geometry now
brutal in trajectory
arc
as in rainbow that Euclid
did delineate, did faithfully describe
now
just a slice of value intersection
where the x does meet
and destroy the y