"potemkin" poems
Fluff and puff,
water plugs,
power plants,
paper over eyesores,
paint it matte,
pink as salmon,
pack the homeless
into the Bird's Nest,
ghettoise Moses,
bleed the Amazon
down to size,
moor the battleships
to Yamuna Bank,
let white elephants
run riot on warm Black ice
over those who won't
play ball in our
electric garden
free your head
from the rails
for what?
roti kapda makaan
or BSP ki maya?
be buried or a sport
let laal battis through
ab bus, stop
blaming it on Rio
don't you know
how India shone
in October 2010,
or that Russians love
their children too?
So what if they don't
believe in modern love?
Potemkin villages are
built brick by brick
by BRICS,
Red, Yellow, Orange
kilned to Black.
May 14, 2015
May 14, 2015 at 6:29 PM UTC
do you remember?
we sat by the shore
drunk on moonlight
and bitter starlight
we stumbled in the wet sand
collecting strange seashells
and i wept at the terrible sight
of the end of the world
cheap wine burning inside
veins both young and old
our bicycles laid in the tall grass
like ancient metall lovers dead
i counted a thousand stars
not in the midnight sky
but in your hidden eyes
you counted thirteen battleships
inside my heart
and thus we made love
like foolish wild things do
on a beach with strange seashells
and we wept at the terrible sight
of the end of the world
May 5, 2014
May 5, 2014 at 8:33 PM UTC
Oh Vova, My little Vova
Sitting on your throne of skulls
You survey your frozen kingdom
and as you always do
You grimace
With bitterness tempered by the ages
Born a citizen of a scarlet empire. now the tyrant of a tricolor nation
You are both the largest and the smallest man
Who does reside in this time-worn land
You rule your potemkin empire with a fist of iron, a gaze of lead and a voice of kolokol-1
Your inhumanity is well practiced
From your days in the KGB
Your “New Russia” is merely a kleptocratic mockery of it’s golden years
A cheap ersatz mimicry
of Russia’s grandest days
Few things could bring your hard slavic face to show
Even the smallest modicum of joy
But there he stands
Dima!, oh Dima
The light of your life
The only man with the power
To make the Czar smile
Apr 8, 2014
Apr 8, 2014 at 3:32 AM UTC
Greenfield Village
Henry Ford looms large
The length of River Rouge
Lower and Middle and Upper and Rouge River proper
Abraded by scars
Mouth cankered and scowling
Zug Island wrenched
To a permanent sneer behind
The kid gloved hand of his beloved Fairlane
Wandering Potemkin near the end
Head an empty lot webbed
In figure eights of snowy plaque.
We walked down the lane
From Firestone Farm
Past stubble field
Late one winter afternoon
Searching for the rope swing
In the old chestnut tree
Ordered hung there perhaps
By the old man himself.
I raced twilight
Edges dissolving
Sent you higher and higher
Prayed you would catch a glimpse
Of abiding light that silvers
The edge the world.
Sep 26, 2016
Sep 26, 2016 at 7:33 AM UTC
trump - hide and run for headline cover before armageddon
arc de triomphe interesting facts
if zee al chemist trump doth win go hide in the bunker
to save your ***
brace yourself as this don holed
confabulates that gold iz brass
and conjures prestidigitation
like spinning false hoods in2 truth - crass
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
a synonym force head fabricator -
will threaten democracy, thus be afraid
as this pompous voice quotes
from hiz playbook, which = a charade
the hard core truths, he
(who i liken to the plague) doth evade
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
and dreams up fault of Barack Obama
for extinction of dinosaurs,
crucifixion of Jesus Christ
down fall of the Roman Empire,
or far tethered Fred Flintsone ca fetching an escapade
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
yea...this rip pub lick'n presidential contender
evinces a psyche frayed
building and monopolizing castles in the sky -
nonexistent as a grade
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
school fib - or donning role
as play ground bully teaming with ivan
the terrible to dominate the greensward
in the above fiction, but...man
that loose canon dressing his
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
"make america great again" gag line - whar i ran
and mid eastern countries will rise
as one cheering him as star of global hit parade
despite any raging oppositional pandaemonium
birth er ring a conflagration
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
kenya believe the world acquiesces
to thine projected masquerade
blocking im grate shunning crowds -
which number of people rival in size
taller (if stack one atop thee other)
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
than the trump tower casino or high rise
with his signature - hm...mebbe funds provided
by drug lords, the swedish house mafia
or terrorist ties???
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
whom security details silence by tossing a hand grenade
sham on you Potemkin village people for quaffing draughts
from elixir purportedly to transform visage with trademark
swept back, wavy and coiffed hirsute.
Jan 9, 2018
Jan 9, 2018 at 12:40 AM UTC
This is the nadir;
My zenith seeming a Potemkin
Village in shambles.
These seats do change
Though, unsightly
beginnings may seem
Within this inner being
Kreminology obscured
Even to me.
But turning to that
Abhorred chicken
Scratch of emotions,
I find a felt tip
Guide embiggened
By tears -
Will such salty waters craft
A pykrete fortress?
Let us muster enough fiber
To find out;
May 20, 2018
May 20, 2018 at 3:23 PM UTC
Someone demands an immigration czar
Which could be interesting: a crown, a throne
A double-eagle flag, the border guards
Singing a Troparian while on patrol
On the Steppes of Central Texas 1
The Czar in progress royal comes to see
His happy villagers waving MREs
From behind the merry Potemkin wire
The Czar, contented, turns his escort then
To Petersburg, and lunch at the Little Red Hen
1 Cf Borodin's "On the Steppes of Central Asia"
Jun 25, 2018
Jun 25, 2018 at 1:19 PM UTC
Awareness about behavior,
present since mine days of yore
an unswerving allie analogous
to peacekeeper ending civil war
belated insight suddenly realized
(better late than never) doth underscore
incumbent proactive communication stance
belatedly bestowed omnipotent awareness
crucial fostering ingredient to shore
maternal bond above
bejesus ear splitting roar
I admit regret (to self), there
dost belie suppressed yen to pour
out sorrows 'twixt this sole him son,
and long deceased mother, he
deprived her his love and outwore
the Scottish tartan Harris tweed
welcome (haz) mat, which pained
materialized soon after her death, nor
can compensation be made,
now ex post facto,
when futility of spilt tears got more
gauged and swept away, when
nary a trace I privately cried
amidst lachrymose lakeshore.
20/20 hindsight brought me unflagging mast
into stark painful focus,
essentially how mine
formative behavior wrought avast
dystopian emotional fractured mindscape,
which non positive coping methods
lit fuse kindling devastating catastrophic blast
from yesteryear to present silent woebegone
desolate gloomy terrain past
grandeur eclipsed by present gloom
finds yours truly stranded like cast
away bleached flotsam upon coast
amidst tempestuous rocky shoals
clinging for dear life with grasp fast,
Where tenuous, precarious,
and ludicrous ship
of state can no longer maintain
even a marginal grip
but with slight equip
age willing, wedding,
and wanting brings relief from whip
lashed incurred (within body) showing rip
pulled scarred taut welts testimony, sans
long electrified with aggravation,
excruciation, and intoleration can easily flip
a figurative switch in summary
ushering final lip
service to charade,
facade, and masquerade
at lightspeed didst clip
this...Potemkin Village,
where everything "FAKE,"
asper envisioning flickr
ring mirage recounting ancient Egypt!
Jan 12, 2019
Jan 12, 2019 at 3:53 PM UTC