by Valery Oisteanu

Herds of trees stumble in the distance
Wailing in a low undertone
Some falling toward the sky
Burning with the speed of an invasion
How hard they try to become birds
A flock of trees nearing a death experience
Flying through their immortality horizon
Nothing left behind but timelessness
The sky undresses for the sunrise
As laughter disappears beneath frozen waterfalls
This is the startling winter landscape of WWIII
Shark’s smiles tattooed onto toys of war
Thousands of blacksmiths forging new death tools
Others assembling coffins with no names
For the unmarked crosses of the young
Dressed in white, little green men
Sad prisoners of vodka and greed
Like termites swarming European plains
Fashioned into coal-dust body bags
Screams of scars and excrements cover the snow
Oh mother of death, they do not have to perish
Lips of the icy corpse will never drink the wine
This blood-drenched earth was once a forest
In the depth of winter there is an invincible summer

by Valery Oisteanu

On the bridge to Red square lay the body of Nemtsov
Shot four times in the back, beside the Kremlin Wall
Here slept Lenin, here slept Stalin
Where is the hope to end war and corruption ?
Oh!  Russia of my childhood, Mayakovski’s Moscow
Watch the convoy of white trucks as a diversion
Tanks and missiles rumbling toward the Ukrainian front
Cossacks against Maidan-fascist, brother against brother
Watch Putin the Great seize more territories
Crimea, part of the soul of every Russian
Crimea, the fist of aggression against the West
Donetsk connected to mother Russia, the New-Russia
The Putin Archipelago grows, South Ossetia, part of Georgia
Abkhazia & Chechnya and rest of the Gulag
Annexation Syndrome: grab East of Ukraine
While the West is groggily sleepwalking
6000 civilians dead, discouraged, missing
Unpronounceable names of destroyed villages
Legislation changed, opposition killed, reformers jailed
The Russians are marching past St. Basil Cathedral
Past the Kremlin’s chiming watchtowers
No hope in sight, no freedom of thought for decades
Reverse epiphany of planetary love and hate
Pussy Riot in exile, Kasparov in exile
As so many before, Boris Nemtsov, another martyr silenced

by Ron Padgett

I’ve often claimed
that the release from pain
is better than
the experience of pleasure,
and people look at me.
“Poor guy,” they think,
“he’s losing it.”
They wouldn’t say that
about Gertrude Stein.
Stopping reading her
is better than
the pleasure of reading her.
Stopping reading her
is better than
the pleasure of reading her.

by Ron Padgett

Once in a museum I saw the Bible
on a grain of rice.
They had it displayed
under a microscope.
I saw words but I wasn’t
going to stand there
and read the entire Bible.
I’ve never stood anywhere
long enough to read the entire Bible.
I’ve never even read the entire Bible.
This morning, though,
I did eat a bowl of rice
with hot milk, sugar, butter, and salt.
Imagine how many Bibles I ate!