Modern Russian Violence
by Michael Doyle

As time moves forward, leaving the 19th century behind
One still needs to understand a measure of the Russian mind
The war crimes in Ukraine will never be the finest hour
The Russian people have experienced as Putin growls and devours

In a frame of expanding backward toward his vision of empire
And no doubt his cronies there are complicit as they conspire
But neither Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky can remotely act to explain
What it is that Platonov's Chevengur makes completely plain

As it makes clear the tragic insights into Soviet history
A nation embracing violence with its fullest capacity
And as it does so, it brings the destruction of the nation's soul
Merciless anger translates into a tragedy of near-endless woe

Life has no value, and absurd ideas are worthy of dying for
As a confounding brutality comes clawing, demanding more
Injustices are stoked into a need for increasing authority
This hatred first breeds open contempt and then loyalty

So-called leaders watch silently as the violence is unleashed
Identity politics comes craving destruction like an unholy beast
This is what becomes of a revolution that turns any nation
Against itself and begetting unending violence as its explanation

Broken promises become broken dreams, and then total despair
As visions of utopia become dystopia languishing into nightmares
This sort of life is the death march that merges all into the same
And in the end, it turns out that life itself is what's to blame 

(c) January 10, 2023  Michael Doyle
All Rights Reserved