Chen-ou Liu's Translation Project: First English-Chinese Haiku and Tanka Blog

Monday, February 28, 2022

Glory to Ukraine

inspired by the following protest sign and written in response to today's Russia-Ukraine peace talks

If Russia stops fighting, there will be no war.
If Ukraine stops fighting, there will be no more Ukraine!!! 

a line of tanks
rolling down the cobbled street
one Ukrainian
with his arms outstretched
the other lying face down

two teenagers
hold hands on the Polish side
of the border
their farther's V sign
as he drives back to Kyiv


FYI: Insider, Feb. 28: Ukrainians are returning from abroad to fight the Russian invasion.

The Polish Border Guard said around 22,000 people have reentered Ukraine since Thursday.... Those volunteers will join thousands of civilians with little combat experience who have taken up arms in Ukraine..."We have to defend our homeland. Who else if not us?" one man told the AP. "The Russians should be afraid. We are not afraid."


Added:

sweat glistening 
on a teen's dirt-stained face
Polish border entrance


Added:

"The Winners" Can Not Be Judged (Russian idiom: "победителей" не судят)

Lavrov’s words echo
in a UN conference room
seats emptying

Paris wax museum
gobs of phlegm on the spot
where Putin once stood

FYI: The Independent, March 1: Russian isolation exposed in mass walkout from Sergei Lavrov’s UN speech and Sky News, March 1: 'We don't want to fix his hair every day': Museum removes waxwork of Vladimir Putin after it was damaged by visitors