King, Have You Got An Alibi? Poem by Joseph S. Josephides

You remove armies on the map, but they say
as a child you used to make little soldiers of clay.
As a King you used to send us in West for studies
in arts, sciences, administration of commerce,
to erect for us factories, shipyards, headquarters.

Tell Great Peter, do you hear the poet’s voice*?
Even shot by the old and new conquerors,
he slips in the folks, in tents of gypsy friends,
and safeguards what you cannot actually be.
He defies spies and censors by writing poetry
on a horse; can you dare to ride on and see?
He raises a sword for his muse, ready to fall,
or becomes a branch to let her bird-girl sit on it.

We, the youth, fight with pens instead of spears,
we swallow the bullet you shoot to the poet;
we are the voice of his statue, the verse is an ax
over various Lucullus who steal the people,
over you who purchases the culture of the West,
instead of glorifying ours and transmit it there.

How we possibly call you Great? You lost this alibi.
What matters is not your pressed ironed uniform,
but the mission we should both deem as worthy.


© JosephJosephides