Ohi Day* Poem by Cretan Maineiac

Skirt-chasing Mussolini's delusions of
expansion followed
up his desert conquest of Ethiopia w/ an

ultimatum to her ancient colonizer, Homer's
land turned over to
Cavafis, dirt-poor shepherds & primitive

Orthodox mendicants whose Achillean
muskets hadn't
felled a Turk in years. Il Duce dreamt a

dream, foisting
fascism upon the
scorched rocks & ethereal elevations from which

democracy once sprung like an angelic augury of
Liberty, sponsored by
the Fuhrer's swagger & Chamberlain's

concessions.
'Ohi! '
answered Metaxas, echoing thru the Pindus

mountains and into
Albania, 'Ohi! ' affirmed the
Hellenes, in the face of Nazi wrath, an

echo ringing on through the
generations, in a
tone still audible amid & aloft the

swirling siren song of libertine distractions.