(By Belay Ambelay) –
Tempus fugit,
A generation past,
Russia looked long and hard,
The reign of the czars redux.
Controlling the Slavs, Chechen,
Ukrainians and the Moldovans.
And to that effect,
Lose ends to meet,
Defiant of the October Revolution
And Czar Alexandra’s execution,
That unhinged the oligarch’s foundation,
The Russians exhumed his remains,
In case he would indulge,
To divulge,
How back then, he kept intact:
The imperial badge,
Untouched and unsmudged,
That kept Russia over-sized to bulge!
Just like the Amharas
Are operosely plunged,
To no avail,
The imperial flag to salvage.
Thus to their dismay
Certain things, such are death,
Are beyond their sway.
They inhumed it back,
For lack of a better choice
They could come up with.
What marked the event different,
From the ‘culprits’ ill treatment;
Endless mourners passed by the catafalque,
And kept the chorale the whole day in play,
Pageantry the likes of which
The country had not seen for long was also in display.
But with the lost leader.
what the Muscovites forgot to bury;
Was Russia the country.
Now this belligerent nation,
Dead as a rock,
Is on the walk,
Putin must find a new trick.
How to swallow the runaway ethnics,
For Russia to wake;
And put a break.
The Hewers of wood;
And drawers of water,
Aspire equal rights of nationhood,
Neck and neck!