Giant cranes fling statues aloft
fingers pointing skyward
strong backs, stout rope
trip rockhard images onto their faces
people jump back to avoid
injury as old sympathies crumble
it is said in some places conjurers
snap fingers, turn statues to smoke
the color of marble and the people
cheer as wind whips the smoke
from the square. This is the way—
when evil is enshrined in marble
and the time arrives. Empty spaces
in Ukraine where 1,320 images
of Vladimir Lenin stood. Another
1,069 Soviet monuments transmuted
into rubble and dust. In Zakarpattia,
Lenin Street is renamed Lennon Street.
Read More:
Ukraine has removed all 1,320 statues of Lenin [The Independent]
11 imaginative ways that Ukraine has dealt with historic statues [EuroNews]
Robert Lee Whitmire is a Vietnam veteran, a retired newspaperman, fine-art photographer, and social services worker. He spends his time reading, talking about stuff with his wife of 44 years, riding his motorcycle along Maine’s back roads, and doting on his two grandchildren. He has published previously in TheNewVerse.News and One Sentence Poems.
Image via “Looking for Lenin“, a project by Neils Ackermann and Sebastien Gobert
