In a Kyiv Post exclusive, Nigerian writer, poet and international lawyer Irene Fowler portrays Putin and his slavish supporters as evil incarnate.
July 23, 2023,
Photo:Serhiiy Kolyada
I salute the efforts of Kyiv Post and Ukraine’s citizens, in persevering in the continued onslaught of unjust and criminal aggression by Russia. I want to believe that victory for you and your countrymen is assured.
I know that poetry is not in your wheelhouse, however, I have written a the following new political-poetry pieces on Putin’s demented war. It’s my way of expressing solidarity and outrage.
Thank you, Irene Fowler.
Putin’s War Room
Putin’s war room; a Siberian dungeon of terror, barbarity, ghouls and gloom
A jumbled, sooty, murky, surgical theatre; operating to spread, death, disease and destruction
An iniquitous boudoir, incubating, one man’s illogical, ignoble, impossible dream
An assembly hall, for the planning of heinous atrocities and war crimes.
**
Putin’s war room; not unlike a wild, frenzied, unmanaged zoo
Jungle law, and fierce, feral tactics, on fearsome and ignominious display
Human bodies, minds, and souls; dragged, ransacked, shredded, rent asunder
Flesh, devoured by insatiable, pitiless, fanged, cruel, dogs of war.
**
Putin’s war room; a dark, dank, putrescent, radioactive abattoir
Covered, wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling, in innocent blood
A malodorous slaughterhouse, devoid of safe or humane, corridors of escape
Butchers; chest-deep in rivers of human carnage, victims; shackled, hoisted and bled.
**
Putin’s war room; an inner chamber of horrors, dedicated to the affliction of agony, anguish and torment
Jungle law, and fierce, feral tactics, on fearsome and ignominious display
Human bodies, minds, and souls; dragged, ransacked, shredded, rent asunder
Flesh, devoured by insatiable, pitiless, fanged, cruel, dogs of war.
**
Putin’s war room; a dark, dank, putrescent, radioactive abattoir
Covered, wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling, in innocent blood
A malodorous slaughterhouse, devoid of safe or humane, corridors of escape
Butchers; chest-deep in rivers of human carnage, victims; shackled, hoisted and bled.
**
Putin’s war room; an inner chamber of horrors, dedicated to the affliction of agony, anguish and torment
Lacking any vestiges of kind, charitable or compassionate, human accoutrements
Its evil design and plan, the brainchild of an ungodly, monstrous, architect and craftsman
A monument to discord and nihilism; showcasing the zenith of man’s inhumanity to man.
**
Putin’s war room; a netherworld cathedral and shrine, devoted to tyrannical madness and subversion
High masses offered over the smoke of incense, rising from burnt, charred, sacrificial victims of war
Ministering priests, each a one-eyed cyclops, in hellish garb, stand watch over the idolatrous, profane altar
Declare every day of innocent death a victory; sacrosanct and holy.
Putin’s war room; a music arena, pledged to dark, ominous funeral marches, and mournful dirges
Interwoven with Putinesque vile threats, lies, disinformation and propaganda
A recording studio, of the cacophonous shrieks, wails, screams, cries and pleas of mothers and children
Hellish sounds, amplifying the sinister mania of Pied-Piper-Putin; world’s-most-evil, maestro.
**
Putin’s war room; akin to Shelley’s Frankensteinian laboratory
Thusly, ‘a workshop of filthy creation, birthing an abhorred monster and fiend’
And ‘the tortures of hell are too mild a vengeance for thy crimes – wretched devil!’
As he threatens to extinguish the spark of all forms of planetary life; by nuclear extinction.
Images of Open Art Creative
Putin: The Bloody Tyrant
Putin: Narcissist-Cruel-Bloodsucker, is thy dreaded, ill-famed name
You portray a corrupted, addled mind; fatally feral and deranged
And blanket humanity with venality, terror and gory shame
Your place in history, reserved, for the diabolical-criminal-insane.
**
Toy-General, pitiless-leader, master-fraudster
Lawless-one, corrupter-in-chief, crime-boss
Geo-architect of irreparable, costly, and deadly global loss
Thou abhor, ridicule, that which is noble, true and just.
**
Hence; hissing, seething, venomous, vipers vibrate their rattlers
Drum beats of war reverberate; warnings of vicious, bloody battle
Manifold alerts, alarms, and sirens, blare and blast
The doves of peace and quiet; for now lassoed and latched.
**
Shrieks, wails, cries, and heavy sighs
How many precious, innocent bodies have to die
Unjust war; making of life and light, a charade, sham, and lie
While the unlit, pitch-dark nights of the soul, mock yesteryear’s lullabies.
**
Hurry! make haste to the buses and trains
Flee! ride away from the fearful sights and bloodstains
Loved one’s, past lives, and creature comforts, left behind; forcibly jettisoned
Take heed! life is fickle, capricious; tis a cruel, harsh, unwelcome lesson.
**
Putin: You threaten, menace, the world with the nuclear button
Of a truth, evidence thou art through and through; loathsome, rotten
Humanity abides, side by side, with a besieged, brave, sovereign Ukraine
FREE UKRAYINA! Our justified, strong and ceaseless; universal refrain.
The Tyrants’ Apostolic Creed
They believe in ruinous, savage, death-dealing; Absolute Tyranny
The Father of unspeakable inhumanity
Creator of dystopian hellscapes on earth
And in its most devoted, slavish, sons and scions; lords of depravity
Conceived by evil incarnate
Born of hatred and mayhem
Suffering countless millions, to an existence of crippling misery, torment, and angst
Crucifying blessed human lives, dreams, hopes, freedoms and potential
They descend daily into hell
Grinding the innocent and helpless into fine dust; thwarting any hope of their resurrection in this world
They ascend not into heavenly realms; lacking love, honour or mercy
Seated on iniquitous, earthly thrones of cruel unrighteousness
From whence they deal and judge corruptly; without reason, grace, or charity
Believing themselves to be God
In their unholy, uncatholic, unorthodox universe
Communing with fallen angels
At one with the assembly of vampiric-blood-brethren
Holding fast to the unforgiveness of any, who do not bow or bend the knee
They neither care for, not covet, a glorious, blissful, sacred rebirth
And scorn LIFE EVERLASTING.
Images of Open Art Creative
Russian Oligarchy: Voyage of the damned
The untouchables; exalted sun gods of our helter-skelter, dismal, perverse universe
Deities of old; Apollo, Frey, Helios, Ra and Sol, looked on us askance, their pursed lips laden with many a curse
Power-drunk on ill-gotten gains; we floated on fluffy clouds, albeit, our clay feet, were shackled to mucky oligarchy
In our cold, calculating, innermost hearts, we sussed the real price of filthy lucre to be; a free ride to bottomless toxic seas.
Corrupt state-asset bidding, birthed our monstrous brotherhood, a mob family, sworn to pillage and plunder
Our illegal sources of billion-dollar funds, and soiled reputations; rapidly and roundly laundered
The wiry, gnarled, gnomes of Zurich, licked their chops with a wink and nod; on board with the lawless, fetid, monopoly game
City of London CEO-fat-cats; grinned, purred and rolled over; lying down supine, shamelessly lame.
**
Putin giveth and Putin taketh; without a moment’s hesitation, we sold our souls, ‘cos there is no free dinner
For our predatory, distended, bloated and insatiable croc-skin wallets; thin was never in
Champagne breakfast in London’s Savoy, foie-gras lunch in Paris, caviar midnight supper in Moscow
A tiny taste of the lifetime swindle, great heist and ill-gotten gains, boundless cash flow.
**
Superjets, megayachts, luxury cars; billionaire-status-toys, all essential starter-inventory
Rome’s Bacchus; god of revelry and excess, upstaged and outplayed, by antiheroes of this sordid story
Proprietors of palaces, chateaus, mansions, villas, and grandiose penthouses, in every splendid, prime and privileged location
We were undisputed kings of the earth, absent, royal pomp and pageantry, or spectacular coronations.
**
Patrons, backers, and money-bags, for arts, culture, and citadels of learning
Our stars shone brighter, as victories of our global-brand sports teams kept occurring
World-class opera performances and ballets bestowed on us societal respect; a far cry from Putin’s war-theatre of demented Russian roulette
We were Icarus; mere mortals, traversing the skies, soaring closer and closer, to the burning, flaming sunset.
**
The nonstop festive ball was a dizzying charade, each of us in macabre masquerade, careful in our mirthless, robotic dance steps
Now as one, universally reviled persona-non grata; carrying on us Namaan’s leprosy, and Putin’s missteps
For nought, wickedly sacrificing our prime progeny, while the count of Ukraine’s dead and dying, continues mounting
We are the untouchables: For innocent blood is smeared on us, every drop defying the cleansing power, of earthly; springs, rivers and fountains
Irene Fowler is a Nigerian international lawyer (LL.M Harvard), educator, human rights advocate, opinion writer, essayist, and poet. Her professional career includes employment with the United Nations, Geneva, Switzerland, as well as, Shell Petroleum and Conoco in Nigeria. She has been an outspoken critic of Russia’s unjust war on Ukraine, and hopes for a speedy Ukraine victory, which will also redound to the benefit, of an essential rules-based international order.
The views expressed in these poems are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.
Occasionally in history, an evil appears that is so intense that only a creative artist such as this brilliant woman can describe it adequately.
So we’ll said Sir Scradgel.
Very nice work! It aptly describes what evilness is sitting in the bunker.
But, what should we think about the many in the free countries, those in charge and who dither with help, those who do business with mafia land as if nothing’s happening, and those in so-called neutral countries, who are assisting this demon’s work, even if indirectly?
Mafia land is an incarnation of other evil entities from the past – Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union – and its evilness is no less than theirs. Yet, there are many other parties on this globe who are not exactly shining with glory, even in our own ranks, who have not done what is necessary to defeat this evilness as soon as possible or who downright support it through smuggling sanctioned items, willingly doing business with it, and support it politically. These are facts that they must face for all times to come, like it or not.
I hear what you’re saying Sir OFP but where are the citizens of Russia. I’ve seen on this site pleas that we shouldn’t condemn innocent Russian citizens. Sorry no can do. “ The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” The Russians who standby and do nothing are just as guilty as those with blood on their hands.
Those who really care are in danger of getting arrested and all sorts of bad things being done to them if they voice their protests. The rest, which is the majority, don’t give a crap and are even pro-war.
I know what you’re saying is right. And if I was in their shoes would I do anything different. I don’t know, but I would hope my values would dictate that I do something.