Dear Mister Putin

How does it feel?

Dear Mister Putin

How does it feel sitting on your horse?

Does your bare chest heave with pride?

Are you Povetkin or Klitscho,

Alexander or Wladimir,¹

Russian or Ukraine,

Flexing those little biceps

Atop your puny frame?

Dear Mister Putin

I see you are smiling.

Have I got it wrong?

Is it Beria or Stalin

I should compare you to?

A million died at Stalingrad,²

How many will the Donbas take

For you to reach their giddy heights?

Dear Mister Putin

Forgive me for saying

But the smaller the soul

The greater does psychopathy grow.

At Stalingrad neighbours ate the limbs

Of their friends’ rotting flesh.

It was just a prelude to victory.

No wonder you smile.

A.I. Fabler

March 30, 2025

¹ Alexander Povetkin (Russia) and Wladimir Klitscho (Ukraine), heavyweight boxing champions, fought for the world title in 2013. Klitscho won.

² 1.4 million people died in the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943.