
“Wotan” by Konstantin Vasiliev
I fight as a god
hurling powers
at breastplates
disheveling foes
shaking men
from the rot of
ignoble ideas
quaking doctrines
immoral and
dirty with greed
till they shatter
slip down into
cracks of failed
ethics regaining
a measure of
grace for the
world re-instilling
integrity honesty
values of shared
common decency
plumping the near
shriveled veins
of democracy
gasping its lungs
in extremis
From my book Pieces of Wine