April 7, 2005

Poetic Interlude

I wish my enemies were Russians

for the privilege of your naiveté
they played you like an instrument
set against that Europe
your Russia was a love story;
the thinking man’s erotic fantasy.
You wrote odes to odes on lunacy
but even the polarity was illusion
shifty spies confused the confusion.
That war was all in your head;
endless scenes of winter
intrigue. Your house with
picture windows and a fallout shelter;
mutually assured destruction.
Your history was the cinematic stuff
of fiction. The enemies were Russians
with beady eyes and edgy names.
Your symbols were comic book
red menaces and red phones,
iron curtains and star wars.