“Embracing Negativity by Getting into its Bed of Filth Overrun by Cockroaches” © Sketchman Boris

 

Canto 24 of A War Papyrus
The beginning of the third year of
The Russo-Ukrainian War

The East, with comrades there in repressed concerns each day
And each night in nightmarish, paroxysmal ravages of thought
About possible, if not probable, contracting of
Rat bite fever, tularemia,
Or leptospirosis in the trenches;
So apposite it is here, in this room in this city of Odessa a little
West of the Eastern region, and in the deep South,
That they, these cockroaches, these scent interlocutors,
Are gathering on and at my bed, coming
For and before the feast of me–

Coming, that is, in due course, after solemn discourse,
On this, the twenty-fourth day of the twenty-fourth month,
Which is the first day of the third year
Of this sickening incipience of this incessant, insipid, insidious world war,
This Russo-Ukrainian War that seems to go on forever,
Pulling all into it, on

This, the twenty-fourth day
Of the twenty-fourth month, which is the first day
Of the third year in which the nation of Ukraine
Has been having second thoughts
On the viability of fighting such a giant;
Second thoughts that passive acceptance is,
As once firmly believed, pathetic and craven,
With floating on tumultuous waves,
Instead of fighting them obstreperously,
Having immense sense.

That they, these king cockroaches, should now be
Wandering on the bed, speaking from mini megaphones
In their mini mouths, making mini pronouncements
That they will attain hegemony,
That they will, with time and aftermath,
At last, be victors and emperors,
As the victim-belligerents of Ukrainians,
Unable to bear the indignities
Of incursion, constantly react by inducing
Western powers to provide them with armaments,
And Palestinian victim-belligerents who
Lashed out on Israeli innocence inhumanely
When unable to stomach
Any more Israelites colonizing,
If not fully terrorizing,
The 100 years of their severed cage,
Have provoked the Jewish state’s determined
Extermination of these Palestinian “tunnel rats”
Whom they routinely dehumanize as such;

Of the conflation of these and other incongruous events, strands,
Fuses, lit partially here, partially in Palestine and elsewhere,
Deadly chemical invective of action
Mixed with incendiary rhetoric of nations
Taking sides, giving favoritism,
To two of the four belligerents,
Respective victim belligerents
And pugnacious provocateur belligerents
That they be, in this dual duel and more,
All coming together
To destroy civilization in a third-world war,
A conflict, an attraction, magnetically
Drawing countries in like the first.

And, in light of Mother Earth making
The impossible possible–that being
Flowers from death and decay,
And animated snowmen out of excrement,
And, in recycled bits, life continuum as long
As the sun does not slip into senility
Like an aged octogenarian president,
And thus, beauty from the sordid
(It’s inexorable conflicts notwithstanding),
We must find peace of mind
By not making the world that which we wish it to be
But instead, find joy in filth coming alive,
Being alive, and replicating its flawed liveliness.

And so it is appropriate that these filthy invaders
Should, most awkwardly,
Choose to come now,
Wandering on this bed
Amongst two of the 8 billion human pests,
–I and my John, this perverse Dick
Of which both of us are here, undressed,
Here, yes here, on this bed,
His body on top of me,
This broken toy soldier,
This prostitute in bedsheets,
While my roommate, Little Baby in mental travail,
Sits in a corner, cognizant and watching,
Moaning of battles past and realities
Of the present, both equally untoward.

That there was a time I was young and beautiful,
A time I had a girlfriend
And was high on high hopes for two,
That there was a time, this time,
That seemed then so real, so much like forever,
But is now past, unreal as on a hot afternoon
That which once was dew becomes
Evaporated and invisible as dispersed vapor,
A nothingness;

That the beauty of life all seems a distant, ethereal meeting
Like cloud seduced to fall to these sordid plains as fog
Before being reeled back up again; and yet
We must get up off the ground once again,
We must be resilient in the wish to survive,
Even if in so doing
We become stretched, distorted,
So unequivocally contrary to that which we once were and
That which we once held dear

Two and more years, too many lives,
And no matter whether
Declared Ukrainians or Russians,
These were once men
Sentient, cognizant entities
Butchered gratuitously
With meat deemed so useless
That it is not even consumed, but buried,
Left to the Earth’s worms
And bacteria for consumption,
On this, the twenty-fourth day
Of the twenty-fourth month, which is
The first day of the first month of the third year,
Of this sickening incipience of this incessant, insipid, insidious world war,
This Ukrainian/Palestinian thing that seems to go on forever
In the sordid realm of the sordid lives of men

 

Steven David Justin Sills is a literary writer living in Bangkok Thailand. His book of poetry, An American Papyrus, is in many libraries in the United States and a copy of one book owned by a library was scanned by the Internet Archive. Sills’ work can also be found on the Online Book Page at the University of Pennsylvania. Sills finished his last literary novel The Three Hour Lady two years ago, and since that time he has been devoting himself to writing a long war poem about what is happening in Ukraine. This is the 24th month of the war which began on February 24th. This poem tries to show the protagonist seeking to be sanguine in this protracted conflict through accepting dark realities if not resigning himself to them including the necessity of hustling for survival

Sketchman Boris is a commercial artist in Bangkok and an event organizer for cartoonists in Thailand. The popularity of his events are often held at the Bangkok Arts and Cultural Center amongst other venues under the patronage of various governmental sponsors