[memorial to victims of the 1932-33 holodumor in ukraine, edmonton city hall]This is a poem I wrote November 26th while at work. I'd stopped by City Hall at lunchtime for the memorial for victims of the Ukrainian Holodumor (lit. 'hunger-death'). But I forgot I'd even written it, even though I was very angry at the time... because this was also the day my baba died & I lost the papers somewhere in a folder. Yesterday I unearthed it & finished it.
* * *
hammers & sickles
downtown saturday
there was a memorial
for the holodumor –
i happened to see
you
watching us while waiting nearby
for a bus
you, everyone’s favourite socialist!
but as i sang shche ne vmerla ukraïna
i wanted to tell you
kick you,
shake you!
when i noticed the gleaming buttons
on your bag:
that soviet insignia shining yellow
as some badge of your leftist intentions
& i would like to believe
that you mean well,
but it shocks me
that you
so enlightened
are yet so ignorant of this symbol,
for the hammer & the sickle
were just as sharp-edged
as the nazi’s twisted swastika
because these were the tools
that stalin used
to pound people down,
beat out the gilt from siberian stars
these are the tools
that slipped the rope
around
the neck of a poet,
a priest,
a shaman, &
these are the tools
that scythed my family’s wheat!
there was a memorial
for the holodumor –
i happened to see
you
watching us while waiting nearby
for a bus
you, everyone’s favourite socialist!
but as i sang shche ne vmerla ukraïna
i wanted to tell you
kick you,
shake you!
when i noticed the gleaming buttons
on your bag:
that soviet insignia shining yellow
as some badge of your leftist intentions
& i would like to believe
that you mean well,
but it shocks me
that you
so enlightened
are yet so ignorant of this symbol,
for the hammer & the sickle
were just as sharp-edged
as the nazi’s twisted swastika
because these were the tools
that stalin used
to pound people down,
beat out the gilt from siberian stars
these are the tools
that slipped the rope
around
the neck of a poet,
a priest,
a shaman, &
these are the tools
that scythed my family’s wheat!
used the very tools of their survival
to mercilessly made a breadbasket
into
a death-camp
turned them into bony ghosts
devouring their own, the living
& the dead
while sharp weapons guarded
to mercilessly made a breadbasket
into
a death-camp
turned them into bony ghosts
devouring their own, the living
& the dead
while sharp weapons guarded
overfilled silos
beside them –
& you think
you’re a revolutionary
of social rebellion!
or maybe you just think
you’re totally in fashion –
but i don’t believe in hipster irony
because there is no way
to make
hip satire of violent oppression
of these families, my ancestors’ deaths!
here we are still remembering
what the books gloss over –
& it is not yet time to reclaim those weapons!
& i just can’t believe that
someone
who would be the first to fight
against fascism & swastikas,
will still,
as a socialist
go around wearing this?
beside them –
& you think
you’re a revolutionary
of social rebellion!
or maybe you just think
you’re totally in fashion –
but i don’t believe in hipster irony
because there is no way
to make
hip satire of violent oppression
of these families, my ancestors’ deaths!
here we are still remembering
what the books gloss over –
& it is not yet time to reclaim those weapons!
& i just can’t believe that
someone
who would be the first to fight
against fascism & swastikas,
will still,
as a socialist
go around wearing this?
***
here:
& this next article upsets me -- why can't people realize they are of the same hurtful symbolism! maybe someday communists could reclaim them as the tools of workers. but right now, they are still stalin's. & millions of people can't ignore that the hammer and sickle do represent something that is just as dire and cruel as xenophobia and anti-Semitism.
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