Warfare #2: Social Chameleon
This week I am dedicating our gratitude to Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky. We are all depending on him right now for his extraordinary leadership to maintain the morale and courage of his people to fight back against Putin’s tyranny.
Dear Volodymyr Zelensky, President of Ukraine
You’ve stood up to Putin’s brutal campaign
You’ve inspired your people
To stare down his evil
You’ve fronted your country while missiles rain
Your earlier life, was rather bohemian
Formerly an actor and once a comedian
Now the man for this conflict
Rallying your conscripts
A charismatic leader and clearly a chameleon
With such a stratospheric rise in popularity
You work the world media with regularity
Lobbying world parliaments
For aid and more armaments
Appealing for help and greater solidarity
You’ve personally declined to flee from Kyiv
Despite offers from the West, you refuse to leave
With your city under siege
You don’t want prestige
It’s not a lift, but weapons you’ve asked to receive
You’ve called for more help from the Western world
As Putin’s planes bomb and bullets are hurled
We’ve sent military supplies
But can’t protect your skies
With risk there’ll be nuclear weapons unfurled
Putin’s exploiting power, with xenophobic nationalism
He’s on a campaign of deluded irrationalism
While he’s peddling propaganda
You’re your county’s cool commander
Leading from the front with heart-felt patriotism
He’s denying citizens of his tyrannical truth
Russians unaware of his behaviour uncouth
While you defend democracy
Against his autocracy
You’re the face of your nation with cherubic youth
You’ve maintained morale against outright slaughter
Innocent civilians killed, by Russian mortar
You’ve said it’s not war
But genocide and more
We imagine your citizens, as our own sons or daughter
Sadly, Western powers seem powerless to act
Your friends and neighbours too afraid of being attacked
We’ve thrown you under a bus
In the frontline for us
You’re fighting for freedom of the entire NATO pact
If we are not prepared to join you in the fight
We can only hope Russian sanctions soon bite
If his economy’s crumbling
His tanks will stop rumbling
Hang on in there Volodymyr, we share in your plight
Your hospitals have been bombed and apartments too
For these war crimes, Putin must get what’s due
You will fight to the death
To your very last breath
All our hearts and thoughts go out to you
You’re hunkered in your bunker with enormous strain
The weight on your shoulders for all of Ukraine
From the days of playing a clown
You’re now the biggest dude around
And no one will ever …. laugh at you again!
Kevin Holmes • 18th March 2022
