dracoa
is a white ferret
it is not
true
to say that he
and the cat-
named cat –
are friends
but . . .
the dog
that lives across the platform
hates
both of them
so
the friend
of my enemy . . .
well
this could be
home
for a long time
it has already
gone a month
by now
deep underground
in the kharkiv
railway station
accommodations
must
be made
~
Emma Graham-Harrison, The Guardian.
Frank Prem Poetry 
To me, the underground tunnels are scary enough without the fear and uncertainties above! As tough as smiles are these days, this poem brought a smile — it nicely reflects the humanity of the article in The Guardian!
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Nice to find a little humanity amongst it all, Janet.
Thank you.
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I am inclined to agree with Janet. It was a pleasant change to chuckle
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YOu can’t go wrong with a ferret!
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I love how your poem distils the essence of the Guardian article. Once we look away, stop caring, we diminish ourselves and all humanity.
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I couldn’t resist a story about a ferret, Andrea.
I’ve been struck by the number of pets that feature in reports. This is a war against the middle classes.
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Yes! I’ve noticed that too. I almost howled when I watched the story of a woman who took her two little dogs to the shelter. She was away from the shelter, and them, when a bomb flattened the whole place. 😦
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How awful. I missed that one. 😦
I’ve started to seriously tackle the images of the war as the next part of this undertaking. I’m finding it difficult to find stories at the human level that I can do something with.
It’s interesting that this is the most reported and photographed conflict in history (my observation). The first in a westernised sphere with reporters and smart phones and social media rampant.
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Yes. It’s also the /least/ ‘curated’ of any war to date. Things are getting posted to social media without any kind of vetting by governments or vested interests. I think that’s a very good thing.
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It feels to me as though I can get close, in the same way I felt with the ww1 images. It can be like being too there, in a way. The look on a VC woman’s face, who has been weeping, with her home wrecked in the background, or beside a grave. These are very moving experiences for me and very immediate.
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Yes. I sometimes think that poetry is a bit like music in that it seems to reach the emotions directly. I know a lot of poetry is intellectualised, probably why I dislike it, but yours always goes straight to the heart.
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Little stories dressed up in free verse. Probably sums my work up.
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‘Little’? stories? Hardly. You tell the big stories in a bite-sized way. There’s a difference. 🙂
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Yuu made me chuckle aloud, Andrea. Thank you indeed.
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-grin- always welcome, Frank. 🙂
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Very well done, Frank.
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Thank you, Robbie. There have been some very provocative stories.
I was discussing with Andrea how extraordinary it is that this war has so much uncensored coverage. We live in an age where devices capture everything and socialmedia spread it everywhere.
For me, it is a very accessible (and even more confronting) war.
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HI Frank, I agree, I have seen some extraordinary video footage of this war.
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