on Ukraine

something straight out of The Brothers Grimm
innocence of children betrayed
in their thousands
abducted, shipped, farmed out

blond hair, blue eyes their appeal
to childless Russian couples

conscripted to Moscow’s Young Army
taught to deny their birthplace
if they were ever old enough to know from where they sprang

~

n.b. Check it out, the War Crimes are not just the levelling of villages, towns and cities, but the wholesale theft of a nation’s young. 

CLP 20/08/2025