An Emissary Visits V. Putin

Chip Dameron

April 23, 2022

      V. Putin is startled to see

      a figure appear in his midst.

Emissary: I have come to settle accounts.

V. Putin:  Who are you? How did you manage

    to breach my security scheme?

Emissary: I have my ways. Now let us speak

    of what I have come for. The deeds

               of death mount up daily. Do you

    think you can destroy another

    country and not suffer for it?

V. Putin:  I’ve been saving the Ukrainians

    from their Nazi persecutors,

    and everyone should celebrate.

                Who are you to say that the world

    should view this gift differently?

Emissary: Indeed, you have done what you said

    you would do. And for that, you’ve earned

    a place in the ninth circle, where

    traitors to their oaths find themselves

    alone and lacking their lackeys.

                The others there are tangled in

                their own duplicities. Beware.

V. Putin:   What have I purportedly done

                  to deserve these accusations?

Emissary:  Ah, the cadavers speak volumes.

                 You have Novichoked every

      adversary you’ve dared to fear.

      And while Navalny lives to rot

      for years in prison, you will rot

      for eternity in Hades.

V. Putin:   These men deserved just what they got.

                 They were all traitors to the state.

Emissary:  I have more to say. Remember

     the botched rescue raid in Beslan,

     when your troops used grenade launchers

     and flame throwers, turning the school

     into an inferno, killing

     hundreds of children and adults?

V. Putin:   Those troops did what they had to do.

Emissary:  So you say. But that blood blackens

        your name. And now you have become

        the Butcher of Bucha, the fiend

        who brought a grisly death

      to civilians crowded into

        a Mariupol theater.

      Your days are numbered. Your rightful 

        place awaits. Your fate will come soon.

V. Putin:  Be gone! I’ll hear no more of this!

        I’ll have you torn from limb to limb!

Emissary:  To tear a limb you must seize one.

        I am a shade with limbs of smoke.

       When I return, I’ll take you down

      to where you’re meant to be. Your end

       will be a broiling beginning.

        The emissary disappears.

        V. Putin stares into the void.

Chip Dameron is the author of ten collections of poetry and a travel journal. He is a professor emeritus of English at The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. A member of the Texas Institute of Letters, he’s also been a Dobie Paisano fellow.