Skeletons in Stalin' s Closet

Renata Hornich

Gone.
Nothing.
None at all.
No food to eat.
Harvested golden Western Ukrainian wheat;
Stolen, forbidden, hidden.
Tongues became Ukrainian' s weakest muscles
Left to lamely lick lips of hunger pains,
Swallowed spared saliva.

Suffering-
Malnourished mouths merely vacant voids,
Forgotten ink-black caves,
Lined with sickly pink inflamed gums,
Barely holding onto hibernating teeth.
Under used, under ground.

Lost-
Bodies piled up like garbage in landfills
Fizzing flies gyrated
Diseases stnmg along
Intertwined, twisted, tossed
Arms and ears and toes shrunken and shriveled
Intertwined, twisted, tossed
Pale white-blue prunes
Frigid to the touch
Sent disgust
Pricking like hundreds of splinters
Up and down and up spines
For seventy years
In Native Ukrainians
Across waiting waters
In Diaspora and survivors
Shuddering to themselves,
No one else.
Habouring knowledge of
Planned mass murder, pitiless pain.
Swiftly swept away
By communist concern,
Of democratic thoughts.
Proof of realization of disgusting actions
A disgraceful display of humanity.

Missing-
Ukraine' s light blue skies,
Overpowered by the foulest pollution
Of suffocating smells,
Blowing in harsh, slapping winds,
Of innocent people dead.
Rotting and reeking in unison
With wheat spoiling gray,
Enough to feed a people,
Forced to die.
Filled the air with genocide
So strong a stench
Amplified Stalin' s silent wrong.
Decaying, decomposing
Deep into a country's sad history
Into the richest soil of Eastern Europe-
Unless shoveled by angry hems,
Into rusty Soviet carts
Squeaking from exhaustion
Wheeling away
Several
Million
Nameless
Carcasses
Lost in 1933.
Skeletons in Stalin's closet.