Sudetenland

When Kissinger proposed she should appease
aggression to ease Putin past this mood,
Ukraine demurred to take it on her knees;
Zelensky's answer's eloquently crude.
When Neville Chamberlain sold out the Czechs
as if the Nazis wouldn't then grab more,
such causes have predictable effects;
what followed was a more appalling war.
It shouldn't take a genius to discern
such cowardice just magnifies the threat.
But politicians don't get paid to learn;
what Caesar knew, more modern minds forget.
Old lessons History could teach the sage
get lost too often in this smartphone age.

evitability

The perestroika Gorbachev endorsed
moved Fukuyama to proclaim the "end
of History"; that swiftly ran it's course.
This Kremlin--under Putin's--no one's friend.
The Tsarist empire's lust for ice-free ports
that meant so much before goods moved by rail,
burns still in Putin's atavistic heart;
to be snuffed out when his aggressions fail.
Ukrainians reject this noxious guest
despite the Kremlin propagandists' spin
faux foes of fascists in it's fictive press
betrayed their very Slavic next-of-kin.
Unending Peace, as Kant had dared to dream,
must first defeat this monster's war-machine