Oh Vladimir, you'll never hear the words I want to speak
How could you? Even Russians cannot penetrate your mystique
If I had you sat in front of me, I know I wouldn't have the power
To compel you to listen...

Why won't you listen?
Surely some among your retinue can see this wider truth?

You're no different from me in this, both men beyond our prime
Who contemplate the encroaching day when all our light will dim
We must let go of all the things we want to hold when we are gone
You may tell a different story, one that doesn't end in blood and bone,
But you delude yourself.

Things, ideas, they're really all the same — one day a widow or a child
Will tearfully sort our clothes, unable to decide what to throw,
What to keep for its nostalgic power... and in time, perhaps,
Some great grandchild will finger a trinket that once was yours
And wonder: what sort of man was my great grandpa?

The drones can see your legacy clear: men fighting as in a video game
Falling in countless fields and towns, thousands dying in your name
Elderly couples shiver in apartments with missing walls
Fathers crouch in muddy trenches, exiled children call
Unheard. Eight million refugees strain the charity of the West
And all so that one man can indulge his crazy quest
For some mythic past utopia, a selective fugue at best...

A man whose paranoia has overwhelmed the world
A malignant destiny, the dragon's wings unfurled
Ruin rains down from winter skies
The meat grinder's churn, the orphaned children's sighs...

Oh Vladimir, you'll never hear these words or any others...
You've made yourself deaf.
But you must know the way this ends:
Life always ends in death.