Gateway to the Gulag
Putin said, No art in Perm,
No to the decadence of the West.
No surprise. Art is always a snake
to a dictator,
sidewinding and fanged,
the artist who puts it there,
equally
unpredictable, seducing through melodies,
images that might turn minds away
from
the demagogue.
What Putin wants is what Kim Jong-un
wants—
what Trump wants,
billboards and marches, selfies and
self-medicating,
a rictus of smiling.
An artists’ colony at the gateway to
the Gulag?
Forget it.
--Devon Balwit
Bio: Devon Balwit is a
writer/teacher from Portland, OR. Her political poems have appeared in The New
Verse News, Poets Reading the News, Redbird Weekly Reads, Rise-Up Review, Rat's
Ass Review, The Rising Phoenix Review, Mobius, What Rough Beast, and more.
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