Mudlark No. 48 (2012)

The Trotsky/Stalin Sonnet

One always spitting through his beard at crowds.
The other’s cockroach moustache dry pasted
above a smile, not quite so pure or loud,
his small-peaked cap tight as a tourniquet, 
face unreadable, each word a bullet
heard too late. If the proletariat’s
not a bureaucracy, who’s this handful
condemning poets, peasants, yesterday’s
heroes? My or his own red army will
sweep the world! What’s Poland but a stuck sword? 
Here’s where Capital’s bucket’s drained of blood.  
Take your friends, one by one, into the field.
Or give that man an axe in Mexico, 
Trotsky’s skull soft as a ripe cantaloupe.      

John Allman | Dream
Contents | Mudlark No. 48 (2012)