We shall wear orange scarves
despite their brainwashing 
and Nazi-styled pseudo-patriotic yells.
We shall wear orange scarves
despite their pervasive ideology 
of privatized corruption and repression.
We shall wear orange scarves
in memory of those butchered under Stalin, Hitler and other 
“nation-loving patriots”, “Fathers of all nations”, 
all sorts of “charismatic leaders”
who used to slaughter millions of their lambs 
mesmerized by uplifting cracks of Shepherds’ whips.
We shall wear orange scarves
for our own sake, for the sake of our life and freedom,
for the sake of our desire to be human beings,
rather than herds of sheep 
enchanted by the magic glory of the Dictator’s whip
driving them to the edge of an abyss
which they are yet to willingly plunge into 
and explore all the details of torment to a nicety, 
to add to bleached skulls and bones of by-gone generations,
in vain hopes to find the Promised Land.
We shall wear orange scarves
when time is ripe,
when all red tears dropped on the ancient pavement
of Red Square since Ivan the Terrible
are poured together and merge into a single roaring stream
to invite us in and sing its pleading dirge of hope.

[click to view introduction]