Vlad Putin, I hear, is weaker and weaker,
Just how weak depends on the speaker,
Really weak, awful weak, so weak he can't stand,
Shouldn't he by now have laid down his hand?
The skinny from mandarins at CNN
Is Vlad's washed up, it's just a question of when.
.
Still, he looks okay for a guy on last legs,
Scared rebels back to base, went back to his eggs,
Understandably pissed 'cause they'd gotten cold,
But ate 'em all the same, being from the school old,
Which says that tough guys leave nothing wasted,
Neither food nor words nor enemy unpasted.
.
High comedy was Wagner's move on Moscow,
Prigozhin should get his applause and quick bow.
Vlad kind spared him the leg-iron shuffle,
'Cause Prig once served him that yummy white truffle,
And did dirty work in the places most fraught:
Little things like combat that count for a lot.
.
Nato saw crisis, met gravely like adults,
Left worried and stately without great results,
While the media churned into butter this milk,
Sorry and peeved Russian blood was unspilt.
But as one they reported the cheer of Ukes,
Those hearty strong folks who for us put up dukes.
.
Now all that's left is to mull Putin's weakness,
How changing his mind reflects but his meekness.
He destroyed no traitors as he had said,
Allowed them return to their base and their bed,
Which got western pundits blabbin' and squabblin',
The living proof of Ralph Waldo's hobgoblin*.
.
*A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
