they raised me on folk
history of ukraine&pogroms
bolsheviks&russians
ukranians&nazis ukranians&soviets
flight to poland fighting
imperiled constant flight only
storied occupation&flight
I am not from ukraine
that is just a tall-tale
it is built on top of my home-
land: lvov before it was lviv
not here to argue about old borders
mind on the front lines with folk’s
wheat ghost of memory
kalashnikov’s
butt-end meets grandfather’s forehead
but that was later
not my memory either
nazi collaborators: lvov my
grandmother lived with parents
polish-lithuanian city
jews&poles before
pogroms&after bolsheviks
I am trying to let go of hereditary
memory everything taken
by the soviets after the germans
lost and the west gave the poles
as a parting gift to stalin
Rudolf Weigl tied boxes of
lice to the legs of a teen girl
that was my grandmother for
extra rations from the occupiers
for her platelets that were now
immune to typhoid some of
her platelets were smuggled
into concentration camps by
the resistance after the bolsheviks
some of her platelets smuggled
for vaccinations in ghettos
made lice&blood-paste
louse-feeders avoided camps
lice fought over landscape of skin
the germans spread propaganda
linking bolsheviks&jews: ukranians
collaborated with nazis
stepan bandera organizing
students at the polytechnic
genocide starts on college
campuses where students
round-up polish&jewish
professors with bachelor hands
bandera craved sovereignty
polish interior minister assassination
banderistas will come and get you
stuff of stories told to scare children
like my father at the orphanage
I have learned to forgive ukrainians
when the soviets came they
lived in my grandfather’s family
home with their feet weighted
on hand craft furniture where
bourgeois tea cups used
to sit now replaced by vodka
& boot tread sullied with earth
they hunted-down bandera
I have learned to love the bomb
and not hate all the russians
note from the poet: I spelled town of Lwów Lvov because when the poem is recited by someone other than me, I want to make sure ‘vov‘ is not pronounced as ‘wow‘ as an Anglification.
Karol Olesiak is a queer disabled poet, writer, and activist. Karol’s poetic work is featured or forthcoming in Rogue Agent, Neologism Poetry, Proud to Be, Zoetic, Sugar House, MAI feminism, Lone Mountain, and 5th Wheel Press. Karol has an MFA from the University of San Francisco and can be found online at karololesiak.com.