Oh Blast

The Russian Federation is divided into states,

or provinces, if that word is your preference.

But in the Russian language there’s a word that designates these regions,

so I use that word in deference.

An oblast’s how they say it and they number forty six.

They’re spread across the greater part of Asia.

They lie across the waters of the fabled River Styx,

a land that is a nightmarish fantasia.

One wonders how the word oblast would come to mean a state.

I ponder on these things as my distraction.

When told that they’d been annexed by a nation that they hate,

Oh BLAST was their initial gut reaction.

Now anyone who lives beside a river is aware a rivers’ course is always in transition.

It seems the River Styx has now meandered off somewhere and now curves round America’s position.

Imagine their surprise when this disclosure is unfurled,

this transformation that has happened so fast.

They’re now across the river from the democratic world.

America’s the forty seventh oblast!