Found Poem: The Only Way to Win Is to Fight

Ukrainian soldiers are making their final stand 

There are still 30 to 40 children holed up 

According to one soldier 

Inside The Foundry

Who said

They want to wipe out the witnesses 

Of the war crimes

They want to reduce everything to dust.

The only way to stay alive and to win, yes,

Is to fight.

Because if you surrender

It is a great shame.

One shirtless man appeared to be in pain 

As he described his wounds: 

Two broken ribs, a punctured lung, 

And a dislocated arm that “was hanging on the flesh.”

“I want to tell everyone who sees this: 

If you will not stop this here, in Ukraine, 

It will go further, to Europe,” he said.

“Every Russian soldier can still save his own life,” Zelenskyy said. 

“It’s better for you to survive in Russia than to perish on our land.”

“The lives of soldiers matter too,” Yuliia Fedusiuk told AP in Rome.

We have to save their lives because there is no supplies,

No foods, no medicines.

We want to ask for help from the people of the USA or Europe, and

International organizations to try to solve this problem 

In the Diplomatic and political voice. 

Ukrainians plead for Mariupol rescue; Russian advance crawls

By MSTYSLAV CHERNOV and YESICA FISCH

Note:  The source of this and my other found poems are news stories about Russia's aggression against the people of Ukraine.  Reading or hearing the stories, I hear poetry in the spirit of the people who are living in Ukraine or reporting from there.  The lines of found poems come completely from other sources; it is the job of the writer to distil meaning from the larger text with key selections.  The fighting spirit and the will to survive come from a deeply rooted place, and I offer these distillations with deep respect.