‘AND THIS ONE HERE IS BASIL’, HE DECLARED
‘And this one here is basil’, he declared.
Onto an English china plate he lowered
some reddish radish and a spear of scallion.
His pooch loped round about, lolling tongue bared.
He called me, like a peasant would, ‘Alyokha’.
‘Let’s have another, Russian style, out here’.
We felt just fine at first. Then we felt awful.
The Gulf of Finland (i.e. ours) curved near.
O native realm with great big capital R,
or rather S – or rather, loathsome ‘are’;
the stagnant air bedecked with medal bars,
the soil serving as warrior and squire.
Those simple names such as Upýr, Redédya,
Union of co(m/n/p)s, cattle, and country folk,
forest in memory of Comrade Bruin,
and meadow in memory of Comrade Bug.
A hawk east of the Urals shed a tear.
A frail stem rose to give a talk in Moscow.
An oath rang out above. A fart beneath.
The china rattled and rang out as Glinka.
Pushkin the frisky stallion felt his oats,
a fishnorfowl who sang in praise of freedom.
Smoked fish they rationed out to feed the people.
They put out ‘Silva’. Duska didn’t put out.
That motherland is stuck far up shit creek.
These days it’s naught but frost and filth and skeets.
The pooch is dead, my friend’s beyond recall.
A stranger lost no time taking his kingdom.
And growing now – you guessed – is bugger all
in garden plot by the ex-Gulf of Finland.