Ordinary Valaam nursing home
For the good and the poor but not for saints.
There are a lot of crowded wards home,
For old people with neither arms nor legs.
Here the nurses can’t keep track of everything—
That’s why there are always  stench and doom here,
Everybody has a look depth carrying
In which is visible renunciation mere.
Here lived the hero of the USSR.
Wounded in battle under Krasnodar.
Like everyone else, a Soviet officer,
Just cynically called “a samovar”.
He was never discouraged for everyone—
He joked of everything and laughed heartily,
He gave useful advices to everyone,
And he only smiled at rudeness daily.
They took  veterans “out for a walk”, they
Attached the veterans to fir trees on sackcloth,
In the evening old men were removed from fir trees , they
Had to sleep. Was  forgotten the hero’s
Life. He didn’t die from multiple wounds,
He died quietly, without a cry or a sigh.
Died here so, having frozen veterans.
Together with them died the epoch, great and high.
{2020}

СМЕРТЬ ГЕРОЯ

Обычный валаамский интернат –
Не для святых, но сирых и убогих.
Здесь много переполненных палат
Для стриков безруких и безногих.
Сиделки тут за всем не уследят –
А потому здесь смрад и обречённость.
У каждого - глубокий очень взгляд,
Видна в котором только отрешённость.
Тут жил один герой СССР ,
Израненный в бою под Краснодаром.
Подобно всем, советский офицер
Цинично назывался «самоваром».
Он никогда для всех не унывал –
Шутил про всё и искренне смеялся.
Советы всем полезные давал.
В ответ на грубость – только улыбался.
Однажды «выводили» всех «гулять» -
На мешковинах к елям прицепили.
И к вечеру с деревьев сняли - спать.
А про героя начисто забыли!
Он умер не от множественных ран,
По-тихому – без крика или вздоха.
Вот так ушёл, замёрзнув, ветеран.
И с ним ушла великая эпоха!
{25.02.2020}

Translator - I. Toporov

Pinanday ka ng panahon
May tapang na hindi
basta sumusuko,
sa lahat ng laban
wala kang inuurungan,

Agimat mo ay katapangan
na umagaw mula sa kalaban.
Buo at tibay ng iyong loob
ano man ang iyong sagupain
walang di kakayanin.

laban mo’y hindi biro
Una kami sa iyong puso
Bago ang iyong pagkatao
Karamay ka, sa bawat
along bumubugso.

Ikaw ang bagong bayani
ng ating lipi na nagbabalik
ng kulay at sigla bitbit
ang bandila na may kisig
at buong katapangan.

I’m hiding because

it’s easy to do
To misdirect you
To hide the true me
So that you cannot see

I’m scared
So I prepare
The perfect cover
And hope you don’t discover

What truly hides beneath the veil
That turn people pale

Just because I’m hidden
Doesn’t mean I’ll put down that pen
To write what I feel
To draw a tight seal
Over what I hid
What I hid
Lies in truth amid
But you need to open your eyelid

Help me see
A better day
A day with you and me

Something. It was always something.
And whenever it was nothing
That something came crashing in
Amplifying, magnifying, falsifying

Nothing is ever as hard as living
Nothing was ever as easy as quitting
Surviving was unforgiving
Dying was unremitting

A broken heart and broken bones
Diverging cries that we condone
Death is whispered in unwavering tones
A vacuous home; an empty throne

No one lone thing could change the world
For better or worse, all unknown
Transcendence be the killer of all
Be a hero, die alone

A broken heart and broken bones
Diverging cries that we condone
Death is whispered in unwavering tones
A vacuous home; an empty throne

A tattered quest
A broken trail
A sin confessed
All’s bound to fail
A heart of stone to anchor down
A heart of gold, a thieves’ crown
A heart of ice to thaw the beast
An injured heart, long deceased

A broken heart and broken bones
Diverging cries that we condone
Death is whispered in unwavering tones
A vacuous home; an empty throne

A damaged soul, laid to rest
Unforgiving and unremitting
A hero's tale, told at best
Rescript and falsely fitting

Songstress
by Michael R. Burch

for Nadia Anjuman

Within its starkwhite ribcage, how the heart
must flutter wildly, O, and always sing
against the pressing darkness: all it knows
until at last it feels the numbing sting
of death. Then life’s brief vision swiftly passes,
imposing night on one who clearly saw.

Death held your bright heart tightly, till its maw—
envenomed, fanged—could swallow, whole, your Awe.

And yet it was not death so much as you
who sealed your doom; you could not help but sing
and not be silenced. Here, behold your tomb’s
white alabaster cage: pale, wretched thing!

But you’ll not be imprisoned here, wise wren!
Your words soar free; rise, sing, fly, live again

Keywords/Tags: Nadia Anjuman, Afghanistan, Afghani poet, poetess, death, martyr, hero, heroine, voice, freedom, equality, justice

In eastern and western
northern and southern regions
in the world

A story that comes
from long ago
to never end

The story of
a hero

The one who
is pulled by unknown power of nature
and who
finally, embraces that power
to be the giant nature

Same story
born in every human

Eager
to search a missed piece of oneself
as a question to complete the mission of vital-being

We discover who we are
Seeing the hero deep in mind

Young teenage girl
She thinks she is in love at age 17
She is very kind
Heart like gold
Innocent thinking no boy can ever hurt her
She was wrong
She went through something she thought she can never get out of
She was scared
This boy broke the way she viewed herself
Because to him she was nothing
She was only pleasing to the eye
But not to be in love with emotionally
She now lives with the thoughts of how awful he was
He won't ever think about how he broke her
With his comments
With his actions
She cried in her room for hours
Afraid of everything
Thinking all men viewed her as nothing
But pleasing to the eye
She was just trying to be happy
If he was so unhappy with himself
Or if he knew he wasn't suitable for a girl like her
Why did he date her
Why did he not express to her his intentions in the first place
But no instead he decided to date a happy
Loving
Innocent women
Only to break her
You didn't deserve her
No apology can fix her
You did what you did
Now leave her alone
You are just upset she didn't feed into what you wanted
You made it hard for her to even let another man love her
But no you can go move on with your love life like normal
Because you don't live with any pain
Because she wasn't a hurtful person
But she met someone
A man that was willing to be patient with her
Knowing what she went through
He spent time loving her
Even if she wasn't very comfortable even with a hug
But no he loved her
She got what she deserved all along
A loving man
That is devoted to her
That will give her the entire world if he could
That would make sure she would never go through any pain
Ever again...

Caveat Spender
by Michael R. Burch

It’s better not to speculate
"continually" on who is great.
Though relentless awe’s
a Célèbre Cause,
please reserve some time for the contemplation
of the perils of EXAGGERATION.

Stephen Spender in his best-known poem wrote: "I think continually of those who were truly great." This near-limerick suggests that Spender may have exaggerated the time he devoted to hero worship. Keywords/Tags: caveat, spender, truly, great, think, continually, hero, worship, exaggeration, contemplation, awe, fawn, fawning



Caveat
by Michael R. Burch

If only we were not so eloquent,
we might sing, and only sing, not to impress,
but only to enjoy, to be enjoyed.

We might inundate the earth with thankfulness
for light, although it dies, and make a song
of night descending on the earth like bliss,

with other lights beyond—not to be known—
but only to be welcomed and enjoyed,
before all worlds and stars are overthrown ...

as a lover’s hands embrace a sleeping face
and find it beautiful for emptiness
of all but joy. There is no thought to love

but love itself. How senseless to redress,
in darkness, such becoming nakedness . . .

Originally published by Clementine Unbound

Keywords/Tags: caveat, eloquent, eloquence, sing, enjoy, enjoyment, inundate, earth, thankfulness, praise, song, light, welcomed, enjoyed, enjoyment, bliss, joy, love

Taken Away By Cozyflowz

Momma momma it's sunny out there,
The predators shall be awoken, go out not,

No daughter I shall be fine, we need some foods, the basket is empty, thou shall go fetch something to feed

I shall return in Dew
Momma momma please I beg of you, thou shouldn't take this risks,
I shall endure thy little I eat, I want you closer than ever,  daughter worry not, my guard is embodied

Momma left for the forest, the woods were drained, leafs scattered around thy forest, thy evil birds squeak, the forest gasps for thy tornado,

Momma was a little scared,  the wind was lite, and the sun was hotter,
Momma picked as much foods as she can, on her way home,
She passed the forbidden empire for shortcut home,

In the empire lives a scary demons called the hyenas, strong teeth are a sign of their carnivorous diet, able to hunt buffalos,

Momma walked timidly,
fears of the evil empire scared her to ground,
Momma mistakenly stepped on a dead prey bones, that awoken the evil hyenas,

Laughing, laughing
Here you dare pass the shortcut, how brave you are,  momma tried to run as fast as she could, unfortunately for her,

She was stripped off by the hyenas, and was plundered mercilessly,
Daughter was worried and scared, she tried coming outside to run a search party, but the windstorm scares her back, night, morning, over morrow she never saw the face of her mother, she wept all day.