"There had been no execution! No execution! That was the loveliness of this journey up the stairway of the moon. There was as much free time as they needed, and the storm would come only towards evening, and cowardice was undoubtedly one of the most terrible vices." - Mikhail Bulgakov, 'The Master and Margarita'
Vladimir Kara-Murza (now jailed) on the history of Putin's Russia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIibXQU_dgo
(by the way, Alla Pugacheva is 27 years older than her husband. Add her to the list)
*Dead City Christmas*
There's no password for missions,
When the question's a shot.
Millimeter precision,
Five smokes on the trot.
Dead City buried today
Its voices, hushed calls.
The skies lost their way,
Now they're haunting its walls.
Silent Yuletide arrives,
But this basement is night,
And how many lost lives
Has that window sniped?
I forgot there's more than dark
And death in Nature's mix -
On the sixth, the troops embarked,
At six minutes to six.
That morning snowflakes fell,
After days of opening fire,
That snowflake slayed my soul,
Snuffed my brief life entire.
I let it rest upon my hand,
Spat in white dirt and dust.
Was this truth or a dreamland?
Eternal life or stinking rust?
This City was shattered,
But no cross was raised.
Drunken city and battered;
Starving life's final taste.
Here concussed stars are addled
New Bethlehem's burnt.
In tree bark, babies swaddled;
Some limbed, others weren't.
Wish “Merry Christmas” to iron
And the Crown of Gauze.
Mother Theresa's sighing,
Her face solicitous.
With a rustle, last night
I recalled days gone by:
Pulling curtains tight,
We're alone, eye to eye.
That morning snowflakes fell,
After days of opening fire,
That snowflake slayed my soul,
Snuffed the century entire.
I let it rest upon my hand,
Spat in white dirt and dust.
Was this truth or a dreamland?
Eternal life or stinking rust?
There's no password for missions,
When the question's a shot.
Millimeter precision,
Five smokes on the trot.
Dead City by my side,
With its blank and empty eyes,
Firing blanks at empty skies,
Yesterday I was alive.
*Last Autumn*
Last Autumn passed without a line or sigh,
In Summer our last songs crumbled,
One final bonfire where this era can die,
As we watch light and darkness jumbled.
Last Autumn, last Autumn...
Laughing, the Autumn storm swept away
All that choked us on dusty nights, shed
All that would pressure or shimmer and play,
Bitter aspen winds ripped it to shreds.
Last Autumn...
Akh, sweet Alexander Pushkin, why?
Why didn't you once let us know?
How to hold on, how to love, how to try...
What you learned all those Autumns ago...
Hungering seas swallow Autumn suns,
And they hiss just as memories rust,
You knew what lay past those clouds once,
Now untouched grass gathers dust.
Into last Autumn the poets are gone,
Their way back is boarded up tight.
Summer freezes, yet the rains go on,
And love still brings stones to life.
