Unquotable Quotes: the How of Democratic Kill - Xxxix, Part One
Unquotable quotes: The How of Democratic Kill – XXXIX, Part One
Born in 1868, Alexei Maximovich PESHKOV, better known as MAXIM GORKY and hailed as the chief proponent of Soviet literature, the veritable champion of the proletariat and the downtrodden masses, and who counted among his foremost friends LENIN, STALIN and TROTSKY, was poisoned with camphor by his doctor Levin at the instigation of Yagoda, the former Chief of Secret Police in 1936. His father passed away when he was five, and his paternal grandfather turned him out of the family home after subjecting him to merciless thrashings which had him bed-ridden for weeks at a time. He was condemned to roam the streets and wilds for a living right from his teens and his attempted suicide ruined his own lungs for life. His experiences, unlike those of the cosetted and untrammeled bourgeois Tolstoy's (whose wife besides slaved as his literary amanuensis: no resemblance to Patricia and Naipaul though), fed his immensely popular stories, novels, plays, articles and his autobiographical trilogy, culled from living in Russia (Nizhny, Novgorod), Georgia (Tiflis), Italy (Sorrentino, Capri) and the USA (New York).
For Alexei Maximovich PESHKOV, the reputed “Father of
Soviet Literature”
Now the Cossack rode roughshod
From Novgorod to Vladivostock
Trans-Siberian rocked the railroad
-40° suckled by deepfreeze livestock
Tartar’s shuddered locks splayed on docks
On Syrian shores an Assad naval sword
Levin commits sin
in Stalin’s Krêmlin
Yagoda in Tsarist skin
makes Lenin turn Putin
Who executed the high Bolshoi entrechat
on the battleship Potemkin
Was it Kerensky or the scélerat
or Rasputin under Romanov skin
Unstrip the balalaika chez the Peshkov
to let grandma kitchen tales unfold
Levin commits sin
in Stalin’s Krêmlin
Yagoda in Tsarist skin
makes Putin turn Lenin
Go now Ivanko! Cut hermit Miron’s head off
and his prayer for mankind eternally cold
Ivan the Terrible’ll make Daech listen to Lavrov
no camphor poison could ever be Soviet sold
Did Yagoda tell Saudi Prince Al-Qaïda off
Or a Putin not bar lethal secret tatami hold
Levin commits sin
in Stalin’s Krêmlin
Yagoda in Tsarist skin
makes Lenin turn Putin
No petty Levin plied the Volga or bakery
Escaped the pogroms under Stalin enmity
The long arm of rivalry split Trotsky
skull in exiled lost Méjico City
Drained the peoples’ lungs of victory
In the proletariat Chief Maxim Gorky!
Levin commits sin
in Stalin’s Krêmlin
Yagoda in Tsarist skin
makes Putin turn Lenin
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2016
Copyright © T Wignesan | Year Posted 2016
Post Comments
Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.
Please
Login
to post a comment