CAGED GARDEN OF LIFE
In a gloomy garden of the golden cages
suspended on the golden chains
at the whim of a wistful gardener,
trees of a quashed joy rustle alive,
alive to the roaring wind rudely stripping them
of their yellow apparel of an anticipated slumber.
Lawns of gilt offer their own
rampaging yellow, lawns of a decaying life
stifled todeath by the marauding weeds.
The whole garden is an ungainly cage
of rust which is the gold's aftermath.CAGED RESPITE
Life's refugees used to willingly
lock themselves in these endless fields
of the golden cages unfolding all around
in the menace of their deceptive splendor
that the life's loyal martyrs eagerly fall for,
longing for a minute's respite
from the uncanny pain
of vulgar day-to-day existence.
Anticipating the audacity of a departure,
shunning the rip-off of a return,
the poor convicts on the death row
of the guillotining golden cages
are still readily reaching out to them,
to the stretching swampy fields of them
running far beyond the life's horizon,
so peacefully and joyfully serene
in their placating, inviting, vermilion green
of the countless time-chariots of pastures
affording the ready oblivion
the convicts are yearning for.I WILL SEND MY MESSAGE COLLECT
I will send them all the torn-out copies
of my last message collect,
as I stand breathing in the sight
of the frozen silver, its faulty light
fettering the river's glassy ice.
My memory, in its inveterate longing
to plunge into the sweet water of hope,
is being thrown to the gusty summit
where regiments of ghastly ghosts gather
to perpetrate their ghoulish parade.
Time rumbles down the bumpy street
of my crumbling consciousness, as
I am being effectively run down by its heavy cart
which used to stop at my beck and call,
but which now will positively not,
even if I vociferously plead with it.
Days are being sipped out of me,
with relish, by the subtle connoisseurs
of the delicious wine of time and age.
I will send them all the torn-out copies
of my last message collect.BLACK NIGHT
The arid fields of dusty silver
lie fallow for years and years that pass
in the farewell trembling hues
of the night too black and dazzling
to look real.
The placid ponds of gilded lilies ripple
with the sinking shades of this suffocating
twilight, the black night's faithful employee.
The corrupted fates of grandeur,
formerly sparkling, now vexed and weary,
lie scattered on the banks
which the nightly Rider of Justice haunts.THE MARBLE TOMB TO CROWN LIFE
It was caused by nothing,
aimed at nothing
but popular outrage.
Frustration, discontent, unrest.-
all these offsprings
of the disabled single party rule
are now issuing their pervasive yells
all around the new
and the same old country
caught up in complex implications
of its discarded but
thoroughly tenacious past.The unknown present day
breaks in upon the petrifications
of what has been sanctified
by the multitudes of the ever-marching
purple, red, bloodstained, bleeding
banners now carried high
by the staunch advocates
of the good old totalitarian days.Their lofty calls
seem to fail to chime
with the somewhat less lofty
cries of those butchered
in Stalin's prison cells,
now wafted to the marchers' ears
from the cells
of their own lingering memories.
The marching former convicts
crave for Stalin whose much lamented death
let them out of the prison cells
but buried them
in those of their wounded souls.
Are these parading relics just the guns
Stalin triggers off
from under his marble tomb?
The marchers never question.
They are called up from the past
and are here to obey.short bio:
I am 29, born on October 29, 1973, in Volgograd, Russia. In 1996, I graduated from Volgograd Pedagogical University, the Foreign Languages Department.
Vladimir Orlov, POBox 237, 400006,
Volgograd-6, Russia.
v_orlov@vistcom.ru
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