Chichikov

FIFTY MEGATONS
By Pavel Chichikov


Lopshenga is a settlement alongside the White Sea,
Rolling tundra, sand and shingle, inaccessibility,
A dozen houses, kitchen gardens, potatoes and some greens,
But people live by fishing, according to their means


A radio for medical removal or advice,
Say a body breaks a hip by slipping on the ice,
A coffin for a burial is carried by flatbed,
There is no formal carriage for the isolated dead


I flew in once by helicopter one long summer day
Only for some hours before I went away,
That is how they liked it when the Oblast or Moscow
Stretched out an arm and finger to the people long ago


Excellent it is to be remote and out of reach
When government is well-disposed to sanction or to preach,
Hopeful were the villagers that Moscow could forget
Their minimal existence where the sea and tundra met


But over the horizon once, near Novaya Zemlya
A giant detonation lit the sky like an aurora,
The burst of an effusion rose of fifty megatons—
No matter how remote they were, they were the closest ones



PROVE THAT SANITY HOLDS ON
By Pavel Chichikov


The law has ratified abortion
But demonstrate to us the dead child’s showing
And see the most of us recoil in horror and disgust


If that fetus is no child, why should they recoil?
Why revolt to see a simple mass of cells?
Even Romans at the Coliseum had more guts


They watched and cheered as mutilated losers
Were dragged out by the hooks of roustabouts—
We will not see a child hooked living from the womb


We turn our eyes away, cover up our eyes
Though eyes are closed when nightmares come
And we will see them in the dark, as in the light


It is still possible to draw the gasp of rage
To make the viewer turn away, in fury and disgust
To prove that sanity holds on to us, but just

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The Poetry of Pavel Chichikov