Moscow

.
"She suffered serious injuries and died
at the scene," said a police spokesman,
quotes the Daily Mail. Anna Loginova
would just not let go, let go
of the Porsche Cheyenne or Cayenne that probably
goes with the job, the handgun, the jiu-jitsu, the
KGB training, that's ex-

goes with the job? that rage
against the mashina, or is it just
before, against the carjacker, the thief?

ex-KGB, and not "just a weapon", but a
woman, a woman
who won't let go her car
door handle, not just
a weapon, a woman
torn to shreds at high speed.

who could ask you now, nobody-
guard?

***

ask you to praise "the mortal error
Of birth and death, the two sad knaves of thieves,
And the hunger's emperor;
He pulls the chain," it is that moment
to let it go, or die
trying.

Sopianae

.
The renaissance of trees welcomes the Raven,

a year of re-enacted memory. Today an old

light of bygone Spring has been awakened,

forgotten voices croak, then speak and sing. The gold

redusted "On a Trans-Danubian Almond Tree

***

Heracles saw not its likeness at the Hesperides’ grove, nor

Had King Alcinous shown such to Ulysses the great.

Miracle even for happy isles with plentiful pastures,

More so among chill clods, northern Pannonia lands.

See how the almond tree blooms bravely into the winter,

Though all its splendid buds shall be smothered by the frost!

Almond tree, little Phyllis, swallows are nowhere near yet,

Or has it been so hard, waiting for youthful Spring?"

(J.P.)

Reykjavik

.
a chessboard at the Tranzit Art Café, on
the arm of a red sofa, opened up to me
like the crypt. figures inside revealing at a quick
glance, what years and years had tried to hide: reflected triangles
of the upper windowpanes mirrored on
the backgammon board that Burzoe
had unleashed in Persia, where the Raja played
against him, lost, then taught him chess, then won,

great iconic defeats and victories in
one set, one twofold interchangeable frame
of mind: 32 pieces black and white, or the two kings
playing their 30 subjects at a game of nard.

the great Sun Mithra, past its peak
hides in the winter mist of moist, soft light, and cloudy street
lighting yellows softly over faint gray hues
of looming project blocks subdued, as the dice choose
which game it is to be then: that of order
or of random chance. the mind of ivory
or teak.

a pine paints
a faint shadow on the windowglass.

***

the crypt receives a master, a great Sun, one
returning home at 64 as old as sum
all figures on both sides, and then times two: too young.
(parallels to Pound: both exiles, and
both ranting scourges of the U.S. and the Jews
on radio broadcast backwaters of European news.)