Art: Samia Singh

Dostoevsky

Harrowing prophet,

impassioned, irrational

sick and spiteful

how could you be otherwise

your father murdered by his own serfs

you and your Petrashevskian friends

arrested for treason without rhyme or reason

sentenced to death by the deadly bullets of the firing squad

miraculously rescued seconds before triggers were to be pulled

shipped off to Siberia for metamorphosis

to live in the house of the dead

but you came out a true believer,

with a new mission to return the world to God

you heroically fought battles within your soul

through tormented Raskolnikov, chafed Stavrogin, atheist Ivan Karamazov

and an army of charismatic devils, saintly prostitutes, mystic terrorists

possessed idiots and deadly demons in a fallen world.

Akhmatova

Anna

your requiem-meditations

condemned and censored

under the shadow of terror

your close ones disappeared

one by one

without a trace.

Like storms, husbands and lovers

came your way-

Gumilev, Modigliani, Osip,

and countless others,

none could possess you though for long

friends left you for greener pastures

and you became a poem without a hero,

your eternal confusion

still haunts the world

‘who is beast, who is man?’

Alexander Blok

Your lonely apartment by the canal

carries images of a bygone age,

age before the torment began

and the thugs took over

your peace,

your poetry,

your life

and the life of your whole generation.

You rightly said-

‘night, a street, a lamp, a drug store, a senseless wan light,

live another quarter of a century- all will be the same,

there is no way out.’

Yet my spirit believes in change

a human family

the whole planet as home.

Gogol

Your long nose,

and even longer overcoat

can still be seen wandering

on the Nevsky Prospect

at odd hours

guarded by an army of dead souls.

Gogol, are you still enamoured

with heaven on a marshy land,

why disguise yourself

as an inspector general, a police chief

or a lowly clerk,

don’t you know

tsars and communists have left St. Petersburg?

Pushkin and Natalia

A poet lived here

on the banks of the river Moika

with his young wife,

her name was Natalia,

she had two sisters,

they had four children,

the poet had fallen in love

with this young damsel of sixteen

who never understood the depth of his love,

she loved balls

so the poet brought her to St. Petersburg- the imperial capital

he rented eleven rooms with servants

for five years,

but could only live there for four months in all

before he was killed in a duel,

the poet was provoked by an officer

young and dashing,

who admired Natalia a lot,

he had to save his honour

so he challenged him to a duel

though he always knew

he was not great with the gun,

Natalia was young and beautiful

the poet did all he could,

for the happiness of the lady he loved so much

his only love

today Natalia is dead but the poet lives

in the hearts of millions.