Lawrence Hall
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https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                     ­      You Russian Poets

          Only in Russia is poetry respected. It gets people killed. Is
          there anywhere else where poetry is so common a motive
          for ******?

                                            -Osip Mandelstam,
                          murdered by the Soviet state for his poetry

We have gotten into trouble over you
Back in the Cold War and now this hot one
But maybe the investigators’ fear
Was not Communism, but mere literacy

O Mandelstam, you died for words and truth
They say, dear Tsvetaeva, that you hanged yourself
And Gumilyov, they simply had you shot –
The Silver Age in truth was one of lead

In America no one dies for poetry
Working fast food can be a death penalty, though

I'm watching an old Soviet movie
one without English subtitles
the whole day it hasn't stopped raining
the opening shots are of a foggy

seafront, a lone figure walking
a guy on a bicycle holding a puppy
riding past someone leaning on the corner
of a house in which the light

suddenly comes on & a couple appear
later on, a budding romance
between two holidaymakers in this, the Crimea
slow-paced, this movie reminds

me of an Aki Kaurismaki
& I want to share it with the world
& muse on how the Crimea
saw Pushkin, Chekhov, Mayakovsky

amongst others visiting it's shores
the whole day it hasn't stopped raining
& I don't know if I feel even more English
now or Russian or whether it's all just a trick