Lucien Stryk
Siberia
Small wood towns silvered
by birches,
sharp blue at windows, doors.
Grimed, forgotten domes,
a gold cross:
cows, chickens haunt the tombs.
Train lurches on: ten miles west
of Irkutsk,
where Chekhov, bound for convict
Sakhalin, once spent a night,
I hear three
sisters longing, Moscow, Moscow!
At the Siberian heart, concrete
crammed with facts:
who produced what, how much, when,
in what spirit. On the
last ruled sheet
a finger-smudge points like
a holy candle. November: in
seven days
drums, bugles, flags will whip
town after town. On wind-
scourged platforms
throngs mill under likenesses
of hero farmers -- ribboned,
bemedaled,
exalted by a fourth sister,
one Chekhov did not know, who
pitying
her sisters’ discontent accepted
solitude and hardship, despite
the need, at
times unbearable, of Moscow, Moscow!
Page(s) 48-49
magazine list
- Features
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- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The