Tag Archives

Lenin

POETRY

AT LENIN’S TOMB

David Selzer By David Selzer1 Comment1 min read516 views

We joined the queue one warm afternoon two days

before Victory Day, and the week Putin

was first crowned. There were police everywhere –

mostly, it seemed, armed thirteen year olds

in wide-brimmed caps. One halted the queue

to allow a group of be-medalled,

self-conscious veterans to enter first.

Inside, we were ‘forbidden to smoke, talk, photograph,

video, or have your hands in your pockets’.

 

Exiled to the conifer forests

of Central Siberia with its gnat

legions of summer, its winter numbing,

he took his pseudonym then soubriquet

from the river Lena, its waters

replete with minerals and mammoth tusks.

 

Curious the great revolutionary

with that questioning, directing look  –

who found sleep elusive so studied French

grammar books to send him to the Land of Nod –

through no choice of his own, preserved like a

waxwork or a shaman!

 

 

 

Pages:

Share

David Selzer By David Selzer
1 Comment
POETRY

THE BOURBAKI PANORAMA

David Selzer By David Selzer0 Comments2 min read388 views

Lenin, to leaven his exile in Zurich,

would sometimes weekend in Luzern and,

after kalberwurst with onions and gravy

at the Wilden-Mann on Bahnhofstrasse,

would always visit the Panorama

in the Löwenplatz – or so it is said.

 

Panoramas were popular before

the illusion of photography,

still or moving, became reality.

They were cycloramas painted in oil,

typically fifteen metres high, one hundred

metres in circumference – often

with a three dimensional aspect:

in this case, for example, an empty

railway wagon – Huit chevaux, Quarantes hommes.

 

General Bourbaki’s beaten L’Armée de L’Est

in Bismarck’s Franco-Prussian War

sought asylum with the nascent Red Cross

of the now united cantons. In deep snow

eighty seven thousand men, twelve thousand

horses crossed the border that January.

 

An escapee from a school trip to the town

in the year of Hungary and Suez,

I wandered in by chance. The custodian

that day knew no English. My schoolboy French

struggled with his German-accent. But

I still remember the images

of the aftermath of some great battle

my history lessons had not mentioned.

 

Imagine if Lenin had learned from this –

the stumbling soldiers; the dead horses; the piles

of discarded, expensive rifles;

the woman with her basket waiting to help

whoever it might be lying in the cold.

 

He certainly learned from the railways.

Disguised as a worker, he returned

to Russia via the Finland Station.

But maybe he also learned from William Tell –

marksman and anti-imperialist –

or, rather, the apple.

 

 

Note: The piece was first published as LENIN AND THE BOURBAKI PANORAMA on the site in July 2016.

 

 

 

Pages:

Share

David Selzer By David Selzer
0 Comments
POETRY

LENIN AND THE BOURBAKI PANORAMA

David Selzer By David Selzer1 Comment2 min read463 views

Lenin, to leaven his exile in Zurich,

would sometimes weekend in Luzern and,

after kalberwurst with onions and gravy

at the Wilden-Mann on Bahnhofstrasse,

would always visit the Panorama

in the Löwenplatz – or so it is said.

 

Panoramas were popular before

the illusion of photography,

still or moving, became reality.

They were cycloramas painted in oil,

typically fifteen metres high, one hundred

metres in circumference – often

with a three dimensional aspect:

in this case, for example, an empty

railway wagon – Huit chevaux, Quarantes hommes.

 

General Bourbaki’s beaten L’Armée de L’Est

in Bismarck’s Franco-Prussian War

sought asylum with the nascent Red Cross

of the now united cantons. In deep snow

eighty seven thousand men, twelve thousand

horses, crossed the border that January.

 

An escapee from a school trip to the town

in the year of Hungary and Suez,

I wandered in by chance. The custodian

that day knew no English. My schoolboy French

struggled with his German-accent. But

I still remember the images

of the aftermath of some great battle

my history lessons had not mentioned.

 

Imagine if Lenin had learned from this –

the stumbling soldiers; the dead horses; the piles

of discarded, expensive rifles;

the woman with her basket waiting to help

whoever it might be lying in the cold.

 

He certainly learned from the railways.

Disguised as a worker, he returned

to Russia via the Finland Station.

But maybe he also learned from William Tell –

marksman and anti-imperialist –

or, rather, the apple.

 

 

 

Pages:

Share

David Selzer By David Selzer
1 Comment
POETRY

ALIASES

David Selzer By David Selzer1 Comment1 min read689 views

The Lenin Statue, the new FSB (aka Cheka, NKVD, KGB) HQ and a new church supported, in part, by Mars pet foods. ©SCES 2000
The Lenin Statue, the new FSB (aka Cheka, NKVD, KGB) HQ and a new church supported, in part, by Mars pet foods. ©SCES 2000



We remembered the newsreels with Uncle Joe

aka Koba the only one in grey,

so expected a black and white city.

But the colours astound us, beguile.

From our apartment – which used to be bugged –

we overlook what used to be October Square.

The monumental bronze statue –  of Lenin, V.I.,

with assorted comrade soldiers and sailors set to march,

by Gorky Park, over the Crimea Bridge,

toward the Kremlin – is intact.

In May, parties of veterans queue to see Lenin

(erstwhile Ulyanov, V.I.) preserved.

Behind the Mausoleum, in the garden

of remembrance, is a bust of Stalin

(erstwhile Djugashvili, J.V.). Always,

fresh roses surround it. However,

in the Sculpture Park, the Great Helmsman,

in red granite, has had his nose knocked off.

Putin (sic), V.V. is crowned in the Tzar’s Cathedral,

the Annunciation.  The double-headed eagle flies.

Like his forebears, he takes the salute in Red Square.

They are all dressed up in the uniforms

of the Great Patriotic War – and the troops

(not a tenor  amongst them) greet their  little C in C

with the time dishonoured and oh

so genuinely moving: “Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!”

Sometimes, that spring, when we opened the windows,

we thought we smelled tundra, sea and ice.

Opposite the Lenin statue, outside the Metro,

an elderly woman, in a worn, quilted coat,

sold wild hyacinths. We did not understand

the price.  She fluttered her hand above her heart.

Pages:

Share

David Selzer By David Selzer
1 Comment

Recent Posts