Hard-knock blues

in the smokeless liquor haze

his balalaika strings

torment the air

with pain

his fingers wander

the memory tracks

the chord-filled lines

where he is lonely

as the poet

Osip Mandelstam

the ice jug on the bar

looks cold as a turnkey’s heart

now a picolo player trifles

with his bluesy rhythm

a woman whips up the will

to dance holy carnal steps

a lovely gift

to hungry hearts

I see the man is worn-out

but he is not ready yet

to hand his Adam’s dust

back to the clay

now the woman shakes her soul

to his convulsing strings,

opens her generous heart

smoothes her waist and hips

to the rhythm and grace-notes

of his finger tips

she knows he seeks comfort

that in heartbeats of time

he cries from his soul

the pulse of lost love

it shows in the veins

of his taut-stringed neck

grabbing for a branch

in the deep dark well

he knows we all drown

but he licks sweet honey

from the leaves of his tune

on his way down

the hard-knock blues lament

Maya Plisetskaya

Through a brass lamp lit window on a tv screen

I see Maya Plisetskaya, at 50 years, muscles lean,

animate the stage, her arms and legs insist

while woodwinds and brass resist

Easing the tension. And she gives us the chance

To see the dancer become the dance;

I am rapt before her blazing soul in motion;

She becomes the bolero, like an insistent ocean,

like the petals of roses on the dunes in a breeze,

like the waving fruit of branches on swaying trees;

She makes me light like butterflies in a sunny grove

or the airy laughter of brave surfers in a cove.

I want her to dance till the barley waves at the sky

till the swallows swoop with sunny joy,

till the lions and tigers all grow tame,

till she moves so fast she forgets her name.

Like a spirit, the wind dances the dust on the street;

But I have never see a spirit with her dancing feet.

Like a white sail-boat cutting the ebb-and-flow,

Like the foam on the silver edge of the lake below,

Like the beat of the tide on the arc of the shore,

Like the rhythm of my heart asking for more.

Through a glass darkly I see this strong woman

who faced down Stalin for the sake of the human.