Laika

Laika, three-year-old street dog, tough

And hardy from surviving Russian frosts, white,

Pretty-faced – chosen for propaganda and TV feeds –

Put through gruelling, cruel even, training, learned

To submit to a tiny cage, suffer rough

Shaking and centrifuge forces, was judged the right

Calm temperament for Sputnik’s untested speeds.

But innocent, trusting little Laika earned

A terrible place in history.  Not enough

To be first to circle and to log the first sight

Of earth: the first space death must needs

Be added – no more water, and rising heat turned

The cabin into hell.  In her three orbits, and slow

Immolation, did Laika bark for Moscow snow?

(25.1.26) v 1.3

Man, It’s Been A Laugh

At the end of the road of what was wont to be known
As a lifespan, I find myself still in a burgeon-
ing state of would, whose instantiations have grown
Since birth, encompassing: teddy-bear surgeon,
Tadpole breeder, epiphanic sum
Doer, about-to-burst appendix emergen-
cy survivor, 11+ scholarship plum
Getter, belated pianist, maths-besotted
Undergrad, Wrangler (Senior), dumb
Quantum mechanic, Grantchester scone, jam and clotted
Cream ingester, ham-strung karateka, horse-
Rider, journo, across-Central-Asia-spotted
Wanderer; these and myriad others, without remorse
I look back on.  And forward, now, of course.

(22.1.26) v 1.1

Bach, And Chopin’s Hands

Toying with extreme pieces by phthisic Fred

Chopin, wrapped in a shimmering sonic web,

– His “chromatic embroidery” –  showy salon-bred

Fastidiousness painfully sutured into steel

And rubato beyond romanticism, you feel

His slim, spidery hands on yours.  Seb

Bach, in absolute contrast, has no fingers:

Agility is coerced into mental hermeneutics.  But

Cancrizans or homespun, a beauty abides; it lingers,

Heavenly, bilocating among us, cut

Back to awe-striking cerebrality, heart

And mind still cleaving.  How his compostable brain’s

Cells concocted such a height of baroque art

Humbles.  Bafflingly, though adamantine, compassion remains.

(18.1.26) v 1.3

Pushkin’s “What If?”

On his journey to Arzrum (to hell with Tsarist

Bans) Pushkin left scorching Georgia, attained

Heavenly Armenia, and met on the road the bizarrest

Sight: a rough ox-cart that strained

Up a steep hill, grimly conveying

A body Tbilisi-ward, victim of a slaying

By an enraged mob in Tehran (the men said).

Turned out to be his friend, Griboyed-

ov – poet, playwright (“Woe from Wit”), minor

Composer, wounded duellist, and lastly late

Ambassador to the perfidious Persian court.  His fate-

Filled exit was “instant and beautiful” – none finer,

Pushkin wrote.  But their posthumous meeting was fake,

Just another “what if?” artists make.

(11.1.26) v 1.01