Racing Trays

As a gift to their sickly and frail, 
the Russians screwed four 
little wheels to a cafeteria tray.

And, then declared:  

Esteemed invalids! Here is your mobility!

I once landed in the gastric ward of a Moscow clinic
 — stomach blockage/long story — 
where we raced up and down between cardiology 
and the smoker’s lounge,  pushing those trays
like sand crabs till our palms turned red.

Just inches off the floor, that wobble toy could really fly.

Funny enough, no patient ever asked:

Where the hell are the wheelchairs?  

---

Rapture on the Dock: A Love Poem

I once hiked an arctic island covered in moss.
I once saw a red sun rising over Mayan ruins. 

But the sight of 80 jeeps, all mine, on a crumbling dock? 
Stoic in their olive drab.  I shook so hard and trembled. 
The awe was very real. 

You must picture first this Soviet gloom: gantry cranes, 
like mutant insects from a B-movie, gliding past boxcars 
from the Siberian mines. Picture stray ropes and pallet scraps. 
Dockworkers huddling for a smoke.

The breeze is diesel exhaust and Baltic brine. 
In the distance, a foghorn wails.

Then: As Moses cleared the ridge and saw 
the swollen grapes of Eshkol, so I turned 
a corner, and set my eyes on them. 

There: My Rapture! Faithful soldier-jeeps! 
UAZ-iki jeeps! 8 neat rows of 10. Ready to load and ship. 
Parked in sharp formation.  Itching for the port 
of Barranquilla.

With clipboard in hand, I kicked the tires and tapped the hoods.
I spoke, for the first time, of the distant altiplano and the Amazon haze.

As repurposed taxis, they would carry coffee pickers to the fields, 
and children to the schools, and weavers to the market 
with their precious woolen shawls.

Strolling down the line, I told them there was no hill too steep, 
No mud too deep, no landslide too treacherous, no curve too tight.

They were fearless. They were proud.

I stepped back and saluted their freighter bobbing 
by the dock, a barnacled pack-horse of the Atlantic Sea.

Soon, the jeeps will load and sail. 
Soon, the metal will be on its way.

Soon, a chain of lights will wind its way up 
an Andean trail toward the chapel square.

Lifeline to the future! 

Soldaty! your mission has begun.

---

This is No Ordinary House

The MosFilm Retirement Compound

 Int. A tower block reserved for retired Soviet actors. Here, the once-dashing leads from factory romcoms, low budget sci-fi and lifeless costume dramas knock back the vodka in 
grubby kitchens, all under one roof, all living off the petulant fumes of former glory. 
The year is 1995.  Now, imagine you’re a house guest for a while.

On the 1st night, Semyon, director of the 1977 thriller, Meltdown: Station #42 (The reactor is about to blow. Can they warn the orphans in time?) won’t stop talking about his first trip to the Venice film festival. When he mentions that an actress asked him for a light, (“French with the dewiest eyes”) his wife, Lyuba, grabs an onion from the counter and dices it so that her eyes can also sparkle… “like a garlic-sucking junkie harlot.”  Lyuba was last seen in Don’t Be Jealous of Tim (a 1983 comedy about a figure skater and her pet bear named Tim).  This, just the mention of ice, reminds Igor, the camera-man, of lighting problems on the arctic set of Dora Dora, a Jules Verne knockoff where loveable misfits visit a tropical island just beyond the North Pole. 

“Igor!” Shouts Semyon. “You were sadly misled. The island only felt tropical due to 30 years 
of nuclear testing!” Everyone laughs except Igor who goes off without saying goodbye. 

From then on, all toasts are met with lively shouts of Dora Dora.  Two bottles go down that night. We bid farewell, best friends forever.

On the 2nd night, Misha, who played the lead in Crazy Days of Technician Demidov, a 1981 slapstick set in a Ukrainian blast furnace, arrives with costume designer Zhanna, who is dressed in a peasant gown from a Pipi Longstocking remake. She also wears a heavy leg cast due to a recent auto accident. We move to the couch and begin to canoodle without restraint. Misha plays Dark Eyes on the piano.

On the 3rd night, Zhanna, of the heavy leg cast, enters the kitchen with the help of Slava, script doctor for The Saintly Beard, a snail-paced drama about an icon painter during the reign of Ivan the Terrible.  Misha, the lead actor fromTechnician Demidov, is on the piano again. 
As the 3rd bottle goes down, we hear a scream from the living room. Lyuba, from Don’t Be Jealous of Tim, had been snuggling on the couch with Grekov, the portly detective from the crime drama His Nickname is Guillotine, when Igor, the camera guy from Dora Dora, in a jealous fit of cat-like aggression began to urinate all over the artist couple. Igor now sits on the floor nursing a fat lip. 

“His Nickname is Urine Stream!”  Semyon shouts to no one in particular. Grekov replaces Misha at the piano. Lyuba straightens her hair.

We return to the kitchen.

---

This Sullied Rag

It has stripes of baby blue. A shade of sinless sky.
This Telnyashka is the Russian sailor’s second skin.
A t-shirt worn under the uniform, it even has its own song. 

It went like so: 

White like storm foam/Blue as the sea ahead. 

Years ago, I got one off a marine in Odessa
For a 9-volt battery and two German beers.

In that shirt you could chew broken glass 
just to harden your jaw.  Or duct tape engine parts
 in the icy rain.  Or, shatter the Nazi war machine.

But after those rapes and shallow graves

I hear the song has changed.

Now, it goes like so:  

White like dog foam/Blue as the lips of Bucha