SOCIALISM

 

The past is full and convulsed,

everything dark triumphs

and lies prostrate with the dust.

In the night I hear the guttural

metallic voice, “I’ve been Bolshevik

and I’ll die a Bolshevik.” Then one

comes and says, “Who wants to build

the socialism here you are, let him go

voluntarily to kolkhoz, who doesn’t

want to, here you are, he has the whole

right. Except that I’ll tell you plainly

and unreservedly: to this kind of guys

we have a single way of talking: the soul

out, the guts on the branches of the trees.

It’s hard to understand. Then came

the famine. The beasts gave in, the horses

were panting heavily and were falling,

the dogs were dying and were eaten

and the people dead from starvation

were eaten nor did the rats withstand

only the insects didn’t betray the man:

the typhus, the lice were moving

in compact hordes as were the Mongols

as were the communists, the fleas were

leaping vivaciously, the bedbugs

were sneaking in looking preoccupied

as were The Party Tirtans, the ticks

were biting the back of the peasants’  

neck. The survivors seem to be none

the happier. Someone within the Party

suggested that the reproductive system

be extirpated and they should let them

produce no more than one amplified orgasm.

This is where we got to.”