POETRY AND PROSE

Once in a while I try my hand at poetry. It brings home the importance of valuing every word and ensuring it's the right one.

My father was Russian. He and his family escaped to England from St Petersburg during the Russian Revolution. It's quite impossible to research his background but it did inspire me to write these two short poems:

ROMANCE
The revolution brought my father to England,
Leaving behind the trampled glitter
Of the Russian court.
His stories recreated in my childhood mind
The romance of pale faced princesses
And surging cavalry,
Of royal forests
And gilded domes
And tables groaning with an orient
Of fruits and meats.
A world now buried forever
Beneath the crimson blanket
Of the Bolsheviks.
Now Russia is free again
But there is no romance on the street corners
Where the new Mafia holds sway
And Western evangelists prey
Upon a people desperate
For a new life.

TO RUSSIA WITH LOVE
Once, on the Steppes of Russia,
They slit the soles of prisoners' feet
And inserted stones.
The skin healed over the stones
But the captives could no longer
Walk without pain.
I was no captive.
I came to you willingly.
So why did you have to
Plant stones in my heart?
Now you will never know
If I stay for love
Or because it hurts too much
To run away.