For Osip Mandelstam

Posted on by celfypridd

For Osip Mandelstam

And the town is frozen solid in a vice,
Trees, walls, snow, beneath a glass.
Over crystal, on slippery tracks of ice,
the painted sleighs and I, together, pass.
And over St Peter’s there are poplars, crows
there’s a pale green dome there that glows,
dim in the sun-shrouded dust.
The field of heroes lingers in my thought,
Kulikovo’s barbarian battleground.
The frozen poplars, like glasses for a toast,
clash now, more noisily, overhead.
As though it was our wedding, and the crowd
were drinking to our health and happiness.
But Fear and the Muse take turns to guard
the room where the exiled poet is banished,
and the night, marching at full pace,
of the coming dawn, has no knowledge.

 

Anna Akhmatova

Let us remember and never forget

Posted on by celfypridd

A love song to Giulio Regini and the disappeared.

 

Your soul is a bright shining flame

A beacon illuminating darkness

For those who stand in days brightness.

It will never light those hiding in shame

 

Your spirit is the brightest of stars

That sparkles glowing in the night sky

So bright it shines through the lie

Of those who took you in their cars.

 

Your name and life will be remembered

Poems will be written about you

Love songs will be sung to you

Your name and life will be remembered.

 

This is a love song to Giulio Regini

And to all those who disappeared

Whose lives and memories are dear

For all those taken from the warmth

Of their families and people they loved

This a love song to sing to the stars

This a love song to sing loud and clear

This is a love song to Giulio Regini.

 

On 25th January 2016 Giulio Regeni disappeared?

And nine days later as if by magic reappeared.

 

Veritas Giulio!

Truth will prevail always!

 

©RobCullen2017