SELECTED POETRY

by
R.W. HURST

BABIY YAR*

before we lay down together
under waning autumnal skies
we grasp each others' brittle hands
tendons braced with loving fear

at the random intersection of
Melnikovsky and Dokhturov Streets
we queue for non-existent trains

abandon clothes and dignity
before stone-faced administrators
clipboards and counting machines
our cold feet wet with dew

a boy-faced, Waffen-SS guard
sporting wooden baton
and blood-soaked pistol, smiles
then strikes dancing children

shivering, we gaze beyond
the steep, wooded ravine
and unexplained hatred
of choking, exhausted MG-34s

to the turquoise Dnieper
wrapping it's caressing arm
around Podil's shanty rooftops
and our fractured innocence

while Andreevskaya's golden domes
spin heavenward, ambivalent
to Juden seeking protection

*****

today, I stand in Babiy Yar
scraped clean and manicured
transformed by time and shame

a winter soul touches my face

monuments and microwave towers
mark forgotten bones and anger
generations have since lapsed
daily living replaces daily dying

a statue to Babiy Yar children
cheated of life, now frozen in bronze
broken necked dolls, uplifted arms
quieted by horror, bereft of love

they seek to reconcile their
obscene, unexplained demise
perhaps it is simple:
hatred is easy, love is difficult

* (Note: Babiy Yar is a place on the outskirts of Kiev where more than 120,000 people were machine gunned to death in a deep ravine by occupying German forces from 1941 to 1943. More than 40,000 Jews were murdered in the two-day period September 29-30, 1941. The ravine was turned into a burial place for Jews, Russians, Ukrainians, Hungarians, Czechs, Gypsies, prisoners of war, patriots, mentally handicapped and ill people. The Nazis did not even spare children, old people, pregnant women. Many were shot and buried alive. Before the Russian army reclaimed Kiev two years later, German forces did their best to unearth the tens of thousands of rotting corpses and incinerate them, in an attempt to destroy any evidence of their crimes. The fires were so great, the light could be seen from downtown Kiev.)

© R.W. Hurst

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ODESSA CATS

odessa kittens prowl and scratch
darkened arches and potemkin steps

bad mannered bengals and lucious bobtails
long haired maus and athletic ragdolls
stalk sicamore-lined ulitzas with henna hair
and thigh-high fashion boots

those sturdy bodies and deep chests
soft shoulders and swaying hind quarters
wrapped in pedigree furs and painted nails
purr into cell phones slavic dreams
while boorishly chain smoking marlboro slims

brutal beauty amid ruined buildings
postered with attitude and lingerie advertising
are the bolshoi attraction of all mens' obsession
in night and day and dream

the odessa cats are on the prowl
stray loving and pernicious
they wrap themselves around their men
both cliched and delicious

© R.W. Hurst

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HOME SCHOOLING

Sunday school
promised me His way
was love and mercy
not anger and revenge
still, I feared your God
I stepped anxiously
in a larger world
afraid to distract
his busy hand
from worldly matters
to my failings
then one worldwide
disobedient day
he tutored me himself
my grandmother died
in my arms that day
she peeled a potato
then folded to the floor

her bluish lips
spoke nothing
of a next world
He taught me
love and mercy
for her lost life
anger and revenge
for his master plan

© R.W. Hurst

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CALL ME NEVER

call me never, on any day
your lips taste criticism
in my ears, your words
whip the backs of whining dogs
commit to silent waters
the hand that disturbs the night
the pain sounding down the hall
the personal brutality of blame
then I will dream the morning sun
shines those darkened places
where ambush shame resides
to warm the cold of judgment
and illuminate the peace

© R.W. Hurst

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THE LIE

when you lie and I believe
(beggar me pleads your face
not speak broken words and artifice)
this is not the end but reprieve

there is comfort in not seeing
how once we loved and lost it all
our souls shared peace and then the fall
from grace for foolish selfish being

we are separated by many years
of smoky love and mirrored pain
(up and down and round again)
tectonic strains of tears and fears

tell me softly, again, in kind
with braided hair and Revlon kisses
the lie. Pretend you are my Mrs.
and I your Mr. mercifully blind.

I was just a boy without a history
amid the basement dank and fleas
your golden breath perfectly teased
my twisted past, our mystery

so now I lie and you believe
that love is loaned here from above
I am imprisoned in my love
and you are now a soul set free

when you lie and I believe
there is comfort in not seeing
we are separated by many years
tell me softly, again, in kind
I was just a boy without a history
so now I lie and you believe

© R.W. Hurst

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SPYWARE

in my dream, you orbit me like sputnik
strategically spy on me in bed
I skulk from omnipresent eye
wear tin foil around my head

I transmit encrypted signals
to girls all fluff and flame
futile, flirtatious messages
to unsuspecting dames

you penetrate my mindware
decipher my transmission
then thwart my infidelities
and wreck my disposition

I counterstrike with firewall
to harden my defense
reprogram my advances
with software so intense

all foiled, I drink profusely
to smother my desire
I flee your pernicious spyware
that exposes cheat and liar

suddenly I am awoken
from dream and carnal lust
you look upon me, broken
our relationship in dust.

© R.W. Hurst

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TAXI DANCER WANDA

taxi dancer Wanda
sings through ragged hips
that old crowd pleaser

her sensuous, forgotten child
morphs to oblivious flirt
her cool sway teaser

(elegant and swizzled
nature) flows and turns her
playful screws on nimble feet

Her loosened Henna hair
charges her rising flame
and instigates my inner heat

These lazy Basie waltzes
evoke the starry spots
where all her wiles flaunt her

and my lonely taxi ticket
marked “good for single dance”
eternally makes me want her

© R.W. Hurst

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ON THE BEACH

wind and sand swirl dancing
partners folded in playful arms
they capture you animated, smiling
you surrender in twilight time

on the shore you undress slowly
alabaster silhouette revealed
your mica eyes, antique summer stars
glisten on turquoise holy sea

these stepprints gently intentioned
I trace in dream and hollow desire
you are my shoreline ballerina
my nighttime constant guide

© R.W. Hurst

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CITY OF LIGHTS

not since
this besieged City of Lights
and her sparkling rippled Seine

spent that frightening, bloody night
manning the bastion blockade from
bone-crushing, teutonic dart

Have the ramparts been so fortified
To barricade one heart

© R.W. Hurst

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