POETIC LICENSE
©2004 Vladimir Orlov
A notion of sublimated freedom is so dear to the hearts of writers. Is it ephemeral or factual, they wonder. They keep deliberating, doubting, hesitating and waiting for Judgment Day. The poetic meaning of freedom is obscure enough to be by-passed. A rush of some forgotten emotion now flashes through my servile mind of someone who failed to inherit freedom and now strives for its elusive poetic form. Appeal to evidence is awkward, if tolerated at all. Poetry indulges our hidden propensity for the invisible which seems so real. Poets share much more than their in-built wishful thinking, their desire for the impalpable and what they think is divine. They share a jarring longing for simple human freedom they can hardly come by in real life.
RUSSIAN BUSINESS,
OR THE VOLATILE EMERGING MARKETS
©2004 Vladimir Orlov
He came to Russia to survey If he could do his business there. But soon he discovered he had to defray The Asian eccentricity that looked unfair. He came to resemble a vessel in distress Discharged by buccaneers right in the raving ocean. He complained that the taxation press Wasn’t quite of his free-market notion. He cried that the agreed and liquidated damages Got too prodigious to be further agreed upon. He whispered the haunting Russian “roofing” images Were one big pagan image of the Rubicon Which nobody of his native business set Would have ever passed, even in a business match. He was not a gambler, but now he would bet He’d rather go home with all possible dispatch. “A tough but civil interview” Not unkindly was he granted. And quarter losses had to be kept in view, And be accounted for, and thoroughly appreciated. The August, 1998, default on the state debt “GKO” Was the last lucrative equity he’d bought. It now lashes him with the torn bonds of woe And plenty of inspiring and edifying thought.
THE KREMLIN WALLS.
©2004 Vladimir Orlov
The Kremlin Walls Built up to enclose God’s envoys in the halls A single touch of 1917 froze With no hope they will be Warm again, even though Someone is so eager to see Them thaw and glow. But that'll hardly be If the ice is still Within, with no sign to see It'll ever leave the hill. The Kremlin Tombs So hopelessly firm Are like devastating bombs Made by a secret firm. And they are yet to churn The soft butter which the hill Is made of. But where is the turn Which leads to at least a single mill?[click to view introduction]