Elegy by VLADIMIR ZHBANKOV

Sometimes it happens moan or mute

The world rolls up into a chute 

A great trombone a trumpet

No a French horn

And in this place of dark and brass 

Where sound is bent to narrowness 

The valve is pressed but in such fuss

The notes produced come out all wrong 

And with poor timing

But who are you to arbitrate

And moreover to love to take

A run about exuding pep

But I will note that to forget

Or cover up at least a bit

Will years require

A lifetime easy one can spend

Although you won’t and in the end

Not everyone does get one

Alright alright I’ll write-rewrite

I tell you what I’ll take a bite

Your humor’s rude and out-of-date

The soldier’s coming down the place

He lights the rubble with his light

But thus reveals unto his sight

A bit of nothing

The rubble’s like a microcosm

Not “like”, it is a microcosm

A fractal, brick, bone upon bone, 

And parts of bodies loosely strewn

And from on high comes the abyss

The one that we call bottomless 

Ah well, that’s that then