11-01-2015, 11:05 PM
It sucked that if I was born a day earlier
I'd get a detached house with a road outside
Made of concrete like a freshly baked cake and
My mother happy because it's as good as free,
But despondent, as it’s not enough
Instead I got vodka, a brown brick block
Of a complex, more vodka, the American Dream
And marching men on a boxy, thick screen
And pellucid, thick skin
A fist and a bruise by my all-hearing ear
'Why are they marching?' I'd ask, my 6 year old
Eyes wandering back and forth
'Because they have nothing better to do,'
Said my grandma, with her back turned,
Not even having to look at the screen
What's the bloody point? I now think
As no one lives in Kremlin or rides tanks
-our neighbour still has a Moskwich
And works through sweat like fog over his
Vodka-shot eyes, to the patriotic beat
Of a distant drum on a little screen
That's what I think now when I have that
Pretty detached house and I complain
As it's not as big as that planar curve
Of a playing field-why do I still see
Cast iron while I sleep?
Once it was normal to me-bullet holes
In hospital walls and sad eyes looking up
To the 6th floor while we drove past
With our sun burned skin and a scratched suitcase.
93% mixed with water, a scalded throat:
My father flew gliders, jets, planes
Over a tundra where a day was
Six months, like the hangover, and
He still flew through the heat in his skull
Brown bread, moloko, Tsar bomba, a flight
To where they still march, their feet like
A beating heart of an oil field-
Only four thousand miles between us
Four hours, the blink of an eye
And a tongue lodged deep behind blue lips
I'd get a detached house with a road outside
Made of concrete like a freshly baked cake and
My mother happy because it's as good as free,
But despondent, as it’s not enough
Instead I got vodka, a brown brick block
Of a complex, more vodka, the American Dream
And marching men on a boxy, thick screen
And pellucid, thick skin
A fist and a bruise by my all-hearing ear
'Why are they marching?' I'd ask, my 6 year old
Eyes wandering back and forth
'Because they have nothing better to do,'
Said my grandma, with her back turned,
Not even having to look at the screen
What's the bloody point? I now think
As no one lives in Kremlin or rides tanks
-our neighbour still has a Moskwich
And works through sweat like fog over his
Vodka-shot eyes, to the patriotic beat
Of a distant drum on a little screen
That's what I think now when I have that
Pretty detached house and I complain
As it's not as big as that planar curve
Of a playing field-why do I still see
Cast iron while I sleep?
Once it was normal to me-bullet holes
In hospital walls and sad eyes looking up
To the 6th floor while we drove past
With our sun burned skin and a scratched suitcase.
93% mixed with water, a scalded throat:
My father flew gliders, jets, planes
Over a tundra where a day was
Six months, like the hangover, and
He still flew through the heat in his skull
Brown bread, moloko, Tsar bomba, a flight
To where they still march, their feet like
A beating heart of an oil field-
Only four thousand miles between us
Four hours, the blink of an eye
And a tongue lodged deep behind blue lips