Two Poems by W. Heath

William Heath has published two chapbooks, Night Moves in Ohio and Leaving Seville; a book of poems, The Walking Man; three novels, The Children Bob Moses Led, Devil Dancer, and Blacksnake’s Path; a work of history, William Wells and the Struggle for the Old Northwest; and some interviews, Conversations with Robert Stone. www.williamheathbooks.com

Photography by Co-founder P. M. Chatelain

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Will Andrei Amalrik Survive Until 1984?

Guilty as charged, his deviant
ideology is that people have
a right to speak their minds.
But where absolute equality
(excluding a vanguard) is the goal
then a guillotine is the means
since anyone with eyes to see
must lose their head.

Before his show trial begins
the evidence is already known,
the verdict in. Neighbors
inform that strangers leave
his apartment carrying packages
of abstract paintings. How they know
what is inside the wrappings
a question not to be asked.

The tallest building in Moscow,
the joke goes, is headquarters
of the KGB, since from there
you can see all the way to Siberia,
where none of the millions shot,
starved, or dead of disease
receive a decent burial—
the ground is too frozen.

“I would prefer to be gagged
by the police, than to gag myself.”
Andrei fears a country
where, when the cat bites,
the mice don’t squeak.
Soviet rockets reach Venus
in the countryside peasants
dig potatoes with bare hands.

The town’s sole population
convicts and their guards.
In the penal colony the slop
looks like dishwater, a hint
of meat, a sliver of fish bone
that is an event. When Andrei
goes on a hunger strike he is
force-fed through the nose.

The guards prefer oblivion
by vodka, find pleasure
in beating their wives. A book
stripped of its covers, title page,
might pass for toilet paper.
A pencil peeled to the lead
and concealed in a cheek
the only way to write.

In 1970 he is back in Moscow
when Will the Soviet Union Survive
Until 1984 comes out in New York.
The Soviet state is on the verge
of an inexorable collapse,
a kind of “reverse Darwinism,”
an unnatural selection of the unfit,
will kill the system from within.

He feels like the first fish to warn
others they swim in poison water,
a world where social justice
is making sure no one can ever
better themselves. A greedy elite
on top, passive masses at the bottom,
pretend pay for pretend work.
No one ready for multiple crises.

For exposing the Soviet Union’s
dirty secrets, Andrei is labeled
a “social parasite,” declared insane,
sent back to Siberia to tend cows,
then finally allowed to seek exile
in the West where he teaches,
lectures, writes about Russian life,
carries his thesis like a torch.

Death comes to him in 1980,
on his way to a conference
in Madrid to review human rights
upheld by the Helskini Accords.
His car swerves on a wet road,
is struck by an oncoming truck,
a metal shard from the steering
column punctures his throat.

Was it an accident? Or was it
arranged? His wife survives
the crash, thinks it deliberate.
The KGB wanted him dead.
But then, he has always been
a sloppy driver. Eleven years
later the Soviet empire falls.

Woe to the prophet who speaks
a premature truth.

A Brief Tour of Italy

1- Florence

Botticelli had it easy,
pastels on the walls,
blues and greens in sea,
sky, trees, beauty walked
the streets to avid eyes
or sat until the painter put
his easel aside for the day.
David is still standing
in front of the Uffizi,
insouciant, after all
these years, power
and repose with stone
in hand to teach
vulgar giants to regret
brutish behavior.

2- Venice

An otherworldly dream
rising from the sea,
a crumbling ruin
sinking in sludge.
A gondola gently rocks
on a slate-gray lagoon,
water laps stone steps
green with seaweed
and eroded by waves,
roses spill from a balcony,
a man is singing.

3- Rome

In a loud scratchy voice
an American woman
wonders how high
the Sistine ceiling was,
what was there before
Michelangelo pullied up
with paint and brush.
Her matter-of-fact hubby
estimates the project’s cost.
Entering the Coliseum
the guide says, “Here
thousands of lions and tigers
were fed to hungry Christians.”
All night love-sick cats
sing arias, marble fountains
caress themselves.
Streets narrow, serpentine,
buildings amber, salmon pink.
In Rome aesthetics rule.
O taste and see.

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