Monday 10 December 2007

Baba Yaga at Baba Yar

This house has no doors or windows
You don't go in; do as you're told;
Instead it goes after you
On its chickenstepping legs.

This house without doors or windows,
This mudwallhouse, is death.
Only the chime of shovels into dirt
The chime and rustle of shovelling

She says: It's roofed over with dirt
A rifletube the chimney. The feathers
All pulled off from its goosebumpy legs
Walking to this spot and no other.

Puffs of smoke from the chimney
Shaped like souls jolted upwards
Thrown down and up at once.
She says: baba. The guns say: bababa.

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