When Inessa Armand Died

When Inessa Armand Died

H. Bradford

09/19/20

Everyone cried

When Inessa Armand died.

Robert Service said 

She kept her figure into her forties.

A woman must be notable in these ways.

A carriage carried her casket 

to Red Square.

And she was interred there,

behind red bricks.

How could Lenin know the Caucasus had not been tamed

when she was sent away for healing waters and clean air?

Who thought of cholera and conflict?

So, everyone cried when Inessa Armand died-

Still young, and pretty, and beloved,

in a world that was still revolutionary

and alive with possibility.

Untouched by purges, reaction, and Georgian diseases.

Only Cholera,

which knows no party line.

Nothing to Mourn

Nothing to Mourn

H. Bradford

09/19/20

Today, peasants shed tears for the queen.

Gone is their voice!

Gone is their body!

Lost children of dead goddesses

Await final judgement

Find power in anger.

People aren’t property

Bodies aren’t windows

There’s nothing to mourn

When everything’s broken.

When the people rise up

Spring eats winter

The future eats the past

Queens become graves

History the judge

When struggle is magic

There’s no need for witches.

Brooms and bricks become weapons

Weapons become mortar

Minds get sharp, to build a new order

The electrified quantity

Will break the slaveholder’s contracts

And cannot be not blocked

By barricades and borders

Bargains and courts