The Poetry of Pavel Chichikov

WELCOME to Pavel Chichikov’s poetry page. The site was updated September 21, 2024. We change the poems frequently—usually, every Saturday by noon Eastern Time.

All of Pavel’s poems, from 1993 on, are now available in a searchable archive, for reading or downloading. We will not track users, but if you wish to send Pavel a comment or a note about your use of the poems, you can reach him here.

Readers of this page of poems may also read the author’s new site containing his interview of the Soviet general who was chief adviser to the Russian Government on nuclear weapons. The general was well-qualified for this job. The interview was conducted about thirty years ago in Moscow and described an extremely dangerous situation, which in its own way can still exist.

All poems on this page are by Pavel Chichikov, unless otherwise specified. They may be freely distributed, if not for profit, and must be credited to Pavel Chichikov. No alterations in the text may be made. All copyright restrictions apply.

DAY AND NIGHT—SEPTEMBER 21

Autumn Twilight
Photo by Mike Pellini
Courtesy Shutterstock

Day and night equal today
Communism of the hours
Neither one advance, delay
Night and day are equal powers

In a planetary truce
Not even minutes will shake loose
But in a blanket firmly wrapped
As if the sun and moon had napped

But then the darkness will advance
The moon and stars will have their chance
To dominate the Autumn sky
And make the daylight seem to die

But in December will revive
And prove the sun is still alive

SO THEN

The people I knew as a child
Are gone into eternity
Please tell me
Where are they?

Eternity replies
I am of such size
I cannot be filled
Nor can you locate
The soul whom you willed
To find
Except if your love
Is very great
So then they will hear
And appear

WE YEARNED TO SEE HIM

Fritz von Uhde (1848–1911), “The Sermon on the Mount”
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

We yearned to see Him
He came to us
As a simple man with a simple name
Revealing thus

Jesus of Nazareth
Modest choice
Who gave us His breath
His hand, His voice

Not as the lightning
Spat by a storm
But a human being
Whose hand was warm

And yet He was light
In our darkest night

BE READY TO LEAVE

Carl Spitzweg (1808–85), “The Bookworm”
Museum Georg Shafer, Schweinfurt, Germany
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Where did I go yesterday when I slept?
I went to a place where all books are kept
And there I found on a shelf my name
As an author of praise, an author of blame

On the spine of a volume published by
A Publisher in a region on high
And many such books, one for each spirit
Open each one, read the life within it

The pages were days and nights so thin
That all of a lifetime could fit in,
Use all the time that you need to peruse
The whole of one lifetime, or chapters choose

The Librarian told me: “Closing soon,
Be ready to leave by the Harvest Moon”

WAR BETWEEN OPPOSITES

This in the Bible, the book God wrote:
For every poison antidote
For every frost there is a glove
For every hate there is a love

War between the opposites
Listen to wisdom or half-wits
Hear the positive, maybe ifs
Take advice and walk off cliffs

Reality seems binary
Either you or there goes me
Live as wealthy or live poor
Be convinced or be unsure

A flash of light makes one lifespan
For every woman, every man
A life observed by some nearby:
“Don’t fear” the Christ said, “it is I”

RAIN FOR THIS WEEK

“Rain against the Window”
Photo by Philip Jones

Rain for this week before Autumn to cleanse
Leaves from the streets before the sky sends
Bright sunlight and frost in the brief mornings then
Hopefully warm in the sunshine suspend
Drooping bronze leaves of the yearling pear tree
Soon to be letting go having done duty
Fed the young branches with sap they have made
With sunlight-served life when not in the shade

Hold on until you are ready to fall
And the hungering earth to your willingness calls
And you meet the many voiced
Soil of your choice
That nourishes roots
Fall dying refutes

SHE SAW ANOTHER

Groundhog Eating
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

She saw another marmot in the yard
Heading perhaps slowly burrow-ward
To sleep within a cozy nest of earth
Being female maybe to give birth

Giving two kit babies, maybe six
Those she suckles lovingly and licks
And then they will emerge in early spring
To feed and listen to the songbirds sing

Did our human predecessors know
How as their providers we would grow
Of marmots, sparrows and our tamer pets,
Dogs and cats and mother hamster-ettes?

They give us comfort when they are not wild
Remind the childless of a love for child

TOO AFRAID TO TRY

Peter Howson (b. 1958), “Man with a Cigarette”
Courtesy Herbert Art Gallery and Museum

Walking on an early Autumn morning
A much-emaciated man sits on a step
Thin cigar smoked almost to the stub
Where could he have slept?

Has he no family
No friend to give him shelter
Food and water?
Friendship possibly?

There are some souls abandoned
Maybe self-abandoned
Who wish that they could die
Their lives perhaps self-ended

But too afraid to try
Looking for a friend

THAT SMALL PLANET

Science Photo Library “Jupiter and Earth”
Courtesy Fine Art America/Getty Images

Earth is Great Jupiter’s pet planet
With many small bipeds stumping on it
Leg after leg till they get somewhere
With not much change between here and there

The seas are blue, the land is tan
From here to there not much scan
While on the great world the horizon is huge
And circles the eye like a vast centrifuge

Sometimes we visit to see what’s what
There may be a happening or there is not
But mostly a busyness about something
To be sent somewhere or maybe to bring

To the one who sends for it
On that small planet

SOMEHOW

Jacub Schikaneder (1855–1924), “All Souls’ Day”
National Gallery, Prague
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

They broke your heart
Pray for them
Do not condemn
Their own hearts broke
Long before they knew you
Made you—
It passes down
To children
And cripples
The little
But something remains
Alive in the pain

And loves somehow
Love will allow