The Poetry of Pavel Chichikov

Pavel Chichikov died on October 29, 2026. Since he became ill, we have been using archived poems on this Website and will continue to do so. We will also maintain, for now, the separate site containing his interview with Soviet General Batenin.

All of Pavel’s poems can be accessed via the Archives button. His books are available on Amazon.

This site was updated on November 4, 2026.

If you have comments or requests, e-mail nlevine@erols.com.

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.

RESTLESSNESS

Who has kept captive birds has known
The restlessness of migratory animals
The zugunruhe of these locked up beasts
When light and season, time of day set on
Their senses, known and secret from us
Photo-quickened, signed, hormonal

So that at dusk, perhaps at dawn
They beat their wings against their cages
And press themselves against the bars
Long to launch themselves against the wind
As they have done for geologic ages
From such deep wells this craving drawn

So does now an agitation spread
Among the dying and the newly dead
To rise and take the thermals of the soul
For God has given all of them parole
From death, entombment, fire and the deep
To lift, approach—let not the living weep

LOST

Monastery Gardens at San Lazzaro degli Armeni, Venice
Photo by Amanda Erickson
Courtesy Pinterest

Draw closer to Me, do not fail,
Use the warren and the maze
Bent alley, cobble, ochre wall
Dark leaning shadows—pitch and fall
And on the other side a blaze
Suns, their open windows filled,
Red flowers—sash and pane and sill

And you will wander toward Me lost
Confused by turning, come at last
Into the open, fountain, altar
Built for those who do not falter
Fed with sunlight, living, vast
Not by finding but by chance—
Draw closer to Me lost, advance

ANGEL

Goldfinch on Echinacea
Photo by Pavel Chichikov

The flower sways
The goldfinch feeds,
Seven grams of sun
And seeds

Wings the blackness
Light the breast
Bundled sunlight
For the harvest

Pleiades
On seven stems
Drooping by
The weight of them

Petals ten
And thirty beams,
Stars the fixed
But rising dreams

Here the dead
And there the quick
Here the sacred
There the sick

Black the seedlings
Of the heart,
They must end
Before they start

THREE GIFTS

Isabel Salvador (Contemporary), “Bird of Paradise”
Courtesy Fine Art America

I gave my love three loving gifts:
A bird of Paradise to sing
A beetle with two golden wings
A fish of coral—these three gifts

On Jesus’ finger sits the first
And sings—the golden beetle flies
Above the night and never dies—
The swimmer never suffers thirst

And if these three be metaphor
They are made and solid be
To show what life the living see
When living Glory we adore

If this perfection that I give
Imperfect now can grow to live
It is by grace of form and sense—
Earths and air and oceans hence

IN LIGHT: For Gerard Bugge

View from the National Shrine Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, Emmitsburg, MD
Courtesy Maryland Road Trips

Gerard, we pushed you up the hill
And the wheelchair pushed us back—
This resistance is called death

The human soul is ponderous
When it lives inside the flesh—
Protests against its prison

In this cell a stubborn light—
Through the window and the wall
Illumination, laughter, love

You were known to us through this:
Joyful lightness, flesh of God,
Clothed within a lifespan

Sacred light that we have seen
Joining flame to flame convened
Purified as fire is

LET ME

Bela Spanyi (1852–1914), “Flock of Birds at Sunset”
Courtesy WikiGallery

Let me come to be with you, birds of the Autumn
Both you and I have so much in common
We fly to escape from the deadness below
Dream of the place where the winged ones go

But you have no wings as we have, say swifts
Wings are not given freely, but gifts
Of the great Mystery ruling the Earth
Above and below, it is that which gives birth

I do have my wings but you cannot see
Listen to words, they are poetry
They travel through air and even through storms
Perhaps not as flocks do or marvels in swarms

More like the bees which are stinging the face
They do not hate beauty, make honey from grace

HUMAN VOICES

Valery Siurha (Contemporary), “Canada Goose Flock”
Courtesy Valery Siurha

Human voices in the woods
Invisible through copper screens,
Chatter and the sound of women
Alto voices speak unseen

Do geese that migrate speak like women?
Can laughing women fly?
Flying geese let go by winter
Swiftly rowing through the sky

CLAY

Tadeusz Kowalski (1939–2011), “The Creation of Adam”
Courtesy Wikimedia Commons

We are not lost, not lost yet,
As long as someone prays
Lord Christ will not leave us

Those who pray, however weak
Can pull the rest along behind them,
Even from the edges of the world

Call upon the guide
Who made us out of chaos,
Stubborn heavy clay of living souls