Visions of Winter… Russia… Cody

Hot chocolate . . . delicious
Blustery deep freeze winds
Cut through cruel canyons of Manhattan
Past Dostoevsky Christmas angels
Huddled in icy doorway
Snowfall and heavenly whirls and waltzes
And bare souls and mystic mad Rasputin
Listening to Tchaikovsky in snowy swirls
O, Robert, where art thou Frost?
Are we in St. Petersburg, Russia?
The littlest Romanov
Tender Alexei lambevich
And four sister lilies pure as pearls
Hothouse saints with flowers and ribboned hair
Donned jewel encrusted bodices
Shots rang out
Bullets bounced
Regicide
Murder most foul
Bayonets and pistols
Shrouds of bed sheets
Ghastly secret Siberian grave
Black and filthy July deed
Will take all the mountains of Ural snow
To cover royal blood
O, Holy Martyrs
Holy Mother of all the Russias
Great Orthodoxy! Passion bearers! Peter and Paul!
Who could write this Macbethian tragedy?
And the intense frozen sun continues to shine
On winter blue coats
And cherries in the snow
O, Cody, brother of my youth
Found cold and by the tracks

Kerouac, Jack. Visions of Cody. (New York: Penguin Books, 1993).