On the Occasion of Mikhail Gorbachev's Death

Lenin Train


by Majid Naficy


And suddenly
I saw him
On a train at night
Going from Albany to Chicago.

I was coming from Canada
And the charm of a Quebecer girl
Was still with me.
Near Lake Champlain on the border
An old oak blocked our way.
We both got off the train
And she in the hail
Told me of a fearful monster
Who lives in Lake Champlain
And like the leviathan in the “Book of Job”
No one can be equal to him.

I found an empty seat in the darkness
And asked: “Is this taken?”
A voice said loudly: “No!”
I did not see his face
But in his voice
He had the decisiveness of a priest.
At each of my questions
He would push the light button,
Spread a map of train tracks
And with perfect precision
Put his finger on the map.
When he understood I am Iranian
He spoke of the Revolution
And praised the hostage-taking.
But when I said my wife
Was executed for apostasy
He only alluded to Emir of Afghanistan
Who was called “anti-imperialist”
By Stalin in 1924.*

Passengers were all asleep
And only his voice pierced the darkness.
He was a retired librarian
A member of the American Communist Party.
He called Gorbachev a traitor
And was going to Minneapolis
To take part in a meeting.

At the pale light of dawn
A voice said from the speaker:
“Wake up! Wake up!
Smell the coffee! Smell the Coffee!”
He got lost in the morning hustle
But left behind his book.

I got off at windy Chicago
And took the train
Going to sunny California.
At the window, I opened his book:
“Leviathan”, the political philosophy of Hobbes
In which individuals escaping anarchy 
Give away their personal freedoms
And surrender themselves to a sovereign monster.
“Can you pull in the leviathan with a fishhook
Or tie down his tongue with a rope?
Can you put a cord through his nose
Or pierce his jaw with a hook?
If you lay a hand on him,
You will remember the struggle and never do it again!
Any hope of subduing him is false.
The mere sight of him is overpowering.”*
Finally in the snowy Rockies
I closed the book and opened the window
And was filled with the scent of Zardkooh Mountain.*

Reader!
Now that I am writing this poem
Almost a month has passed
Since the defeat of the August coup in Russia.
During these days
I have been constantly thinking of the train
Which brought Lenin in disguise
From Finland to Russia
To lead the October Revolution
And take the state power.
Perhaps his ghost is still
Going from one place to another
On trains at night
To remind descending passengers
That the path to power
Still goes on.

        September 19, 1991

*- Joseph Stalin “Foundations of Leninism”, VI “National Question” 1924.
*- “Book of Job” 41: 1, 2, 8and  9.
*- A mountain in Bakhtiari, Iran.