قطارِ لنین – شعری از مجید نفیسی

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” ۱۹۲۴.

*- “Book of Job” ۴۱: ۱, ۲, ۸and  ۹.

*- A mountain in Bakhtiari, Iran.