The year we lived in Moscow
it was his songs
I learned my Russian from
politically suspect
they passed from friend to friend
on reel to reel
a gentle plaintive voice
backed up by the few chords
and mostly minor keys
he knew on his guitar
he sang the sorrows
and stupidity of war
the bitterness of love's betrayals
and the ways in which so much
slips through our inept fingers
he sang about a cat
whose eyes were dangerous
whose whiskers hid a smile
you'd best not meet
he sang life's steady drumbeat
hard to hear
amid the hum and bustle of a city
such as the Moscow
that he loved and celebrated
his songs are from another age
but still come back at times
bringing with them memories of the lonliness
that was my constant shadow
through my eighteenth year