Laika Floats In Outer Space

Laika Floats In Outer Space
© Surazeus
2025 11 23

I doubt Laika flew far enough away 
from Earth to see it as small ball for play, 
nor did she live just long enough to see 
beautiful vastness of our azure sea, 
for she died when the capsule glowed too hot, 
so she cannot run in Heaven with God. 

Ivan stares out cracked window at the place 
where Laika used to show her cheerful face, 
then peers at silver mirror of the sky 
to calculate where Sputnik may soon fly, 
but all he sees are twinkling stars of ice 
that prove there is no perfect paradise. 

While typing short poems in Acmeist style, 
that depict man of nature without guile 
because he plows black Earth for noble cause 
in harmony with universal laws, 
Ivan sees black car brake outside his door 
so he huddles terrified on the floor. 

Trembling in fear as the secret police 
arrest his neighbor who had called for peace, 
Ivan hides small in shadow of despair 
while they drag someone thumping down the stair, 
then breathes again when tires squeal in the night 
so he drinks cold vodka by candlelight. 

Vowing to escape prison of the state, 
Ivan leaves beef bone on cracked dinner plate, 
then flees in snow-trapped woods of faceless ghouls 
past abandoned churches and shuttered schools 
with frantic intensity of the deer 
that scampers from the hunter in blind fear. 

Slipping through thick tangled bushes of hope 
on freezing Christmas night down rugged slope, 
Ivan wriggles under tall barbed-wire fence 
to escape Heaven without penitence, 
then races toward lush land of liberty 
to live with free will in dire poverty. 

Just as he nears locked gate of paradise 
and leaps to soar on wings of joyful vice, 
Ivan feels bullet of authority 
strike his spine with jolt of absurdity, 
so he falls tangled on barbed-wire of death 
where he dangles high as he gasps for breath. 

Hanging upside down on tangled barbed-wire, 
Ivan listens to the heavenly choir 
sing grandiose Ode to Joy Beethoven wrote, 
then sees with surprise where angels may float 
Sputnik blinking among stars of his dream, 
so he and Laika stroll by sparkling stream.