Lazarus Trubman
Camp in Northern Russia
Stocky, forsaken barracks forming a perfect square.
Deadly forest around as far as the eye can see.
Survival is not an option and frankly a useless thought.
The world is a narrow tunnel with no proverbial light.
And even if there is a light – the tunnel will never end.
And time isn’t passing, no – it’s us, I believe, it’s us.
Leaving signs of existence on the unsullied snow.
Tiny signs of existence… Non-existence perhaps.
There, behind our backs - darkness from all four corners.
A lonely acacia tree, ridiculously bent.
Under the endless sky, covered with grayish clouds,
Hundreds of faceless humans, unknown, nameless, unknown…
What are we dreaming about: tears of abandoned wives?
An unforgettable midday? Rumbles of a distant thunder?
Chamber, where we were tortured? Self-satisfied warden?
Guard who is constantly licking his weather-beaten lips?
This road is a deadly spiral and sometimes an endless ring…
But after a supper - watered potatoes and nameless fish -
The history of mankind, until uneventful end,
Everybody is passing, everybody is writing…
We waking up early, coughing. Have our coffee and pills.
Walking, love our women – the only remaining light…
It’s rubbish that we are dying – we’re just getting awfully tired
And moving aside in silence… One after another… Gone.
Deadly forest around as far as the eye can see.
Survival is not an option and frankly a useless thought.
The world is a narrow tunnel with no proverbial light.
And even if there is a light – the tunnel will never end.
And time isn’t passing, no – it’s us, I believe, it’s us.
Leaving signs of existence on the unsullied snow.
Tiny signs of existence… Non-existence perhaps.
There, behind our backs - darkness from all four corners.
A lonely acacia tree, ridiculously bent.
Under the endless sky, covered with grayish clouds,
Hundreds of faceless humans, unknown, nameless, unknown…
What are we dreaming about: tears of abandoned wives?
An unforgettable midday? Rumbles of a distant thunder?
Chamber, where we were tortured? Self-satisfied warden?
Guard who is constantly licking his weather-beaten lips?
This road is a deadly spiral and sometimes an endless ring…
But after a supper - watered potatoes and nameless fish -
The history of mankind, until uneventful end,
Everybody is passing, everybody is writing…
We waking up early, coughing. Have our coffee and pills.
Walking, love our women – the only remaining light…
It’s rubbish that we are dying – we’re just getting awfully tired
And moving aside in silence… One after another… Gone.
Biography
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Lazarus Trubman is a college professor from the ancient land of Transylvania and a labor camp survivor, who immigrated to the United States in 1990. In 2017, after teaching the Theory of Literature and Roman languages for twenty-two years, he retired and settled in North Carolina to devote his time to writing. He is the winner of the Bartleby Snopes 2018 Dialogue Contest. His poetry has appeared in literary venues across the United States, Canada and the UK, among them The New Reader, Forge, Lit Mag, Bending Genres and others.
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