7th of November

Translated by Chat GPT

Once, we celebrated
The Seventh of November,
Cursed the Bolsheviks,
And drank more than we’d remember.

We despised them all,
Their cruelty, their lies,
Yet in us, masochism lingers—
It never truly dies.

On the Fourth of July,
We’ll toast to Communism,
Savoring its ghost
With bittersweet cynicism.

In a wave of nostalgia,
We’ll sigh, perhaps in jest,
And raise a glass of cognac
To Russia, youth, and the rest.

But no tears will blur our view,
No rage, no bitter scorn—
No sloshing through Moscow’s slush,
Exhausted and forlorn.

New York, mid-’90s