Poem: Dosvidaniya, Ivan Ivanovitch by Jack Brummet

Dosvidaniya, Ivan Ivanovitch
by Jack Brummet
Dosvidaniya, Ivan Ivanovitch, [1]
Living your life like it could never last.
Each day feeling the marrow diminish
And each week gone by is a week too fast
From which there is no turning back.
So you cinch it tight and leave no slack

To slip through those pearly towering gates,
Relieved from duty in these United States,
Where you were born but never quite fit.
As the powers that be coil and spit
And the venomed fangs are bare,
You want to abandon ship, but never dare

And you pace and try to raise the nerve,
Hoping and wishing this isn’t Last Call
Before stumbling into that blind curve.
It never comes and now you sit and wait,
And swear this time you'll play it straight,
Hovering in circles until you stall.
---o0o---

[1]   Ivan Ivanovich, the Russian equivalent for 'John Doe' was the name given to a mannequin used in testing the Russian Vostok spacecraft in preparation for its manned missions. Ivan Ivanovich was made to look as lifelike as possible, with eyes, eyebrows, eyelashes and a mouth. He was dressed in a cosmonaut suit, with a sign reading "MAKET" (Russian for ‘‘dummy)’’ placed under his visor, so that anyone who found him after his missions would not think he was a dead cosmonaut or an alien.

Ivan Ivanovitch would also be my name in Russia, since I am John, son of John.