A Man There Was Whose Alpha And Omega Was Zed* Poem by Roger elkin

For Bruno, for Ron

Zed was Zinaida, half-blood-bonded, put in charge
of schooling while the iron-master managed
jovially the Kamsko-Votinsk iron-mine;
she saw chasing after carriage that dragged mother
away; saw clinging to wheels, pleading after melting face.

Zed was Zaremba, proprietor of German counterpoint,
forging notes to scales, tempering harmony,
firing/refining/steeling the young man’s mind
but not finding Winter Day Dreams white-hot enough.

Zed was Zhikovsky, translator of Joan’s visions
to a death deprived of a cross, and, after the final stake
of imagined fire, a resurrection of twenty-four curtain-calls.

Zed was NadeZdha, almost centralized letter-headed benevolence,
passing distantly in parks, in carriages,
with no words but written
wanting progeny of no blood,
beloved friend, true Tatyana of the letter-scene.

Zed was zigzag of doubt, mark of self-awareness,
the secret, the guilt,
the millstone of Onegin, ground on the gritstone
of marriage where his Zedness wouldn’t grind.

Zed was N on the side, never face to face,
a no-kid creator, though lover of kids.

Zed was Zvierev, funeralled in friendship, and leaning
(pathetically) over St. Petersburg in rehearsal for an
own death of final adagio lamentoso.

Zed was the cholera-zygoma of a mother with expressive eyes,
and the cholera-escape of a man with eyes prone to crying.





(*In his diaries, Tchaikovsky denoted his homosexuality by the letter “Z”.
See J Gee & E Selby: The Triumph of Tchaikovsky)