its not my circus,
not my monkeys – hey waiter
ready for the check

Not my circus, not my monkeys is a calque Polish nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy.

A calque is a borrowing by word-for-word translation or a loan translation.

For example, the English expression it goes without saying is a calque (a literal, word-for-word translation) of French ça va sans dire, and flea market is a calque of French marché aux puces (literally “market with fleas”).

Go down to beach and watch the waves.

As it is said in the Gullah, De wata bring we and de wata gwine tek we bak.

from Tajikistan
and over to Kyrgyzstan
to Azerbaijan

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien had a way with place names.

Coming up with the likes of Osgiliath, Gondolin and Cirith Ungol in his writings about the made up land of Middle Earth.

Still I am reminded that truth is stranger than fiction when I am reminded of those countries to the east of Russia.

The countries that when we had to live with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or the CCCP, made up that Union.

I got that reminder reading the article A Distracted Russia Is Losing Its Grip on Its Old Soviet Sphere in the New York Times.

The article states that these old members of the Soviet Union are taking advantage of Russia’s focus on Ukraine and are getting back to their old ways of not getting along that has gone along since before the birth of Christ.

That these countries don’t get along has to take a second seat for me as in the first seat is the realization that there really are countries named Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

People live there.

They go to sleep and get up every morning and go to work and come home and go to bed at night.

Where they work, what they have for breakfast and whether or not they have parent-teacher conferences or even telephones, old style, telephone wire, landline telephones is all unknown to me.

They have to have some exposure to modern items as the article stated: And here along the mountainous border between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, long-running quarrels between farmers over land, water and smuggled contraband escalated last month into a full-scale conflict involving tanks, helicopters and rockets, as the armies of the two countries fought each other to a standstill.

How about that?

Technology is available for fighting so why do I picture these places as looking just like Anatevka?

Well, forget what these places might look like.

From the point of view of syllables and haiku, you can’t beat the names.

What candles may be
held speed them all each slow dusk
drawing down of blinds

Adapted from Anthem for Doomed Youth by Wilfred Owen

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,—
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Wilfred Owen was born at Oswestry on 18th March 1893. He was educated at the Birkenhead Institute, and matriculated at London University in 1910. In 1913 he obtained a private tutorship near Bordeaux, where he remained until 1915. During this period he became acquainted with the eminent French poet, Laurent Tailhade, to whom he showed his early verses, and from whom he received considerable encouragement. In 1915, in spite of delicate health, he joined the Artists’ Rifles O.T.C., was gazetted to the Manchester Regiment, and served with their 2nd Battalion in France from December 1916 to June 1917, when he was invalided home. Fourteen months later he returned to the Western Front and served with the same Battalion, ultimately commanding a Company.

He was awarded the Military Cross for gallantry while taking part in some heavy fighting on 1st October. He was killed on 4th November 1918, while endeavouring to get his men across the Sambre Canal.

A month before his death he wrote to his mother: “My nerves are in perfect order. I came out again in order to help these boys; directly, by leading them as well as an officer can; indirectly, by watching their sufferings that I may speak of them as well as a pleader can.”

I am no youth by no less doomed.

No mockeries for them;

no prayers nor bells,

Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs.