This Train's On Fire

Colonel Vasin went to the front-line with his young wife
Colonel Vasin rallied his division and said "Let's go 
  home"
We've been leading this war for 70 years, we were taught  life's a fight
But the latest intelligence reports tell us:
We're only just fighting ourselves.

I've seen generals
They eat and drink our death
Their children go crazy 'cause they've nothing to wish anymore
Our land is in rust, our churches in ashes
And if we don't return home right now
We'll have no home left.

This train's on fire --- no more buttons to push
This train's on fire --- we've got no place to hide
This land was ours before we got entangled in this fight
And it will die if it's nobody's
We must reclaim this land.

And all around there burn torches
It's the rallying of all the fallen brigades
And people who shot our fathers
Are making plans for our children

We were born by the sound of marches
We were threatened by jail
And it's about time to stop crawling

We have returned home.

- Boris Grebenschikov + "Aquarium" c. 1984

The Colt and the Train

Didn't you see the train, as it rushed
across the Steppes, hiding in Lake-middles,
on wrought-iron feet
and snorting through its iron nostril?

And behind, in some kind of frenzied horse-show,
a red-maned colt is cantering through grasses
growing high, its legs flailing above its head?

Cute, cute, funny little fool!
But where the hell is he cantering to?
Doesn't he know that real live horses
have been scattered by the Steel Cavalry?
Doesn't he know that his gallop on the dark
Steppe won't bring back days of yore, when
Pecheneg Tribesmen would gladly trade
A couple of gorgeous Russian girls from the Steppe
In exchange for a horse?

The Law Of The Market has changed
the look of our quiet, deep waters,
Awakened by the sound of shunting,
And now it takes a ton of horse-flesh
To buy a Railway Engine.

- Sergey Esenin