vriad_lee

тот именно вид, в котором я встречаю тебя, символичен. ты идешь мимо сбербанка, препираясь с одним ребенком, неся на руках другого, третий спешит сзади, смотря себе под ноги. я ем маленькие прянички, закидывая их в рот по одному и держа пакет на сгибе локтя, как фуражку. и, поравнявшись с тобой, величественно, как мне кажется, говорю: «привет», и закидываю очередной пряник себе в рот, и ты просто, будто бы и не из другого измерения, отвечаешь: «привет»

want to be old and gay, bursting into tears in the lap of any of many young friends, crackheads, immuno compromised, broken cheerful whores, who will softly stroke my balding head and whisper sweet, trivial words of compassion to me when i am sad. get a crush on a sixteen y.o. fickle dancing leech, my friends will forgive this shameful obsession and his monstrous abuse of me, because they know my heart and how good it is, and there's no such thing these people won't forgive, versed in the ways of sorrow as they are. overdoses, breakdowns, cut wrists will replace this view of poplars and preening canaries.

idleness

i'd find it endearing,
this lingering presence of you
in my head
or the sad dilemma of
'can't forgive what i hate/
can't reject what i love!'
if someone else squatting beside me
were holding my hand,
looking in my face with a sorrowful smile
or bombs were falling
on this slumbering town
but as it is,
i am sleepily passing my days
no current is moving
the trace of your presence away
and i'm waiting for it to dissolve
like a cloud of color (red)
in still water
no reason to be moved by devotion
but it takes so much patience to wait

at the time when we said:
life sucks, but i'm not part of it!
streets were winding just like today
up and down the city
and we walked them
and took pictures of ourselves
posing by ambassadors' cars
squinting and smiling,
so obviously vulnarable
in our trustfulness and rejection
of every piece of reality,
excluding ourselves
and now we say: life sucks, and so do we!

grievances by moi


bemoan your time in that flat
in that stuffy apartament
where your hope for future rested
so much more has been placed
on the scale of grievance
that nothing could change
this metallic after-taste of reality
what way laughter, good humour, trust went
how come there used to be a place
a dimension for laughter

rosenthal by moi

i like that piece about rosenthal
which rosenthal?
the one who wrote that grammar
or the one who caught that nazi?
which one?
because i read a book about rosenthal
i don't remember what was going on in there
but i remember street
white milky fog
the smell, the damp, the milkiness of fog
that i remember
houses showing though,
the street....
no, wait i also see another type of weather
the sun is setting over crowded street
a shabby writer walks, aghast, amid the crowds
the publisher has just accepted his first book?
the smell of fried potatos in the arches
the violet, darkening sky,
the setting sun?
the cries, the talk, the windowsills
the windows?
how is that that that everybody knows
the smells, the sounds of an evening street
if no one really goes out these days?
and what do poets write about if
not all that, plus a couple of ideas
nobody really needs or knows or trusts
but everybody knows this: the street
the smell of fried potatoes, faces, faces
and reads about them, and sniffs
and shuffles to the kitchen in their slippers
to make another coffee or a tea
and shuffles back to dim and stuffy room
to spend the rest of their life in there?

fall into a manhole tonight
and lie down there, in damp darkness
with a broken spine, for a fortnight
you're right: life is uncomfortable
it wasn't made with happy ends in mind
those happy ends, invented by ourselves.
live with a cloud in your brain, defy
all rationale
forget the days and ways in which you die

or, if you want to breathe one with the world,
become a salmon swimming up the stream,
to spawn
get caught by shaggy grizzly bear
he won't so much as tear out your guts
or eat your eyes, but maybe, bored, he will
skin you alive, such sport
and throw you back into the clear water

no doubt, you could be a samurai
and daily think of painful slow dying
make peace with death, adjust all to that thought
become a stone figure, sitting by a river,
be happy, in a kinky, desperate way

but how to reconcile that plan of yours
with early childhood visions?
to run, at noon, through singing summer fields,
and chat along with spiders, flies, and grasses

i've asked that question
for like 20 years
but nature only cried and sighed, by turns
until this day. and now,
she stares back at me with loving eyes
and mocking smile
hello, are you dreaming?
forget the days and ways in which you die

i'm reposting this although i posted it before. but it's about the only poem from-long-ago i can think of posting. it's about an indian girl i fell in love with. she was studying russian at an american university, and visited moscow for a few months. she had a diet of white bread and worried about her skin being too dark. in india, the whiter the better she said. she was being well-educated but had something natural and wild about her. the ending sucks but so do i, i mean but what can i do.




no wait there's another poem from-long-ago i can think of reposting:



it's such a shame to post one's old stuff. but what can i do? i have a project to shirk

Жутко быть бедной!
Утром так хочется янтарного чая
В подстаканнике

Не гоните бабок от переходов метро
Пусть они продают свои сигареты