614 Words And No News

Write write write.

Every time. The end of August makes me do it more diligently than ever. Summing up another unproductive summer like it's a new year's resolution. Perhaps it is. After all, old, long-standing habits always outweigh new, fleeting undertakings. It is a new year in school, university. For me it was always a huge event. An arsenal of pens and notebooks, new shoes and backpack. Another chance to study better, fix everything. But maybe it's also the eve of my birthday which I can never enjoy in full because of this immense longing for the departing summer.

There’s something special in this period, as bitter and as sweet as possible and my melancholic personality cannot help but enjoy this time. Today it's so sunny and as cold as it can be at the end of August, and I feel exactly the same as a year ago. Does this testify that I haven’t changed at all and stayed in the same place? My life cannot be called planful, and those rare changes are very painfully palpable. This year there were enough of them and they managed to undermine this unstable concentration of mine. It's so hard for me to hold on to one thought, it doesn’t let me live fully, be active, and act purposefully. Usually this phenomenon constantly worries me, represses and paralyzes me, but nottoday. Seemingly the end of the beautiful season, so little time left to do something, to have time to enjoy it, thoughts in such format should have strangle me completely, should have created absolute chaos and vanity and drive me to a dead end, but it is simply not happening. Yet?

I want to write again all that I wrote a year ago, about the deceptive heat of September, that the transit of this time of year is so tangible that it is like watching the sea, when everything around is an endless movement and you don’t need to worry, you can stand still in one place and just watch, and it will be enough. But these words are not new, and neither am I.

Some shadows lead to others and everything repeats.

I continue to play ‘what the best me would do now seeing the worst me’, which is actually me I believe. The best one would just sit next to me. Maybe she wouldn’t smoke and would have kept all the cigarettes for me to survive a day. The best me feels sorry for me, she knows what it’s like to be me. I annoy her a little but she is generous with mercy and patience, we are sitting together on a sofa and she is waiting when I’m gone. How much better her life would’ve been. We are sitting together and looking out the window at the blue cold sky. We feel good together but we are waiting when one of us will get out of here. And she’s leaving. Hopefully she will return when the weather is better, or will congratulate me with my birthday, but for now, she’s got lots of things to do and her own life to live.

The end of August is something unbearably fantastic. It feels so awake and real, so fresh and reassuring, like the last gulps of a freedom, of a life itself, it is so valuable for it is so irreversibly ephemeral. I miss a lot, and I’ve missed a lot, but at the end of any work there should be a little hope. I can’t think of anything so I’ll end on a good old phrase that my dad often used to repeat to me;

Omnia transeunt, et id etiam transeat. nihil interit

Prosaic excerpt of the Sunday: Absolutely Meaningless Observations Of An Adult Child With Certain Unresolved Issues

Another season is nearly over. The nice one (if to not consider those few insufferable weeks of roasting sun when you wish for a magical, massive slingshot to pop that merciless bulb in the sky). It feels like summer is trying harder and harder to bring the warmth but it gets less and less efficient. And no one is ever ready for the change. Yet people had a piss in the sea, kids got tanned, and mums got acclimatisation herpes. Summer is truly always full of surprises. After this hot carousel of colours and spoiled thoughts, time is suddenly cooling down sweaty bodies a bit too much and a bit too fast.

 Sigh.

 No one is ever ready for the change, even though everybody is aware of the end. Everybody sighs. Why then do people love autumn? Probably observing this time of year as the ageing of summer, people are for an instant experiencing a certain comfort about their own ticking clocks, contentedly-sad they compare it to something inferior, romanticising about the weather, escaping the dreadful transiency of their own lives and dodging this time, making it easy. The instinct of moral self-preservation. The last warmth, last bright little days, Indian summer: the precious leftovers of summer. Lethargy comes and everything is coming to the decline, and nothing is as sad as autumn. People enjoy sadness, sacrificing summer for a good harvest, a bittersweet farewell. Freshly made memories and supplies of vitamin D. Like squirrels, people are still stocking up and preserving one way or another. Posting and boasting their unforgettable holidays, continuously trying to resemble the most charming and fun people in the world: look at my summer, like me, love me, make me a celebrity #... But summer doesn't give a shit; nature does its habitual cycle gradually fading away with a little help from its ‘friends’. No one’s ready for that either.

Nostalgia, it is already here, and that favourite bed linen no longer feels as nice and cooling in the morning as it used to only a couple of days ago. Memories do not warm, they distract (which is at least something).

The Sacred August, the most desirable of all. Ripe and tender. And summer nights’ special smell is at its peak along with meteor showers that make our dreams sparkle. August is like a bridge that everyone must pass, but getting to the middle we get a chance to stop for a moment and watch those sparkling dreams. A chance to get ready. Then every morning is getting colder. The barely noticeable odour of the sea is rolling back to its coasts, hiding deeper into the mother seas’ bottom pockets. Every year, again and again, we never learn, we are never ready.

(Absentmindedly we wonder how long one person can keep itself in a plural number, calling itself ‘we’, ignoring the narrow subjectivity of its own vision of life and attributing it to all the others.)

The wind now is the king, already trying on the seasonal crown and sending us like leaves wherever it deigns to. And this distinguished anticipation about new school year even if one finished it ages ago, even if one hated it, it just always comes.  Coffee is getting cold faster. August is nearly over.

And every morning I’m catching it all with my c&c on the balcony. Hungry for life I'm gulping as much as I can ,except Sundays, when everyone’s in and I dare not pass the living room (and disturb the TV’s praising ceremony) that leads to my outside nestling spot. And I said nothing of the key, I had good summers too. 

Another Day Poetry: Beaty Fresh (special)

Well hello geezers! A new poetry slice but before a tiny prologue.

Recently I've stumbled upon the cutest musical morsel by my old comrade from uni, Demian Feriy, and this is what has inspired and fertilized my mind to create this poetry. Don't be shy and check out his other tracks on SoundCloud , enjoy the spring and eat a lot of oranges. Here we go:

Beaty Fresh

springy springs

and blooming strings

and all the things

I want to say,

stuck in a tray

since yesterday

right on my way

oh holy clowns,

my morning gown

and golden crown

I'm falling down

while feeding crows,

and crowds and crowds

upon my shroud

beating out bows

for spring to come,

a little drum,

cheers with a rum

and coke and buns

all on the board,

and clowns, and mort,

and zombie horde,

I can afford

myself a feast,

without priests

but our beasts

shall come from East

to live the spring,

and I will sing

and you will swing

around the ring

ding ding ding ding

Prosaic excerpt of the Sunday: The Train and The Deviant Allegories

The Train and The Deviant Allegories

Tired, sticky bodies. Yes bodies. Not people. This city has eaten all their humanity. They're judgemental. Everything about you is wrong. Especially the way you breathe. Three little piggies sitting in front of me, watching me falling. Whose house will I blow away first piggies? My fingers are long enough to do it with one hand. But I'm just cowardly typing and killing you on this little pixelated page. Ohmygod! Who’s that filthy smelly piggy? Is it you in the middle? I see you’re not even trying to hide the rest of your dinner that has stacked in that silly plump mouth of yours. Silly piggy. Look there is a black goose playing around. He has taken piggy’s place and he’s an arrogant stupid goose. You’re going to be cat food goose, - says one of piggies. But goose doesn't reply, he doesn't speak piggies’ language. Hello piggies! I got a place! Pretending here to be one of you. What does it look like? I bet you'd be happy to be skinned alive only to avoid seeing me sitting. Silly piggies. Even goose has checked me out, piggies. Silly you, goose. I'm going soon, piggies. But piggies do not understand me, they’re only underestimating me. But hey, my autograph is on all your bums. And it’s sundown. And it’s time for me to go.

I slap piggies’ bums and they are squeaking and hurrying towards the barn.

Another Day Poetry: Budapest

Budapest

For a moment forget where I am,

And there is no difference at all.

No adventures and joy with myself,

If I'm bored then it’s only my fault.

One, I'm unfocused,

Two, I'm still writing,

But my feet are too hurt,

They’re too sore to keep fighting.

Are we getting old?

Is it happening now? No?

Then why I'm so tired, why I'm feeling so down?

Why’s my constant ‘upsetness’ overwhelming it all?

No matter where or what’s going on.

These days are too fast,

Too little kebabs,

But time is a train between future and past.

Sightseeing, and wander, and maybe that mall,

With my slow digestion there is no time at all.

My new complains and old habits supplies,

You, my dear, only the one doomed to try,

Even the last day my whining keeps going

What can I say? Well, I could say sorry.

You. Right in front of me,

I. Am crawling to bed,

It’s our holiday baby –

With disappointment you said.

(This time it's personal)

Another day poetry: Someone's poem

Inspired by John Cooper Clarke

Dedicated to John Cooper Clarke

Someone’s poem

Someone’s shitty kids

Someone’s smelly dishes

Someone’s painful knees

Someone’s hopeless wishes

Someone’s bitter greed

Someone’s lack of air

Someone’s lost in Leeds

Someone’s brand new hair

Someone’s speedy wheels

Someone’s childhood trauma

Someone’s speedy pills

Someone’s life-time drama

Someone’s chicken ribs

Someone’s steps on craters

Someone’s false beliefs

Someone’s fake creators

Someone’s hateful speech

Someone’s x-ray glances

Someone’s dad is rich

Someone’s missed his chances

Someone’s dog is dead

Someone’s got a new one

Someone’s dirty bed

Someone’s filled with no one

Someone’s debit cards

Someone’s way of living

Someone’s friend is tard

Someone’s stares at ceiling

Someone’s pride to be

Someone’s patronising

Someone’s wish to be kree

Someone’s just realised it

Someone’s obsessions in mud

Someone’s colossal agreement

Someone’s pretending good

Someone can’t rhyme agreement

Someone’s feelings so high

Someone’s are kept in boxes

Someone’s trying to hide

Someone’s disgusting poxes

Someone’s dressed like a nurse

Someone’s shameful past and culture

Someone’s knowledge that worse is

Someone’s disgraceful future

Someone’s joy to hurt

Someone’s silly jumper

Someone’s in a court

Someone’s lousy temper

Someone’s greatest love

Someone’s fresh and jokey

Someone’s hardest path

Someone’s into junkies

Someone’s pretty wife

Someone’s holding the knife

Someone’s cheeky darling

Someone’s making him starving

Someone’s blindest choice

Someone’s ugly voice

Someone’s dearest noise

Someone’s not into boys

Someone’s habit to bow

Someone’s free to go

Someone’s tired to eat

Someone’s skills at it

Someone’s miserable now

Someone’s happy law

Someone’s dislike to bend

Someone’s conclusion to end

And then turn, disappear

In a black-black wall

And the next day pretend

That you never heard it before…

And

Been here,

And

Liked it,

And

Posted it,

And

Asked for more!

Another Day Poetry: Nowhere City

Nowhere City

I cannot live in this city any more, no.

Nothing is holding, nothing is pulling back at all,

Nothing is wishing me to stay a day,

But I keep looking for what to say.

The poisoned city with no cure,

Where everyone’s too adult, too mature,

The city with a hope for light,

But every citizen is blind.

They’re barging with their illnesses and pains,

And they don’t care if they don’t make a sense.

Heroic city with an ice-cold heart,

That’s falling into pieces with no chance to start,

A savage creature, last one of its type,

It’s giving up, it’s withering without fight.

And hateful empathy is growing very fast,

Or it’s just an offended child from the past?

Demanding an apology from everyone,

Who’s from the city or another town.

The city has corrupted guts and minds,

 And offered nothing in reply,

The city of contrasts, someone said,

But speaking true it means from worst to simply bad.

A word ‘majo’r’ means rich and wealthy,

(They don’t like keeping words too healthy),

But at the same time words mean everything for them,

Pronounce it loud and clearly all they can.

And then ignoring everything that breathes,

Is there still someone who doesn't want to leave?

To run away, escape, be rescued by the Red Cross army,

And let it burn in blue-blue flame, but now, without me.

The people are cursed by ‘indifference spell’,

And I cannot feel the way I felt,

Perhaps I’ll long one day for that,

That city and its people in their silly hats,

Perhaps I will forget it all,

The long hard way from hole to hole.

Prosaic Friday: Blinking

Blinking

The sun was leaving his street too fast. The street was longing for the light just like his soul was. Even when direct afternoon light was penetrating into every corner of this place, everything seemed to him invariably miserable and grim. Well, sometimes you just can’t help the way you see things, right?

He left his sleeping place and went out to the street hoping to catch up with the last promise of today’s sun. As always, it promised to return tomorrow. Either scorching or almost invisible, the sun has for already almost 5 billion years been fulfilling its promise to return, and it was nice for him to know.

Speeding up and wading between the tightly-planted houses, like air he was gulping the last gleam of the day. There, ahead, there is still a little bit, he thought to himself, focusing his gaze at the end of what seemed an infinitely sad street. The sky was dipping itself into the arms of darkness yet it was bright. Out there, above, the swallows were circling and crying incessantly. They were flying low, he could hear them. The atmosphere was pressing the ground with all its body. It will rain, he thought. Something superhuman and unfathomably painful was in their cry. Something too animal, something too wild for a landed human. After all, every blackfly on account for every bird and its offspring, survival couldn’t make them not to cry.

Along the way he thought that he could stay in the flat and bid farewell to the sunset from the window, but then, that eight-foot room would swallow him in blackness much faster. A bridge was very close.  The destination he was eager for. He crossed the road and took his phone out to take a picture. The picture was nothing particularly different from the other 90, but it was one more day that was born, lived, and was dying right in front of his eyes. He will not remember this day, they all have long been mixed into one but let it be pixelated and saved elsewhere just in case. That's all. He reached the remains of light and was saved just like the picture in his phone.

The bridge was empty just as he was. No people, no cars, no motion. It was getting dark quickly, hastily. Street lanterns were proudly showing initiative in the urban décor. An ambulance raced past. Nothing will help this day, he thought, call the morgue. For him, the night wasn’t a part of the day; it was a totally different dimension, with its rules, traditions, and way of existence. In these circumstances, he had nothing to do at night, or more precisely, in the night. A cold north wind in mid-July, the smell of alcohol digesting welcomes you past every pub implanted into the row of houses, sickly-sweet perfumes, meaningless electronic cigarettes, and people dressed as mannequins for real? Now anger was filling his soul. People. People make the place, right? They're unconditionally buying cheap flirtation and even the crudest attention, they admire each other's primitive intelligence, and now he hears the shouts of encouragement to a guy who just broke a bottle of beer. These people are narrow, flat, and happy fools, and unbeknownst to him, the envy has eclipsed the anger. Now a single night's darkness was not enough for him and he hobbled back home, to the smallest and darkest room in the world.

Cold wind has weather-beaten his thin skin but he imagined this city on fire with all the colours of the rainbow and it was warming him. Night. Infamous night. Go away and give me back my day, was he crooning on the way back. Empty like entrance of the house, lonely elevator, he entered the flat and quietly made himself a cup of tea, in order not to wake the rest of the monsters in his head. Today there was enough of them.

The door of the room. Closed curtains. Squeezed wooden bed between two thin walls. They are all too unfriendly. He doesn’t care, he closes his eyes and the thought of a new day that brings new hopes lulls his heavy heart. Light will come and all will be brighter. Light will come.

His sleep is instant and deep, he barely sees dreams. They are deceptive though comforting. He is too tired of them.

The morning. He feels it with his eyes closed, but only when he opens them there is no light. Is the night not over? Or have I gone blind? But there is no panic, it does not frighten him, he sees the dark with open eyes and it feels good, it feels like light and it doesn’t matter if there is no more light, because he doesn’t need it anymore.

A little later he woke up again to find a lock of dark hair on his face. The hair that replaced the light and darkness, the hair which makes both equally deep and light. Day 91. 

All rights reserved.

'Revolve'

I truly hope that this is my first and last poem in 2015

 that may conjure up depression in your soft, fragile minds.

I don't have to do anything wrong to stay away,

I don't have to be bad anymore to lose my mates,

I don't need to look back into the past,

To know that the future is coming too fast.

No need to be jolly no need for a mourn,

We all die alone just the way we were born,

No time to be generous on feelings for a fool,

For someone like me, who is always see-through.

Trains coming and leaving, trains passing us by,

They are hurrying up leaving cold smell of night,

But we, soulless people, just running in front,

Naively hoping one of them will take us home.

We think that something else will make us something better,

And we will be special and we will matter,

Crossing the fingers for luck of eventuality,

Parting apart due to repulsion of personalities,

We’re making mistakes and we taste to regret it,

But conclusion is one; we spin the time in forgetting.

We are trying to fix it with a feeling of need,

But the opposite forces make us seal up the lid,

Intimidated by the solitariness inside,

We’re seeking for sanity or at least for the sign,

Defending ourselves by pushing others out of eyes,

We are stating we're good and you too have to be nice!

But there's nothing else but old trodden lines,

No need to divide what is your and what's mine.

Don’t look for a chance in the chain of an ice

Do not listen to those who are knocking the chimes,

Don’t tell anyone what we're seeing sometimes,

Especially when we are becoming ‘I'm’.

Spontaneous Tuesday Poetry: The FB Wall Sodomy

The information you spread is pretty boring my dear.

Are you trying to hurt me or simply to jeer?

For those who asleep or those who are warring

Every fucking day, every fucking morning.

The information you share was digested awhile,

It can't shock any more, cannot touch or make smile.

It just brings irritation or some kind of a bile

And it sounds like - No way! What a clever fucking style!

The treasures you've found, about art, past and youth,

About power of nature or night sky on the roof

Doesn't attract and tastes like a spoof

Because all of it, simply leftovers in truth.

To be dumb like a stone and as mole to be blind,

How does it feel? What it is like? 

To catch tiny reflections of another man's mind,

Does it make you feel proud of your glorious kind?

The Friday Poetry at Thursday. "To hobo"

Two days ago, in front of my window has died a homeless person. I have watched him for a long time. Slept on the ground, on cardboard. Even at the end of the summer, when it began to get cold I thought how he would go on like this, and then he has died. And here's something I wrote. (Originally I wrote it in Russian, so the English version may seem painfully awkward, but I firmly believe that this is forgivable in poetry.

Russian version below )

I just want you to live well

And were a good person, no woe

That thou shouldest be stronger and smarter than was

And didn’t have to take cover with snow,

How many losses and how many roads

So helplessly you're wandering heaved 

But that someone would write a few lines to you

You would never have believed,

Rotted chair and a pair of plastic bags

All the wealth that you've managed to find

Instead of a soft bed and balloons

To solemnly, proudly say goodbye.

Aloof, offended, you slept and smoked

On your aching bones

But maybe, sometime, you have lived and loved

Among seemed, as you thought of ‘yours’,

Turned out, broke down perhaps you could not

Did not find the right words and accents

To hell are you damned, God said to you

And lost in the crucial moments,

I do not want to pity, this feeling is bad

Meaningless and speechless

I would like at least now

You have finally found, a plenty of intimate rest.

" Бомжу "

Хочется просто чтоб ты жил хорошо
И был хорошим человеком
Чтобы ты был сильнее и умнее был
И не спал укрываясь снегом ,
Сколько потерь и сколько дорог
Так беспомощно ты бродил
Но что кто - то напишет пару строчек тебе
Ты бы никогда не поверил ,
Прогнившее кресло и пару кульков
Все богатства что смог ты найти
Вместо мягкой постели и воздушных шаров
Чтоб торжественно , гордо уйти ,
Отчужденный , обиженный , спал и курил
На костях ты своих больных
Но быть может , когда - то ты жил и любил
Среди как бы , казалось своих ,
Обернулось , сломалось , а возможно не смог
Не нашел нужных слов и акцентов
Пропади же ты пропадом , сказал тебе бог
И пропал в переломных моментах ,
Жалеть не хочу это чувство плохое
Бессмысленное и немое
Хочется просто чтоб хотя бы сейчас
Ты обрел в достатке покоя .

Saturday Poetry (late friday)

 

White Dwarf

 We are all here temporary

 And a cup of yours is for a matter of time

 Until you break it

 And all of this imperfect

 And the bones easily break

 Just like a cup

 Indestructible - perfect

Parasitical array

Nefarious reproduction

In the pursuit of lasting

False observation

 

Both past and future

(The second will also not prolong forever)

From order to disorder

Unconscionably, relentlessly

Stop - the red dot.

There must be something endless

Some kind of the abstract

Fantastic and elastic

For a happy ending, At least

Perhaps this little" something"

Somewhere inside the depths?

Inside of that what easily

What easily can break

Perhaps it’s sugar, milk, or honey pot

Or lemon, or that bloody sweetener

Although the fluid is too hot

Too hot to make it infinite

Your something’s immaterial

It’s independent, blatantly existing,

Beyond the words and stroking

The answer infantile and dreamily unacceptable, misplaced.

 

Why do you want to last so long?

Why do you give a shit what happens after all?

Just drink from the cup of yours,

With pleasure, surely slurping

Until it breaks apart, until it’s gone, while it is full, while it is yours.

 

 

(Azlanova indeed)