Philip Nikolayev

The   user   interface   has   the  following   format.   Upon   accessing   the   URL,
the   user   sees   a   welcome  message   with   some   explanation   of   the  service
provided. The  user is  prompted to  enter  his or  her name, date of birth,
When  everything  else  fails,  try  something  new. and email address,
For instance, try the central mental hospital, then  to  left  click  on  the
sit back and mumble enjoying the  belle  vue   submit  button.  Based  on
until  the  nurse  has counted you all. this  information,  the  CGI  script
Our group files  in  fresh  from  the  courtyard walk,  generates "on  the
a  pageant  of  male  flesh  in  ugly  dress.  fly"  an  appropriate  horoscope
There's bundles of  excitement  but  little talk. reading  for  the  end  user,
The  chess-players  are  breaking  out  their  chess. or  displays  the  logs
No  one  to  mention  the  Afghan  War.  The  state, and  user  Statistics if
crumbling, buys me my sparse and forkless lunch. the  current  user  is
This  latest  novel  fails  to  kill  my worries,  the  site admin.  Parse  CGI
The  Plexiglas  window  withstands  a  teenage  a  punch.  variables  (or
God,  I  must  prove  completely  nuts,  by  fate  lookup  logged  record) to
unfit for active military service. obtain user's birthday. Parse user's
stats, verify and save to log file. Compute user's Zodiac sign based on
birth date. Print personalized greeting. Generate a horoscope reading and
send it to user's browser} else if (user == administrator) {compute stats.
...

Time to recount the sparrows of the air.
Seated alone on an elected stair,
I stare as they appear and disappear.

Tonight the deck supports tremendous quiet,
although the twilight is itself a riot.
I'm glad I'm staying here, not at the Hyatt.

My pen, eye, notes, watch, whiskey glass and hell
all hang together comfortably well.
Pain is my favorite resort hotel
...

I.

I am a man. I've lived alone. I've been in love. I've played with
fire, cursed the telephone, and basked in verse, in verve, and also
Humid, terrestrial, mixed, nongenderspecific, have occasionally
day's tumult ushers in an evening with a lone moved a woman's
shut icecream stand, false promises of cone heart, although I also,
and scoop near Central Park. Juneific famously, had such an awk-
are the silhouettes of people dreaming by, ward start. Amazed at
lips, lit cigarette tips, thoughts and tulips streaming by how much
along dimly hospitable park lamps toward eleven symmetry a life
with an occasional rev of internal combustion can still support, I
wafted across from nearabouts. stare in rapt near-idiocy, like a
"What's this you are talking about, Sarah?" foreign passport, and
you hear a voice, and the reply, "I'm sorry. April's Persian lilacs
but what was I supposed to do?" Two bats all bloom straight into
dash through a silver stretch of atmosphere. my face, and various
What she was supposed to do we never hear, other blossom, too,
depending on each case, while you are softly tangible, while you
are sweetly mine. We're existentially wise, we're mortally divine.



II.

All whispers know where whispers go and lusters where with
lusters flow, and when your palm is in my palm, just as my poem
There is a sparkling tone to how you speak, is in your poem, look
a quickness to your whisper, an implied at this stellar, cellular,
correctness in your ironies. We stride organic life of mine, the
along emphatic benches in the weak general and particular, the
light bristling eloquent dark. Pine, elm and oak gross (as well as
fall silent now to hear you tell a joke— fine) intentions I epitomize.
something about a man and a mandrake; Look, seeing through its
I think it cute and laugh like Captain Drake. thin disguise the bleary
We then explore the vagaries of light sky whose weepy eyes have
found underfoot by lamps, and kiss. "Beatrix, rained us a surprise.
will you still need me when I'm thirty-six?' A lightning bolt's
You favorably mumble that you might, protruding hand snatched
and throw a willing arm around my nape. past us, far and brief and
I reassure you that there's no escape. as I hold you in my arms, you
fill me with belief. Don't wonder if and how, much stranger than
right now, the hyacinth of sorrow may blossom forth tomorrow.



III.


The stars in liquid decadence reclaim their lost positions, all
knotty dispositions dissolved in limpid dance. They offer us their
Another couple floats up through thickened ink stardom. Oh, we
into the field of vision, to redissolve could sympathize with them,
leaving a thin trail of perfume and love but instead, we set eyes
and visual recollection in the pink. with them upon that higher
Cicadas cataract from tree to tree. tsardom, that real of love and
A mock nightingale trills, then two, then three. reason. Our lengthy
We cut short across grass and leaves (then four), cigarettes crackle
encountering no one on our slight detour with dry regrets during
where, negligibly burdened with a sixpack, the rainy season, but
a master and his bulldog rustle on, we ignore their humors, their
a small red light fixed to her furry back. melancholy murmurs,
We are too busy with our love to see them. decline ascetic rigors,
Tomorrow we'll be going back to Boston. welcome straight facts,
Three cheers for Central Park at height of season. clear figures,
where laws concerning numbers come plumed with midnight
sounds, and spirits stir from slumbers like angels out of clouds.
...

Talking like Pushkin to his horse, I climb
into thick equestrian aesthetics. I'm
horseman and veterinarian in one
on an estate of troubled youth, I am
an aristocratic fop, hello,
galloping at full gallop shooting at treetops,
yahoo to you Sir in treble multiplication,
I know about stallions and I'm
out of here to the city soon, I must meet
N. or K., I forget which, and then the zisters C.
Sorry, I mean the sisters Z.
My sideburns incinerate the furniture in the salon
of Y. I do not care
for C++ , for I live in the nineteenth century.
I barely lived through math at the Lycée.
I'm now dans une boutique.
Vous ne parlez pas français? Merde, vous êtes alors
crétin, mon vieux monsieur le barbecue!
What are you a Volga Tatar or something?
Actually I've never been to Kazan but I wanna go
some day, maybe when the emperor exiles me.
You look familiar, I know you from somewhere.
So what brings you to St. Petersburg on
this particular twist of the century?
Lozenges of the imagination climb
reflected in the Neva of the sky
and in the sky of the Neva and farther
along the Nevkas, and the stars, the stars
shine viscerally like old duel scars
anticipated. I am stuck at home.
I'll never see you, Paris, London, Rome.
Adrenal memory flows and gels and burns,
acting in combination with my sideburns.
I'll show you some transculture. Gospoda,
do you understand any Russian, ah?
Nyet? Damn, then I must speak to you in English.
...

I've long had what Soviet psychiatrists
called "a tendency toward vagrancy."
At four I would run away from home
repeatedly for a whole day, alone
or sometimes with a friend named Boris
of like age. Knew full well we "just can't do this,"
but nudge for nudge and wink for wink,
we'd board the trolleybus #10, I think,
buy tickets at four kopeks each
from our gleanings and savings of the week,
stick them into the ticket punch on the wall,
watch the chad fall as you pulled,
and ride all across Kishinev in half an hour
to get off near that unforgettable restaurant
built in the likeness of a huge wine barrel.
We peered inside, it was cool.

Then we had options:
go and splash in the local artificial lake
(I couldn't swim yet),
wonder in between along the banks,
catching frogs to take home in a glass jar
to populate a small construction pond (why
did we always use my shirt to do this?),
or go and explore the local flea market,
which was not at all safe to do,
but even at four it's nice to have options.
(One guy sold what we thought was a gun,
we asked him and he confirmed it.)

Those were days of cholera epidemics
in Moldova. We'd buy peasant-cooked
fodder corn on the cob when we got hungry,
haggled with old ladies over pennies.
We wouldn't catch the return trolley until sunset.
Then it's always the same picture:
the wicket creaks open, the landlord's mutant
barks through froth, my wet shirt clings.
I step out of the dark
toward my mother waiting by the door
of our "temporary house" on Kaluga Street,
which was a bit of a dirt road, probably still is.
She has been crying, takes me inside.

Room and kitchen (no bathroom
or running water): the room
had a brick stove, the kitchen
a dirt floor (with mice and sometimes grass)
and a white washstand — these lines
are all that has survived of them.
There was great beauty in their squalor.

She has been crying, takes me inside,
says she will scold me later.
I know it will be soon. First she must call
the cops to tell them I've been found.

Of course, back then I didn't understand anything:
neither how a poet harms his mother,
nor how alienated (thank you, Marx, for that term)
one can be from the start, and free
in the grip of that greatest paradox of all —
a happy Soviet childhood.
...

Roaring roast cake with bean base spareribs for me,
carottes étouffées medium rare,
I like them a tad undercooked, still red
with sap, tea leaves in olive oil,
strawberry sushi flummoxed
to the point of deliquescence,
or better still, freshly picked
cucumber rolls to match
the lettuce steak, mesquite broiled
to a crunchy andante, with all
organic granola salsa, nuts
nutritious to the max, and then of course the
soypork casserole with legs
of boletus, and tofu chops on a platter
of tomato paste base salmon with
a sprinkling of beet juice droplets,
all served with a rich broccoli broth.
...

Two eagles circled over Cambridge today,
a rare sight, lovely
against the chalkboard sky.
Drawn to stare, I soon noticed
that they went around in near-perfect circles
at even speed.
In fact they looked exactly identical.
Their widespread wings didn't so much as flutter.
I heard a thin electrical whiz
and wondered if they carried
tiny surveillance cameras on board
that could scan
"Shakespeare and the Pathos of Rambling" that I was reading.
...

Last night I cooked my socks in the microwave
by mistake. What to do when you're so absent
minded? As well, I have frequently
refrigerated my poems in the freezer
to the point of having to thaw them later,
and poetry's what emerges in defrosting.
I have also lost to nature generations
of galoshes, coats, scarves, umbrellas,
even once an Egyptian skullcap,
whose individual names I forget.
The name of the czar escapes my mind
on whom was meant to be my dissertation,
or was it thesis. Water,
all kinds of water under the all-purpose bridge.
If I've forgotten so much via absentmindedness mostly,
then how much have we forgotten as a species?
One day we learn, another forget
everything, including this fact.
It's possible given enough time and effort
to forget anything,
which's why we like to reminisce sometimes
on those even who've decided they don't like us.
We'll fight for our memories, the truth as it appeared once.
But to remember something we need to forget
something, a different truth. My grandmother
believed that if you dab any convenient spot on your body
with iodine daily
it will help you keep your memory in old age.
Head of the Marxism-Leninism chair
at the Ivanovo Energy Institute,
where she taught philosophy and scientific atheism,
she was the kindest soul, loved and spoiled me to distraction,
and her blueberry cakes were of course the best
in this world. Baptized as a child,
on her retirement to a small apartment in the Crimea
she read the Bible, perestroika raging all around.
Everyone wrote, thought and talked of
Stalin, Stalin, Stalin, Beria, Stalin.
She read the Bible, both the Testaments.
Thus dialectical materialism was forgotten
and an ancient faith recovered.
I too would like to forget a few things,
keep trying, but tend to forget instead
all the wrong ones, like submitting payments
by the due date, the need to tie my shoestrings.
Mnemosyne, and her daughters the Muses,
and her grandsons the museums…
Literature too is a museum,
as well as Lenin's mausoleum,
which is essentially a tomb.
As you must of course know I've forgotten
the remote control on the bathroom sink
where my reflection in the crooked mirror
distracted me with its scowl.
This is earth life, but like hailing from outer space.
When my daughter was born,
I spent the night with her and my wife at the hospital
and went home the next day to clean the apartment.
I vacuumed the floor very thoroughly,
my thoughts soaring far and wide. Little did I notice
that the vacuum was running in blow out mode
so the condition of the floor changed
hardly at all. This still makes my wife laugh
and may indeed be worth remembering
against all death. While stress, duress and strain,
the painful neck crane
and other stuff rotten
are best forgotten.
...

The character whose sleep is messed up,
who is awakened by the least misstep
in a dream and hobbles to the stairwell to smoke,
can't quit however hard tried,
smoking on the landing on an empty stomach
does give consolation
as well as thoughts not otherwise thought,
leading upward and downward like the stripes we call stairs
with light bulbs so yellow
one can't tell whether the walls are beige or white,
never seen in plain day, who could be you
except that it may be me, dissolves instant coffee
in hot tap water in a pre-cracked cup, melts therein with sugar
all secondary considerations regarding awakening
his company of companions still
dormant, and who must slink quietly in the dark,
make an effort to breathe softly,
think peaceable thoughts lest an abrupt sound erupt,
rather glare at the obtruding moon for a time,
then back to the stairwell with your coffee,
with my cigarettes, to think some more thoughts
not otherwise thought,
the character whose sleep is all messed up.
...

There's Eros in the air, Mediterranean Eros that makes you high.
Spells of Eros, froth. The heart throbs out of the chest and bees
hunt down street nectars. You, whose hand appears to pluck pears
These flitting silver moths are evening's eyes "off of" pear trees
dancing their vigil round the lilac bush. of poetry. Then our well
Summer's intoxication makes us wise. studied smoke with mock
The god of passion grants our every wish. cruelties edged side-
The village sighs goodnights. Since vineyard toil ways into our
came to its restful pause, domestic lamps facial features. They
still hold desire but have spent all their oil. soon melt, become
What's that to us? Our fingers and our lips small tournaments
have miles to go yet before we get home of lips, turns to storms
with a few foolish fireflies in our hair. of eyelash gesture. Yes,
Are we immortal? Evanescent hope I do capitulate. Embrace me
spins lunar sweep-nets in the swooning air, coldly, dizzily, drive
and this experience fits like a glove deeply out all my sorrows,
what Diotima taught us about love. for I truly am going crazy
for the love of you. What do we do, where do we henceforth flee?
To the wee, the even downright minuscule room still available in
the motel—a single-bed with a view to finish what we promised.
...

Big fiefdoms of leaves,
beehives of griefs,
companies of thieves—

conglomerates of these,
a worldwide disease,
are anywhere you breathe.

If you haven't yet thought
that you are sold and bought,
you haven't thought aught.

The policy is signed,
now it can only bind,
whether or not you mind.
...

But what to make of the diminished lot,
of what man could have got and yet has not?
But let him simply while away the day,
and soon this will not matter anyway.
Walking in vain across a cloudy sky,
he scans the grasslands with an acid eye,
like a slightly more modern Robert Frost.
But what of what man had yet somehow lost?
Staring at nature helps him to forget,
to come to terms, to cancel out the debt.
All night he whistled with a mockingbird
and now on his old keyboard types a word
or two into the world and falls asleep.
The land has willows, something needs to weep.
...

To be attractive and engaging,
can't be confessional or raging,
bad enough you're a poet,
have to be non-categorizing,
problematizing all that "I" zing,
but crow it, throw it.

And also don't forget to mention
your abnegation of intention,
personal drama,
for literature is slyly worded,
at its best when a tad retarded
and a misnomer.

Attract like vogue, engage like cricket,
but in the end toujours critique it,
dig it but dick it,
self-deconstructing thus techniques,
the social animals are pleased,
it's truly wicked.

Efface the lyric self to bits,
focus your wits' obtruding fits
in precious precincts
that absolutely show you where
your talents zoom beyond compare,
what am I missing?

Discarding all constrictive fetters,
direct those mental metalworks
to screech crescendo,
for anything that ever matters
is this, the basis of poetics,
the innuendo.
...