i wear plain t-shirts made of washed out
stains of a faded past, a fabric that makes
the guanaco look cheap like upland cotton.
i know i am a bit of a dandy, just a little
worn around the edges, like a pocket square
never really used for anything, a trifle.
an old notebook with clumsy attempts
to impress a girl reminded me of her
burst of laughter. and she was gone
before i even finished summoning
my poor teenage soul, buried alive.
if only i knew that someday i would
hear the cry of seagulls over the saltire,
or that half of my life could be denied
with one glance away. and all of this
was fated the very moment i paused
at the sight of her long auburn hair
and when i wrote my first stanza.
i was trying to figure out
what your name is
and at the same time
forgive myself for all
the things i did not know
that i did not know. you
are a girl from the north
country, or so he said.
i am a fugitive of my own
carelessness. we have
never met. but i still
wonder if you remember
how beautiful you are.
i know you sometimes
listen to my words from
afar. and i sometimes
soothe my thoughts with
your smile sketched
with a piece of charcoal
on the wrapping paper.
and although we are
separated by many miles
and years, we can still shed
a tear to the same record
played on the old turntable
before the night ends.
from yesterday’s wounds
i am slowly bleeding out
my disdain for today.
even apples in a deserted
garden no longer taste
as they used to be. the only
thing that becomes more
and more appealing
are the sharp words
and edges.
i collect the deceased
like the nihilist bazárov.
i have killed one lately
with a puzzling easy
and absolute impunity.
but why did they have
to die? was yevgény
vasílevich more destined
on two hundred pages than
i was in all these years?
i collect the deceased
and put them neatly
on the shelves. that way,
no one will guess that i am
a necrophiliac.
i am not dead, just
existentially challenged.
admittedly still without
an official certificate,
but who would pay
attention to such
technicalities? i refuse
to embrace this mockery
which i am supposed to
pursue just by the sheer fact
that i was born. and please
spare me arguments
like those about people
dying of hunger in sudan.
i will remind you of them
the next time you feel
a terrible toothache
with no dentist nearby.
ah, so now you feel
offended by my trivialisation
of death and suffering.
this is quite interesting,
just remind me what was
this video that you shared
with such enthusiasm,
you know which one.
no, of course i know
you did not shoot it.
you just circulated it
for fun. who knew that
this crazy teen would take
all those pills after that.
but do not worry, no one
blames you. in the end,
you are only existentially
challenged, just like me
and her.
i told a joke,
an anecdote really,
that only amused
one guy in the room,
but he was american
among the british
and a bit odd,
borrowing titles
from kafka.
so this story was
about how shakespeare
would feel more at home
in the mountainous regions
of north carolina
than in his native london
if he travelled in time
to the present.
however, the real pun
was not actually hidden
in the accents
but in the silence
that followed.
there are words that cannot be
translated and there are words
that probably would not be wise
to translate. either way, we are
dependent on the gut feeling
and goodwill of someone else,
an interpreter who can say,
a fellow who stakes his whole
life on one card – a woman’s
love – and when that card fails,
turns sour, and lets himself
go till he’s fit for nothing,
is not a man, but a male.
and everything seems fine
until you see the last line
in the original that reads
не мужчина, не самец,
and then you feel cheated
twice.
first because the translator
corrects the author, and then
because she might actually
be right.
any time i bump into manhood
still drunk with the siege of troy,
i wonder what does it mean to be
a man?
i guess it was easier back then,
before we turned the last frontier
into a car park filled with camper
vans. at least everyone knew their
place in the line. the dictionaries
did not contain bizarre words like
harassment. actually even better,
there were no dictionaries at all.
and best of all, we ruled supreme.
so why bother with such a silly
question?
well, any time i bump into manhood
i quickly sober up since she once asked
if i wonder what does it mean to be
irrelevant?
hidden pilcrow 