Pressures Raise
At the touch of a button
And these Eyes
Will water up all right

Aches Are really
for the best, friend
Because - no one
Notices much, anyways

words and cotton

words are like tonguefuls of cotton

covering the gaps in the mouth

holding back the blood that one would taste

dulling the draw of your past

it's impossible it's this bright out

at 3:40 in the morning

beginning of a short story vi

Sveta the Flower Dealer Has An Ass That Will Stop Someday But Not Today My Friends

Sveta the flower dealer in the perekhod under Pushkin Square knows very well you can’t sell flowers in even numbers – they’re reserved for funerals, and it’s very bad luck to encourage a funeral. And Russians are a superstitious bunch, when it comes to spilling salt, or opening umbrellas inside, or giving knives as presents, or sitting at the corner of a table, or not spitting thrice over your left shoulder when you wish someone too well. In fact, sometimes it’s amazing to imagine that such a superstitious nation managed to get people into space. And them bring them back.

Of course Sveta has heard all of the tales, from those who tell tales in her line of work, of what happens to you if you sell someone an even denomination of flowers – it was far worse than what happens to the people who actually purchase them, and just slightly less worse than what happens to the people who receive them. It was an inconceivable thought, and one she had considered only about as seriously as she had emigrating to Azerbaijan.

Florists – though florist might be the wrong word for what Sveta is because that usually implies some idea about flowers, their origin, their upkeep, their significance, etc., all knowledge Sveta lacked completely and unapologetically – would much rather sell three flowers than four, showing an very unusual and very un-Russian-serviceperson-like disregard for the folded notes in their customers’ wallets.

Now, as to where Sveta works. It’s probably the busiest perekhod in the entirety of the Russian Empire. Perekhod is technically the Russian word for “underpass,” but such a translation does the word a grave injustice. Because, you see, an “underpass” is a slim, half-lit walkway under a street. It’s all business, and it’s all about getting you from one side to the other. A perekhod, on the other hand, runs the gamut from a simple passageway all the way to massive, sprawling, self-contained underground cities, filled with: crowds of teens in leather jackets banging away on electric guitars with friends nearby aggressively asking passers-by for pocket change; groups of youth drinking canned alcopops and beer out of the bottle because it’s cheaper there than in a bar and no one has any room at home; amorous embracing couples, on their way into and out of the metro, ducking the wind on the streets but not in any hurry to their cramped privacy-less apartments; long lines of shops seemingly built into the walls selling alcohol, pirated DVDs, bakery-fresh bakery-goods, counterfeit watches, panties, CDs, batteries, machine-painted Russian kitsch, (and flowers); the browsers trying on the hats and watches and squinting at themselves in tiny mirrors; strolling guards who have probably been drinking since the morning before yesterday; packs of police looking for the odd foreigner speaking in loud foreign tongues or darker citizens of nearby-by republics for document checks and the odd fine; stray sleeping dogs; homeless men, long relieved of what once seemed like an instinct of propriety, pissing against the walls.

moody and gloomy in Moscow, the rain brings relief - over the pale building yellows

Moscow as an optical illusion:



Deep breath and a panorama from my window, 6th floor, sweeping from the left to the right (the northern section of central moscow to the north-east as the windows face north-west)



It’s impossible to take a picture of Moscow buildings with them all appearing upright – one or two buildings always look like they’re leaning, or sloped, or off-balance, like in a hall of mirrors.



The haze lets us forget: the sharp california blues and you're ashamed to not be of perfect health.




An example of what I mentioned above:




The long building in the background looks more or less right-side up – the tall building on the right, though, appears at a strong, angle, while a few of the small buildings in the bottom left appear to be falling to the opposite direction.

Oh, would you look at the time...

cryptic once and sail your day

twice you can’t compare

alone, responding, short in breath

waiting anywhere

Blue slowly dissolving to Violet, Sky Above Sadovoye, Moon Impassive, Once-Mighty Dollar Still Free-Falling, Pollen Everywhere

N.B. this is the precise color of coffee and advil




If only I could stay away

And have no need for words

All of the dos and all of the don’ts

The sounds

That make our touch take shape

Cold, wet, dusty wind..carrying sticky tree pollen and car soot..

___________________________________________*

___________________________________________

Leningrad Highway in early Moscow Spring, hunched figures brace against the dusk shadows as the dollar (buy 26.75 sell 26.95) continues to Fall.

* the sideways-ness of the above Sansyet-Foto is due to deep, meaningful artistic intentions / technical difficulties with the apple preview prgram, whichever makes you respect me more

thanks for the 6 hits a day, i should probably be writing about iraq or race relations

feels me up like
sticks of candy cane

the hardness only found
in pants and
pockets

and the carefulness of your
little glances

beginning of a short story V

A Healthy Way to Deal With Your Nightmares

I.

On a wet, dusty night in early Spring, a young man walked down Tverskaya with a giant plastic flower in one hand and a small, tightly wrapped bundle in the other. The street was unusually empty for a Saturday night, and the young man walked hurriedly past the dank, cigarette-filled puddles, the hum of neon light from bars and sushi restaurants, and the occasional strolling police officer. He looked up and then down, hardly anyone on this side of the street, which was in stark contrast to the noise and din of the traffic.

Probably because of the dampness. No one wants to go for a walk.

He continued on. As he turned down one of the nameless alleys that intersect the street every 30 or so yards, he caught a glimpse of himself in the glass of a jazz cafe, and only then did he realize how nervous he looked. It was something in his eyes, some almost-frantic inability to land solidly on what he was trying to look at that gave it away. He stopped up short and stared at the window, but the image had already passed and he could only see the reflection of two street lights and the dark windows of an upscale bakery. He briefly contemplated taking a step back to get another look, but he realized that was ridiculous, and set off again.

The image he had seen in the glass was unsettling, and suddenly reminded him of where he walking to. Not only that, it reminded him why. He took another turn through the arch of a long concrete apartment block with a chipped facade, and passed a massive, half-lit church with multi-colored, shabbily-restored onion domes. As he stepped out onto Nikitskaya, ducking between two kiosks displaying row after row of beer, hooch, energy drinks, soft drinks, alcopops, he suddenly realized how close he was to the cafe. this thought injected a coarse icy water through his veins and almost stopped him short again by three teens in leather jackets smoking and drinking canned gin and tonic. It was very close now, the cafe, and he realized how easy it would be to keep walking all the way up to the boulevard and take a three-dollar cab home.

The flower I can throw down the garbage chute, the book I can burn.

the stinging crowded feel in the throat has got to go

along with my friend and mentor alexander I have also decided to kick the scotch and dayquil liquid diet and move onto rigid exercise. so I joined a gym named Daev. Here's a great picture of their sauna, though so far I've just seen fattish, tanning-bed-red middle-aged Russians probably named Vasya.