How to: Get to Petushki

A glimpse into skij yesh on's journalistic career, friends: from an upcoming article in Moscow's element magazine.



One: Remember the last time you were in Petushki. It was a life-changing experience, you came close to feeling the gentle caress of God. You realized once and for all that you were not alone on Earth. You met a girl, she can save you from the darkness in your head. You must return to Petushki.

Two: Get fired from your job for drinking and negligence. Now you have more time for drinking. And negligence. You just have to make it to Petushki.

Three: Take to the streets drinking and reminiscing about your Petushki princess. Drink and wander. Start mixing dzhintonik, cologne, DEET, and discarded kvas bottle dregs for a few moments of enlightenment. Because you’re never going to make it to Petushki.

Four: You’re a poet so you’ll howl at the night and your cursed luck. Will you be stuck in Moscow forever? Now mix two liters of vodka with a few drops of cockroach poison and three teaspoons of water from the Moskva. Quaff it in one go and then let everyone know about your girl in Petushki. Pretend to play an instrument in an underpass while holding out your hat to every passer-by for spare change. With this you can make it to Petushki.

Five: The drinking brings you so close to God and all his Angels that you can hear their silvery liquid music, it sooths the pains in your head. Drink more vodka. From the bottle. Stumble to a train station. You must be saved. You must make it to Petushki.

Six: Sell all worldly possessions. But one train ticket to Petushki. Blow the rest on vodka and industrial-strength cleaners for mixers. You have no need of money now, you’re going to Petushki.

Seven: With the support of the Angels, God in Heaven and the alcohol fumes busting pure white light through your chest, get on the train to Petushki. Take counsel with the Angels and kind babushki, repel the demons and evil babushki with constant vodka shots. Lace them with mosquito repellent. You might just make it to Petushki.

Eight: Through the hazy wash of intoxication, listen for the station announcements. Get off at Petushki. Bound out of the train. Prepare for consummation. But what’s this? You now this place. You’re at Kursky Vokzal. Now realize that Petushki exists, but only in your head.

impossible: 3:10 in the morning

....view from the window.... mosquitoes and bits of fluff calmly circulating in the air... wind blowing back my cornflower blue curtains.... and I keep wondering if this all can be maintained......

moscow has the speed and breadth to make your head hurt even when you haven't left the house

russians doing business sometimes reminds me of clowns dressing up as parisian families with cardboard paper backgrounds of bakeries and european parks on saturday morning tv. here is a somewhat unrelated "artistic" picture of an underpass at night. it's meant to symbolize, i guess.


you know, just the things on my mind

in another place there is someone who looks just like me and doesn't feel any of this

if they try to convince you
about pressures

and press the little tick
in your eyes


it's just nerves,

they can't get me now

more shanghai.... more

.... and all the people / barely noticing / the height ......

skij on.....

.... was in shanghai for 10 days and could not post...

now he has returned....

.... and will be posting.....



---- moscow is sweltering-----

.... and all posts will most likely involve the stuffed heat in Skij yesh On's apartment and head......


that is all, "readership"

God they love your headache

It fills them up with strength

The crash of tiny bells

And bleached mouthfuls of smoke

Stick me through with metal
And try to pull the brains
Made the hands responding right
Give those legs some wind

Fasten me tight with wood
To keep the drifting out
Let’s make a secret twist of hearts
Let’s see how this can last

Forge me taller with rock
If ever I doubted you
Make me unreachably solid
As a comment on you and me

Tease my skin through with fire
If ever an end seemed right
Take all those gripping nerves of yours
And wait as you always do

Lick my bones clear with water
Nature’s hardest seal to break
The reflection in the gathering pool
Tells you what you wanted to see

Flush out the dust with breath
And then something about deep feeling
I’m too tired to see this done
Let’s agree that it moves you, too

hazy, rainy wind in moscow, feels like the end of days

Poke out the sun
And all its eyes
Tear up the moon
All down its skin

Peel at the waters
To keep them deaf
Choke up the sky
And thin out its neck

Then paint it in blood
Where people don’t read
To silence the babes
As the nerves were real

It’s true that I love her

An abstract portrait of the prostitutes out working on my streetcorner earlier tonight

for some reason, seeing them at the streetcorner brings me a giddy kind of pure joy.

it’s not a thought in the head
or a shine in the eye
not a drag in the pulse
just
a weight on the lungs

you can’t see it in breath
or the tone over phones
you can’t mar it with numbers
but
the space left behind

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.

hey, awesome parking job. may as well put that odd tire up on the curb, vasya.

Beginning of a Short Story IV

Tanya’s still in bed when I come in. She’s in bed, smoking with a careless expression, watching MTV. The covers only come up to the middle of her thighs – she has white cotton panties on – with string in back, of course – and one of my white t-shirts on. Her hard little breasts poke against the thin fabric, and tremble a little when she exhales.

“Baby,” she says in English, “come lie between my legs.”

The room is heavy with smoke and dark and the music videos flicker through the air and on across the large windows behind her. She’s lying back on a mass of bright, oversized pillows she says she made one summer.

One of her legs slowly lifts out from under the covers and she looks at me.

“But get the vodka first,” she adds with a look almost like she’s pouting.

I run my thumb from the bottom of her foot up over the ankle to the inside of her prickly calf and along the smooth flesh on the inside of her thigh. She closes her eyes and puts a finger in my mouth.

Today I did something I never would have done at home. Today I walked straight into two American guys standing at the bottom of the escalator in the metro and glared at them. They stared back at me, dumbfounded. One might have said something as I was going up the stairs. But they didn’t do anything. They didn’t even look particularly hurt.

beginning of a short story III

The Island of Dust



The desperation shattered. Reay's body jolted as his eyes shot open. Sweat, cold and burning, seared his entire body. He was breathing heavily, too, with small, violent gasps in between. Slowing looking around, fists knotted before his face, Reay saw all of the familiar objects of his room- the canvas, the set of new oil paints on the card table, last night's dinner still in the dining room....

He had had the dream again, the one about the fire, the island of dust. He sat up in the stillness of the pre-dawn, gently letting his body adjust to reality, the actuality of his surroundings.
Every night, every night of his adult life his dreams were plagued by these nightmares. No escape.... He lay back down and shuddered, feeling his own mind flooding back into him. He took one last last deep breath. He was finally back in the world.

The woman lying in the bed next to him had not stirred. The smell of her expensive, delicate perfume wafting about the bed contrasted heavily to the sourness that Reay felt within his own body. His torso was propped up by his shaking arms. His legs, with the grey cotton sheets clinging to them, were grazing those of the girl. He looked at her and stroked the tender, pale arms that lay across her breast. He did not love her.

From the nightstand, he produced a small, polished pair of scissors. With these, he cut a single lock of golden hair from the girls's forehead and then placed it, along with the scissors, into the nightstand.

With one kiss against her angelic lips, he arose, draping on a soft cotton robe. Staring at this girl, he sighed heavily, taking in every single drop of her fragrance. There had been one time in his life where he would have been captured by such a beauty, completely drawn out from his wits and senses, compelled to conform to her every want and desire. But not now. Not with the life he had led.

The wooden floor of Reay's broad, relaxed apartment was freshly swept. Reay paused on the threshhold of the bathroom, his gaze and thoughts still lingering upon Julie. He watched through the sliver of doorway which was exposed to him as she rolled over in her sleep. A banner of moonlight, falling from a window in the bedroom, caught her hair and made it glow like a halo. An angel. An angel trapped in hell. He had met Julie about a month before during a presentation of his work in one of her father's art galleries. She had immediately caught his eye; tall, elegant, slender, and breathtakingly beautiful. That night, they spent a few hours in a corner coffee shop, talking. From there, their relationship blossomed. With her witty and classy intelligence, and his sharp, cynical humor, they made a perfect couple. Almost. Then, she began exposing herself to him, showing him a naive part of herself no one else had ever seen. It was then that he realized that Julie had thrown herself at him, showing all of her vulnerability and weaknesses. It was then that he realized that she had gotten caught up with the wrong man.

wrote it when I was 16 - oh, the drama to it, my friends! "he did not love her" and "angelic lips" indeed!