just returned from tallinn... in case you've been checking the site.... ha ha ha...

scraping to pieces the past left behind
and sticking through memory
the way it all should have been

nerves are what stack up

against the greyest blacks

skin is that which hold the tone

of all this little waiting

amazing... moscow.... just when i was losing faith....

Inglish indeed!

always nice to drag a poem up from long ago, that makes you wince a little when you read it over...

the girl you love is with another, tonight

the stars will choke out your little heart, tonight

and the morning, ready to light up your ceiling, tonight

it hurts to be so genuine and so ridiculous, tonight

and the keys tap and tap and tap, tonight

this one goes out to alai

....was in my gym today and they were doing some kind of aerobics on the second floor.... they had their special music going....russians, like continental europeans - who they both dread and desire to become one day - love the techno..... and on came a techno trash version of "EYE OF THE TIGER".....and it reminded me at first of good ole wesleyan lifting days...... in free-wook before some glorious steaming and 50 free.....and I was under the bench, and I got all pumped up....like when I was in high school and I was lifting for football and the 12th graders stood around yelling "DO IT DO IT"...... and you feel the burning in your chest.... AND THE BAR CAME DOWN......but then I realized it was some kind of EYE OF THE TIGER EuRO REMIX ..... with a techno beat under it.... and that great "DUH, DUH DAH DUH, DAH DUh Duuuh" bass line was replaced by slick synthetic drumming..... it was so awful I almost failed my 10 rep of 140lbs....and almost sent my body sailing through the 8th story window with the stereo......but I ended up lifting in peace...a stronger but less naive man....

Walk Home: A Photo Essay: June 6, 2006: Moscow

The Beginning of the walk: A Tree, A Footpath, A Lamp, A Sign






The City Spreads Streets and Possible Endings






A grating to a patio or to an arch, the red restoran sign begins to explode into white light






Could be a crowd: the white light and the darkness around keeps it in confusion





Blues and reds






Lone figure pauses to contemplate the melting street scene, in textured pants






Collapsing






Across a Street, Lined With Parked Cars and Neon in The Distance






the sidewalk tries to carry you in its upward swells of light, careful with your feet






Sign wavers as cool blue electricity tries to swallow its elusive bulk






Stabs of Electricity, the way they swing






Ghost dvor tries to maintain its shape






Something leans from shadow, Hungry for the verticals

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