as i stare at the weak lightbulb in an unshaded lamp on a coal black table in my coldwater flat in moscow, i think of the incandencence of the waning light...it mocks the incandescence of my waning heart.
"Kasey?"
my mother calls to me from her room; lying? no, more like buried, in the shallow grave that is her all too old feather-bed. i take that back. she is lying- not in the sense of reclination but in the sense that her life is a lie- her drying body has already given itself to death; to call me from her room, really more like a mauseleum, she lies to herself- she like this godforsaken city, is already dead.
"yes, mamma?"
"Kasey, did you find piotr? did you tell him that all is forgiven? you- kaff! you must forgive...kaff, kaff..."
mother drifts off to sleep- sunken amongst bedding made of dust and regret; did she think that i could forget? forgive? forgive piotr for his maladjusted mishandling of my possesions? no- there would be no forgiveness. not tonight. as i reflect on my impassivity about the hated piotr- i remember brighter days- days of what i think we called happiness. and listening to the commiserations of notable peers; recorded and streamed to us all and oh the tales! the anecdotes! the repartee!!
and then piotr- that devil, that dog! HE DID IT. he made those golden days a memory. he, who stole into my home and forever, through his fiddling and rearranging- stole from me the one true joy i had. the one thing that i could listen to that would make this prison of a city- this gulag of men's souls....liveable.
and that is wahy i sit here these 20 years. damning his name; piotr. piotr. i hear from nicholai, grigor, katya and the others that he fled to america. he writes lies for some bourgeois newspaper, i hear. let him. he will suffer the weight of his own insufferable nature one day- he will know the taste of bitter ennui, as i do. he will see his own light wane and as it does, i will be there in that twilight of parsimonious prussian.
but for now, as momma sleeps- exhaling sorrow and cobwebs as the cold of a moscow november encircles me- as i stare into the waning light and heat of the lamp-bulb, i try to remember the coffeeblog. and how it's sound once encircled my ears. i taste the esspresso, and feel the tabletop under my hand- cool slate, not this black dreadful wood, the sounds...the laughter!
and the bulb burns out.
---
-from an art-primate in the jungles of Burlington, VT.
"Kasey?"
my mother calls to me from her room; lying? no, more like buried, in the shallow grave that is her all too old feather-bed. i take that back. she is lying- not in the sense of reclination but in the sense that her life is a lie- her drying body has already given itself to death; to call me from her room, really more like a mauseleum, she lies to herself- she like this godforsaken city, is already dead.
"yes, mamma?"
"Kasey, did you find piotr? did you tell him that all is forgiven? you- kaff! you must forgive...kaff, kaff..."
mother drifts off to sleep- sunken amongst bedding made of dust and regret; did she think that i could forget? forgive? forgive piotr for his maladjusted mishandling of my possesions? no- there would be no forgiveness. not tonight. as i reflect on my impassivity about the hated piotr- i remember brighter days- days of what i think we called happiness. and listening to the commiserations of notable peers; recorded and streamed to us all and oh the tales! the anecdotes! the repartee!!
and then piotr- that devil, that dog! HE DID IT. he made those golden days a memory. he, who stole into my home and forever, through his fiddling and rearranging- stole from me the one true joy i had. the one thing that i could listen to that would make this prison of a city- this gulag of men's souls....liveable.
and that is wahy i sit here these 20 years. damning his name; piotr. piotr. i hear from nicholai, grigor, katya and the others that he fled to america. he writes lies for some bourgeois newspaper, i hear. let him. he will suffer the weight of his own insufferable nature one day- he will know the taste of bitter ennui, as i do. he will see his own light wane and as it does, i will be there in that twilight of parsimonious prussian.
but for now, as momma sleeps- exhaling sorrow and cobwebs as the cold of a moscow november encircles me- as i stare into the waning light and heat of the lamp-bulb, i try to remember the coffeeblog. and how it's sound once encircled my ears. i taste the esspresso, and feel the tabletop under my hand- cool slate, not this black dreadful wood, the sounds...the laughter!
and the bulb burns out.
---
-from an art-primate in the jungles of Burlington, VT.
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