State reminds me of the Lord. “Lord giveth, Lord taketh away”. Only the state does not necessarily giveth either.
Never, ever deify a human, any human, and especially one who wants to be deified.
Sometimes I think what seems to be an original thought. Then, a decade or two or three go by -and I find it written by someone else already.
I’ll be damned -two of them from Poland.
At times I’m scared something will get lost and so I hide it so very well I can’t find it no more.
When I -very rarely-write a poem I’m not sick of, I’m both powerless and powerful. The power’s not mine though; I don’t know where it comes from, and I’m powerless in a sense I’ve got to write it down. But it means I’m just a scribe then, and “there’s no glory”.
I think people are wary of me.
They’re wrong.
Or maybe not.
I’m not a poet, I’m a muse. Незавидная участь, скажу я вам.
I’m very careful when I write about others. Я не хочу, чтобы их постигла незавидная участь.
I love all the languages I am supposed to know, and the ones I dream of knowing.
But if I was a language, I’d be Hebrew. Seemingly simple, short. None too melodical. Learn it long enough though, try to read psalms in original. You’d understand then.
I’m scared.
“you were so beautiful I was scared to look at you”, one boy told me once
I didn’t get it back then, but I get it now.
I’m also scared sometimes to look at some people, so beautiful they are
It’s like looking at the Sun. You’re scared to be blinded
But sometimes it’s like looking at the candle. You’re afraid to move too close. Even with your eyes. What if the light disappears?
No language is fully translatable, that’s why I love to translate and that’s why I fail so.
Now when I think of it, it’s a lot like marriage. One challenges and surrenders.
Wife, per tradition, is the challenger. Which makes me a husband, I guess.
That makes sudden sense.
It’s not that I don’t care at all what the world would say, or history would say, also I kind of know what they’ll say, nothing new, and even if yes, I’ve got no control over it either way.
I rather care an awful lot about what my conscience says. It’s much more pertinent, -and frankly, my conscience is quite a scary thing.
Consciences have logic behind them yet not in them, they’re like immune systems, they can become weakened or overactive and inflamed. Either way, they can kill a host.
Mine is a beast with a beard, or many beasts, it just devours whatever, whether real or imaginative.
One can always rely on the world though, in one thing- to be unreliable. Or fickle, I don’t know. I’m a part of it, after all, it rises and falls with me in it, it’s not that I can say “oh, there’s the world, and then there’s me”. I wish borders were less fuzzy.
It might seem to me that I keep it captivated in my palm, as the song goes, but rarely.
Most often, it squeezes me like that white monkey an orange, I’m exhausted, I still try to be an orange, but I’m not. I’m not wholesome.
Since I wrote it, I became even more exhausted.
What a boring read it must be, but I’m writing, feeling awfully guilty that I dare to write at all.
It so happened that yesterday I re-read my first few posts here
This Substack gets increasingly dull and sad.
I’m a sad, sad person. With strange attacks of (in) appropriate laughter.
I’m still hanging in there though.
Or onto. Onto a branch.
I want to write psalms and ballads and funny stories and horror tales.
And instead, I’m writing this. Drip-drip-drip. That’s my orange blood. Thin and pungent. Don’t drink it, don’t-
"Постой,
Постой, постой!.. Ты выпил… без меня?"
Where do I go, and where do I stay, it’s like I’m always on the move but not really leaving. Or not really staying.
I will be
Your ghost of a rose
***************
Now, you can ask me anything. Even though I know that what I’d want to ask others is often…well, one just doesn’t ask other people that. Not in this format. Some questions are truly…outrageous? Weird? Not-really-answerable?
They’re the most interesting ones. Yet I sit with them alone.
That’s why I guess people rarely ask when prompted.
You can still ask me anything.
Some people asked me amazing questions recently, thank you, Fotini Masika and Sunny M
(why it doesn't let me to underscore your names? as an illustration to how the world is fickle, I suppose)
I am going to post something else soon, not that I’m satisfied with it too, by no means.
I just must get this boring compulsive writing out of the way. It’s unbelievable that I spent hours upon hours writing it. I’m scared even to count.
“Ungodly”.
I am sorry.
If you’re still here I’m surprised. And grateful
PS the image is the drawing posted once by the group Drawing Pensil, work of okchang168
(Instagram nickname, can't tell you more because I don't have Instagram.
I did once create an account, but I couldn't post, only follow, and then I was inactive for a long time, and then it got hacked and all my contacts became someone else's.
In short, I don't have Instagram)
If I knew Russian translation would become my language to say the words , psalms spoken still are the same in any language. To create a new meaning may be the way. I choose a click language to talk to dolphins 🐬 and flip the old tales told in a splash of glory. You will see sonorous songs do sing with a voice as yours a melodic sound rhythmic rhythm that flows in a strong stream of consciousness to a higher pitch that will make me stand up to respect every word you say.
"'you were so beautiful I was scared to look at you' one boy told me once"
To this boy and to myself, and to all boys who feel or have felt this way, I wish for you to fight the fear and look...look. Don't miss the opportunity.
If I knew Russian translation would become my language to say the words , psalms spoken still are the same in any language. To create a new meaning may be the way. I choose a click language to talk to dolphins 🐬 and flip the old tales told in a splash of glory. You will see sonorous songs do sing with a voice as yours a melodic sound rhythmic rhythm that flows in a strong stream of consciousness to a higher pitch that will make me stand up to respect every word you say.
"'you were so beautiful I was scared to look at you' one boy told me once"
To this boy and to myself, and to all boys who feel or have felt this way, I wish for you to fight the fear and look...look. Don't miss the opportunity.