Little 2.

    rain      more

   a part 

      of    garden growing


 

Unknown Quote 1.

       " . . .  a never ending postwar. 
        I, who had thought of ruins 
        only as the transmutation of 
        cityscapes, learned that ruins
        lie within people as well . . . "   

Little 1 .

  rain-fall 
            
         giggles at 

      good and bad

           parents   

M P

(untitled Russian translation)

When I lived in this world
And breathed this air,
I’ve done some things,
Not others, no, I haven’t;
I held my tongue and whined,
Squandered as well as saved some,
Tried to be brave, I scoffed, I cried
Yet salvaged nothing;
And now that I am dead,
Into matter transformed,
Not Kierkegaard or Buber, no one
Can explain to me why, 
What - they won’t tell me – for,
It’s seems too easy to ask why
I lived, and why I’d sit up in my bed
Suddenly awoken in the gloom of night…

Sergei Gandlevsky - 1995 

Translated by - Olia Grebenyuk 

we, the under-signed...

from Back to the Machine Gun issue 3

responding blow

Alexis Hercules

Φιλοσοφική Τραγωδία

Today I drank afternoon wine
raised up to mother who loves me
like no woman ever can
or could.

I thought of Greek gates 
and dancing alive in marble robes
           the philosophers so bent
over with too much knowledge
           excruciating on their heads
pulling in the curly fleece of beards
           they lean and need to rest
on the backs of beautiful young 
           boys skin
so fresh olive tan
           glistening with sweet salt sweat
and all that oil crushed
           straight from trees
           they break bread
           and dip it in
           soak sup enjoy
with clay jug of wine
and the rubber chew
of goat’s blessing.

Evening now in the drunken museum,
my temporary affection grips my arm,
and her finger traces body contours
of me and those
stoic statues.

He rarely spoke to me,
but adolescence brought a good man 
who told me everything,
and when I realised
mere existence is all,
I wept and carved this folly on the bust,
still reflective in his musty drawing room,
at the centre of daedal halls – 
carved from oak 
and daubed in deep olive green.

            Alexis Hercules