Autumn
Fantasy. Unreal. Words in vain.
Trees craving for snowflakes, but getting only angry looks and rain

Shapes of a January steam
Swim
Down the horizon where freeway freedom lies
Or so they say at least. Where stomachs live for butterflies.

Not here though. Round here perfection strikes your eye
And caves exist for cavemen and rooms exist for madmen
And autumn is just another passerby along the way to the final summer

Where I belong.

(2002), published in 2002

A portrait of colors  (Dedicated to S. Parajanov)

Existence in a pomegranate color
Steins on sleeves and serenity of swords
Masonry blocking the only exit from an ancient citadel
His hypnosis: cappella silence in a candlelight.

A handful of wheat between two grind-stones
Unseen lifelines from an eastern rug hopelessly stuck in memory
Minstrels singing about different twilights
Poison – belated fate of a king.

Existence exists in colors. Sands wrinkled with sandals
They say traitors run there to seek alternatives to a rope
Unusually quiet days are filled with olives and myrrh
Where do we go from here? Where do we come from?
(2002), published in 2002

 * * *
My army of nomad crickets
Celebrates another victory -
Twilight.
Pond is rippled with nostalgia for the river
A rebellious ferryboat is about to find out the meaning of solitude
Then roadsigns roadsigns leading one to another

A little secret leeway floats from the secret garden
downpours through that torrential lilac and lavender aroma
and sails down to the old oak tree
Where long ago
I did not carve your name
(2002), published in 2002



UNTITLED
Limelight down the hill
Fires burn the mill
Watermarked are lands
Crossroads or cross-hands?
Here a word decays
Before it’s air-borne from lips
It’s here, only here
That every roadpost is Kansas
And every syllable
Is nothing but bird on empty canvas
 (2000), published in 2001


1996-2000



BREAKFAST AFTER GENOCIDE


Red smoke on the village,
red air is still,
We're squeezing the daggers,
We're going to kill.

My friends, and the others
And many of us
Divine is our mission
With sabres and guns

The rifles are loaded
the count is set
One movement of fingers
And silence is dead.

My ears used to rattle
My eyes used to death
How many more roads
Do we have to paint red?

Throw deads to the river
Away from the roads
And redness of water
Becomes their resort...

Make sure nobody there is breathing
And if they are, just let them slowly be.
You know, the desert would have saved our bullets
If we could only set them free.

See children? They're the toughest business.
I still can't shoot them with my opened eyes.
Let's go, my horse can't stand the smell of corpses
We have to reach the village by sunrise.

What's that, my boy, I hope you don't feel guilty
Don't wipe the redness off your palms and hands
Blood on your nails is like a sweating dagger
We'll show it when we're back to our friends.

(1996), published in 1999 and 2001















The Moons

The moons were gathered from the gutter
And nailed to phantasmal heights
To show us faces of the killers
Before they swing the final strike

To show the grin of coastal towers
That sinking ships will never find
Or ghetto preachers to be followed
By those who are no longer blind

The fools we strangled with a pillow
Are mesmerized by distant lights
The wars are halted for a second
To watch the gutter beauty’s ride.

We gathered moon out of the trenches
From bullet graveyards, sperm and blood
Away from stenches of white powder
From morlock corpses in the mud

For our moonlight serenades
To show the downward guiding light
To show us faces of the victims
Before we swing the final strike

(1999), published in 2000



CHICAGO

California is blowing fall behind the sateen curtains
In this time of year streets are opening their eyes after long summer traffic, Juned and Julied
Another neighborhood fell prey to the siren of police
From afar the city looks like hands of a drowning man in Fast-Forward

One day I think I’m gonna climb on the top of this big brown sky-scrapper
And hypnotize the moon.

(1998), published in 1998, 1999 and 2001



EARLY


I BURY FRIENDS

I bury friends
Under olive trees
Under moony trees
By the cursive streams

I wash hands
In the river white
And the river white
Becomes river red

Throw my head to sky
To the snoozy sky
To the blossomed sky
Leaning back to rest

Good to die
When you hugged the sky
When you washed your hands
When you buried friends.

(1993), published in 1996



	WAR IS OVER (EVERYBODY GOES HOME)

Burning like a fire,
Gentle like a velvet,
Stars are shining higher,
Wind is shaking his head.

	Silently like shadows
	Whispering are meadows.
		No-one, no one, no one
		No one goes home.

July breeze is hotter.
Limpid like a cloud,
Walking on the water,
Old ghosts talk aloud
		No-one, no one, no one
        No one goes home.

Deep inside the river
Timid like a morning
Weeds shake in a fever,
Raindrops make a warning
	Rain will wash the redness.
	Take away the sadness
		No-one, no one, no one
        No one goes home.

Birds were shot by lightning,
Thunder stunned a vale,
Waging their fighting,
Dreams die in the air.
Thousand threads of hail.
Purple trees are bending
Wept into the vale
Life - it has no ending

	No-one, no one, no one
        No one goes home.

(1994), published in 1996




ALL TOGETHER

Sweet minutes we had spent
Were turned into long hours,
And holding mighty hands around each others' necks
High rocks are eager to be close
Together.

Fast winds, they blow through time,
Perturbing green expanse
And join together for a dance.

Perverted rivers stream alone,
They turn upside down every stone,
They kiss each other and
Become seas and oceans.

And clouds-
So weak, so thin and so insipid
Emerge their souls to be the sky
So high.

And crazy hills,
And chestnut plants,
And deepest rivers,
Heavy oceans
Spread their hands with love and sweet emotions
To be the earth.

And tinted moths
(So many)
In their wedding flight,
THey live and die together
On a candlelight.

And years, and weeks,
And graveyard sticks,
And drops of rain,
And cracks on a wall -
They never will remain apart
(Together fall!)

They all together mingle in one common den
None in the world is single except a man...

(1993), published in 1995