stormfist

every time feels the same, as if i've never been so wet in my life--in my spine, in my bones, the wind like soap in my eyes, pushing upstream like a small black horse. warm, torrential rains came down late last night, that i waded twelve miles through on my red bicycle, its scissoring wheels. my clothes are lying in a puddle in the garage.

in the morning--pneumatic spirit rises back up, head swims. the neponset runs under the mill. the bare arms of the willow sway under the clear sky. take a ride for some eggs, cigarettes, flowers, the brakes miauling each time i squeeze.

am reading mariengof's роман без вранья, memoirs of his friendship with sergei esenin. confronted with the harsh moscow winters, bloated horses being picked apart by dogs and ravens in the gutters, the invaluable real estate of hot water pipes in the communal bathrooms (after their illegal electric heater was confiscated, esenin and mariengof built a bed out of plyboards over the bathtub and toilet in a bathroom that was shared by the whole floor, and put a padlock on the door), but also with esenin's hardness--he battered friends with beer mugs in a drunken stupor, was forcefully indifferent to his abandoned children...my hero, though, in his stovepipe hat.

for twenty-nine years now my body has been trying to outshed its soul, dead skins attaching themselves to even the softest wind, but my soul has been outmaking. the end of november and still warm enough in boston to read on a bench in the park, in a t-shirt, with a cold drink...