A POEM ABOUT CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES
For Alik Ginzburg
Had it up to here:
Chatted up to here.
Chatted up to here:
Had it up to here.
Chatted,
Had it,
Had it,
Chatted!
VERSES ON ANY WATER
Water
Water water water
Water water water water
Water water water water
Water water
Water
Flowed
Sergey Sergeyevich the teacher
Bought himself a magnifier
Bought himself a magnifier
Not because he was a teacher
But because he won the lottery
– – – –
Underfoot out the door
You feel
The leaves
There must be
A road here
That must be
Moscow there
Vacant
Darkness
Rainy
Silence
Distant barks
Halloing
One streetlamp
Another
from I Live I see, Vsevold Nekrasov, Ugly Duckling Press, 2013
Vsevolod Nekrasov (1934-2009) was a member of the “non-conformist” Lianozovo group, a founder of Moscow Conceptualism, and the foremost minimalist to come out of the Soviet literary underground. Before the fall of the Soviet Union, his work appeared only in samizdat and Western publications.
With an economy of lyrical means and a wry sense of humor, Nekrasov’s early poems rupture Russian poetic tradition and stultified Soviet language, while his later work tackles the excesses of the new Russian order.
I Live I See is a testament to Nekrasov’s lifelong conviction that art can not only withstand, but undermine oppression.
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