Get all 8 Igor Brezhnev releases available on Bandcamp and save 25%.
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of nights since - volume five, before the sun rises, nights since - volume four, nights since - volume three, nights since - volume two, good morning, america. it's 2020., nights since - volume one, and Good Days & Bad Days.
1. |
night sixty seven
01:04
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night sixty seven
the industry park
blocks the access to river,
metaphor for life?
cherry blossoms are almost,
my thoughts are that too—almost.
march days are nigh gone.
the woodpeckers have arrived.
hear them in the trees.
the cats are on spring business,
greetings brief and in passing.
magnolias bloom.
leafless branches bouquet up.
up in the deep blue.
pink fists, raised against winter,
unclench to welcome summer.
poems, rushed, mirror
life, untethered staccato
of spaces and times.
just enough time to sketch it,
not enough time to delve in.
portland, oregon / 3.24.2019
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2. |
night sixty eight
00:36
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night sixty eight
elation pending,
let me just get most of me
to the next morning.
how sleep sends invitations
and i wait for last minute.
wait for last minute,
remember, last minute stuff.
elation pending.
i am still my harshest judge.
young leaves remind me—be soft.
portland, oregon / 3.25.2019
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3. |
night sixty nine
01:43
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night sixty nine
it's night
sixty nine.
and this story
ain't about that.
it's about a walk,
and some hope.
empty forties
lie on the grass
discarded shells
of someone's time.
walk a mile with me,
see—trees blossoming
and that rat disappearing
into the manicured shrubs,
ain't it something to glance
into windows of the wealthy
on the way somewhere else,
damn, that's a lot of rooms
to clean, who got time for
that, empty mansions cry
some autumn song. it is
a spring however and
the sun is mansion
enough and poets
will weave tapestries
more colorful on streets,
than those hanging limp in
beige entryways to boredom,
these intricate trophies on walls,
they'd fly out, if they could, back,
to the weavers of dexterous hands.
you and me we don't need much,
just a little bit for food and drink,
maybe a bit more for our crafts,
the rest we'll make up by faith
in flowers that come up again
to greet the light, follow it
like we follow our words
into the mansions finer
than any placed here
on the old mountain,
these empty homes.
portland, oregon / 3.26.2019
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4. |
night seventy
01:54
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night seventy
my hair wings over my ears,
unkempt, my mustache hangs
over my lips hungry for the food
i eat, my body unkempt winged
hungry over my lips. my body
is a gift wrapped in last year's
holiday wrappings, my lips
kiss the old of it, kiss like
my grandfather kissed
my forehead once
proud of something,
i now forget what it was,
his hands grasping my head
callused hands, hard hands,
hands that could hit hot,
then soft hands holding
my head tender like
it was some flower
to sell at a market,
see, things for others
were always best things,
things for ourselves a little
bit worse, best things on table
for guests, dear guests to my body,
unkempt winged hungry body, it is all
i have, it is the best laid out on a clean
tablecloth, you are welcome to it, to
its wings, to its hunger, to its mess,
when you need to fly, when you
want to gather, when order
suffocates you, i am here.
you are welcome to me.
when you need a bit
of salt to borrow.
you're welcome.
portland, oregon / 3.27.2019
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5. |
night seventy one
02:06
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night seventy one
the cat purrs, his weight
on my side and, oddly, elbow,
cats pick the most interesting
resting arrangements and here
we are. purring silence mounting,
cat washes himself, i am a bed and
i am a bathhouse, i am a silence that
receives feline grace. how human to be
a container for another life, other lives,
how ironic that we are both, by others,
called russian, called blue, when it
doesn't mean much to either now,
how we are not in a rush for now,
though to the cat it never meant
much in the first place, cats
being territorial in other
ways. cat says words
in cat language,
i pretend to know
what he says to me,
it is a polite thing to do,
probably says "good night,"
or says "please do not move for
i want to sleep deeply and dream
of birds and breeze and summer sun,"
or maybe that is what i not say to the cat,
and the cat pretends to know my not
words, it is a polite thing to do,
i will most likely fall asleep
on the couch, weighted
by this cat, by thought
of what home means
to those of us that
do not have one,
but can be one,
at least for
the cat.
portland, oregon / 3.28.2019
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6. |
night seventy two
01:44
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night seventy two
i grew on buckwheat and oats,
a mashed potato boy, a sunflower
seed boy, a dark rye bread crust boy,
a honey-comb boy, a dried fish boy,
a crawfish boil boy, a pryanik boy,
a boy dipped in kvass, a beet boy,
a boy for hard work in the fields,
a boy for pounding hot metal,
a boy to die in some hellhole,
see in russian boy is a false
friend, to your english boy,
a word for a battle, a fight,
a beating and the strike
of a grandfather clock.
and here i am no
longer a boy.
a memory of a boy.
a tired man landless,
buying thai pineapple
fried rice with last dollars.
a man with cat asleep on his
stomach, a bearded man alone
on top of a volcano, remembering
childhood by eating sunflower seeds.
hoping they sprout yellow-headed,
grow tall and follow the gold sun,
wherever it rests beyond west.
portland, oregon / 3.29.2019
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7. |
night seventy three
01:47
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night seventy three
it's one in the morning
and i am eating donuts.
the cat is eating whatever
it is cats eat from a packet,
life and poetry can be simple,
a recitation of tender small facts,
how the cat just jumped up on his
favorite spot and settled in for a bit,
how cold donuts still taste like a hi-five,
how i have two more cigarettes, one for
late late night and another for the morning,
how there may or may not be another pack,
how alone sometimes we feel after a crowd.
how i am thankful for this other breath in
the house, say, maybe this cat is my
god damn twin flame, at least for
this moment, how searching
for love ain't what people
think it is, love is small,
of course, it could be
a person, but when
your future is short,
love may as well
be a wayward cat.
if that is our luck,
then all is well.
and all is well.
all is well.
well is
all.
portland, oregon / 3.30.2019
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8. |
night seventy four
01:05
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night seventy four
hear that?
that’s the road
calling me moonless
branding me ditch dust,
my blood, an exodus mix,
whole—always a stranger,
fourth—escaping serfdom,
eighth—crossing the desert,
sixteenth—a tsingane caravan,
my blood knows hitting the road
before the world hits you dead,
knows the road loves our feet,
knows song and dance of it,
but how red of it yearns
to see a tree blossom
become a full fruit,
how it wishes for
the road to lead
to a destination,
not a destiny.
how it drips
on places
that are
home.
portland, oregon / 3.31.2019
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9. |
night seventy five
01:15
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night seventy five
there is a hole in the bucket,
no. there are multiple holes,
leaking little letters, wriggle!
squiggles escaping its wild,
might as well rename this
mind a shower head, mend
this, tend to wholly tender,
grunt in mono utterations
susurr our rations, susurr
now, tender now, bloom
now a bouquet of water,
water now, all of waters
now, how this tongue
twists, how water of
it, how liquid of it
liquidation sign,
how fluid of it
to flow when
container is
weakened.
there is a hole
in my bucket,
it is leaking
all of its joys
unmended.
mind it now.
portland, oregon / 4.1.2019
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10. |
night seventy six
01:15
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night seventy six
week here, week there,
thinner my nows, threadbare,
holes in socks, holes in underwear,
holes in memory and holes in my teeth,
am i not now holy, full of wholesome grit,
do i not now contain more of this planet,
it filling my holes with its atmosphere,
am i not now a cloud in the steel sky,
ready to spill itself dry, passing by
the busy streets of your lights,
am i not the flickering noise
on yesteryear's tv screen,
past-your-bedtime story,
am i not a cloud, am i
not a spring rain,
am i not an end
to the means,
am i not
the holes
in my shoes
holy, cry they,
holy, holy, holy,
full of holy water,
full of the holy sky.
portland, oregon / 4.2.2019
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11. |
night seventy seven
01:35
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night seventy seven
this cadillac night
moving toward the exit sign
on a thick bass and harmonica line,
fancy new cars are passing us bye,
but we, we are a steady move
to the ephemeral exit sign.
this turkish night grind,
sweet and dark lullaby
moving us closer toward
the glowing red exit sign,
calling us to our prayer
to be closer to some
shared human divine.
this cadillac night,
this old automotive shine,
they don't make them like this,
this shifting gears smooth
rolling springwater blues,
this we ain't poor recline,
this every note truth.
ain't we lucky sevens,
to spill ourselves through
speaker cones, in this purple
room after midnight, just us,
no audience present, just
voices into this slow steady
cadillac of a night toward
our personal exit signs.
portland, oregon / 4.3.2019
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12. |
night seventy eight
01:00
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night seventy eight
an airstream trailer,
is my home for this week,
a tiny dog and a cat included,
the dog sleeps and the cat eats.
this home is a chromed spaceship,
it has a shape of someone else’s life,
i try not to stretch, i try my best to be
liquid, to fit this domicile container,
not to leave any of myself behind,
not to disturb this perfection.
i wonder what does the cat
dream of tonight, asleep
on my stranger chest.
the city rains on us.
portland, oregon / 4.4.2019
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13. |
night seventy nine
01:08
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night seventy nine
by now i should have
broken the addiction to home,
guess that one runs as deep as
the smoke that cures my bones.
by now i should have known my
name to be lazarus, to know
that mine is the comfort
found in stops along
the way, beggar's
bowl modern
in hands,
pride swallowed
whole in whale of me,
tell this weary carcass:
no place like home means
no place is home, rest in poor,
rest in poor, ask if resurrection was
worth the price of admission, ask
which alleyway will quiet me.
ask if i wanted this name.
portland, oregon / 4.5.2019
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14. |
night eighty
00:52
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night eighty
trailer windows are fogged,
cars outside part road waters,
each its own prophet, each a sea,
cloudseeds are planting themselves
on the roof, i am in the great automotive
fantasy, feel a highway, feel a promise,
would i wake up in a different town
if i were to believe in this chrome?
is there a trailer park in the sky
for the lost people like me?
how many nights would
quench this thirst
that ever rain
cannot fill?
portland, oregon / 4.6.2019
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15. |
night eighty one
00:35
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night eighty one
a guest is a stranger,
i am then stranger eternal,
live mostly unharmed within
the ants' nests and wonder
if i ever had my own nest.
nights have now blurred
into one long night.
i now know much
about being
a good
host.
portland, oregon / 4.7.2019
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16. |
night eighty two
01:33
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night eighty two
blues of jeans contraband,
it will never mean the same
thing to those who just had it.
undersunner, yellow and black,
raising its head to the local star,
black suit and silver monochrome,
thank you, darling hollywood, for that
delightful stereotype, aren’t i a danger,
aren’t i just an accent you'd hide from,
aren't i your best exported red dawn,
white linen comfort or loud orange
shirt, take-me-to-the-beach-bum,
green and brown like trees, for
aren’t i a forest cut down for
being not the right kind of
neck to be from. colors.
so many colors.
this night is colored
white-petal-rain, colored
sunflower, colored tea and
wafers, colored alone. tell me.
please. what is the colour
of having a home?
portland, oregon / 4.8.2019
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17. |
night eighty three
01:26
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night eighty three
look in the mirror, say,
you need a bit of a trim,
weeds of it thistling knots,
say, your face is an old field,
say, battlefield, eyes—craters,
algae green water in charred earth,
say, mirrors don't lie the way minds do,
say, new trenches cross forehead maze,
say, who would till this and trust harvest,
this houseless, this ungardened, fallow,
look down at your hands—see roots
pushing up the moss of desert skin,
say, these hands would work this
land, these trees would grow
despite the wind and salt,
say, remember oregon
coastline, the way it
endures rugged,
say, ocean is
beautiful.
portland, oregon / 4.9.2019
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18. |
night eighty four
01:28
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night eighty four
another last night,
another goodbye, i am,
getting better at loving places
and animals and saying my fare thee
wells, i am getting better at moons of me
and saying sleep tender now wherever
this night finds and leaves my feet,
i'm getting better at waking into
tomorrow, i'm getting better
at knowing i might not,
but most likely will.
i am getting better at
saying thank you for one
more night and for rain in it,
i am getting better, old friend,
at pouring everything into a day,
into stars that walk these streets,
i am getting better at watching cats
nap and packing my alone into bags
between poetry books, i am getting
better at dreaming oceans, i am
getting better, old friend, i am.
portland, oregon / 4.10.2019
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19. |
night eighty five
01:28
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night eighty five
cars swing around the corner
of twenty fifth and morrisson, just
there, by the cemetery, one in twenty
has rather questionable taste in music
and something to prove by speeding into
the turn, a statistic that might also be true
for those in graves. people ask me how i am,
i say—respirating and locomoting, maybe,
add that i am tired, maybe, excited, tell
of a poet whose words keep me here,
maybe, recount some numbers
that seem important just then.
i do not drive. not for years.
maybe i do not trust my
feet to keep me safe,
hugging those turns,
not to take me away
from this counting,
maybe my music
tastes are also
questionable,
but i’m not
in a grave
as of yet.
there is
a cat.
portland, oregon / 4.11.2019
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20. |
night eighty six
01:45
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night eighty six
there is an escape hatch.
i try not to think of its presence.
tell myself it is too small. tell myself
i won't fit into its narrow, fall back
into this cell tooth-marked and
broken, more broken than now,
tell myself you have tried this,
tell myself do not leave while
others can use you some way,
tell myself hatch is not there,
tell myself do your own time,
at least i can pace in this cell,
at least i can draw on its wall,
at least i can sing my songs,
at least i recall light of stars,
at least i am still, i am still,
i recite my at-leasts litany,
thou art born into this,
make it better for next,
be the wall, be stone,
leave marks, count
drops of water on
tongue, count
darker nights,
count steps
in the cell.
there is an
escape hatch.
at least there is
an escape hatch
in night eighty six
leading into night
eighty seven.
portland, oregon / 4.12.2019
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21. |
night eighty seven
00:40
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night eighty seven
funny thing about
walking into unknown
is that it feels exactly like
walking somewhere on purpose.
i throw a question into the wet air,
it hangs there almost answered,
follow it with my feet, come up
to the porch, say “hey”, am
greeted like belonging,
like are-you-hungry,
like you’re-home.
cats know this.
maybe i am
learning
a little.
portland, oregon / 4.13.2019
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22. |
night eighty eight
00:53
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night eighty eight
this is a night full of luck,
like some nights are starful,
at least in chinese. elsewhere
the number means many things
some not so pretty, some darling.
my belly is full of my luck as plump
as the loops in the number eight,
my luck is under me and over
me—a bed and a roof, twice
the luck, twice the miracle,
i am filled with bamboo
blessings this night,
i am as much a
child of asia
as of north,
i’ll take all
the luck
i can
get.
portland, oregon / 4.14.2019
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23. |
night eighty nine
01:01
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night eighty nine
burnt-out ash-night
wishes for a fade-out.
wishes, wishes, wishes.
but, ah, wishes are all lost
at sea. this is a lullaby for me.
listen, i would sleep for a century,
close my eyes, hang a sign on a tree:
"i's gone fishin' for wishes who do
be lost at the sea. signed, yours
most sincerely, tender poverty”
listen, i’d sleep for a century,
wake up a tattered book,
scribbled tender poetry,
naught but a name,
lost ashes at sea,
singing a lullaby
for someone
a-nighting
like me.
portland, oregon / 4.15.2019
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24. |
night ninety
02:27
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night ninety
dealing with reality
is an acquired taste-skill,
peering into mad time is more
of my particular innate capability.
magnolias scream animal pink into
clouds gray of the brushed metal utility,
tulip candles every votive color of fire
rise through grass unshorn honesty,
piles of petals white for memory
of nameless trees, pass, pass,
black soil piled resting for
hands, not mine, not
yet, if, by a miracle,
i make it, all the way
to sixty four, crown my
white dandelion, paint my
lips blackberry, dance around
me, a spring effigy, color outside
of the lines of me in every bluebell
hue, aye, here’s to making it, here is
a song for every spring that wasn’t
a last spring, though it wanted
to be a last spring, so much,
teeth clenched, jaw locked,
color-blind in cold of it,
every night a victory,
every day a defeat,
and if i do not make it
all the way to sixty four,
love me still for as much
shy miracle as has occurred,
wear those crowns yellow gold,
let berry juice drip from your lips,
sweet of it, tart of it, into the black
of the soil, now rich of me, for your
clever hands, kiss each other, do,
lay on the honest grass, stare
into the sky, may it be blue
for every each one of you.
portland, oregon / 4.16.2019
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25. |
night ninety one
02:06
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night ninety one
street lights indifferent to blood,
porch lamps say you don't live here,
tender attics glow someone's comfort,
neon of closed stores—empty promise,
wherever we go, there is a light, just not
for us, just what we bring in our eyes.
see i'm lucky, i'm going somewhere,
if not home, but close enough for
the being of time, close enough.
this fellow sprawled by a teashop,
cocooned in sleeping bag has less
luck than i do and i wonder when my
luck will run out and i wonder of the
empty platitudes about how heart
is where you live. but does your
heart have a shower, does it
come with an outhouse?
can you piss in your
most tender heart?
can you wash off
the neon from your
skin, wash your socks,
hang them to dry? can you
ask your sleep to come to your
bed, lights off, meet dark nights
in the fabled heart card castle?
can you say: “we live here. we
live in this rented heart?”
does your heart come
with a little doorbell?
does your heart
have a key?
how's the
rent?
portland, oregon / 4.17.2019
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26. |
night ninety two
02:14
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night ninety two
poet brings peanuts.
i eat them. by handful.
there’s a metaphor there,
but mostly it is compassion.
poet brings words. i eat them.
all of them. words sustain us too.
i thank the poets for nourishment.
i am a nowhere poet and here now
poet, a poet clawing at somewhere,
a poet writing rain droplets into skies.
there was a poet, named i. homeless,
in one of my favorite books. though
he wasn’t a poet. wasn’t homeless.
just a plot twist for devil’s deeds.
but i do see a few parallel plots.
there was a particularly sly cat
in that book too. it’s no wonder
a poet says “it’s all about cats.”
i concur. a cat always knows
when to walk away, to have
dignity in the last days or
nights. i do not know
how to do that yet.
i’m walking down
belmont street,
moon behind
tattered clouds,
feel all the pains
of this aging body,
tell them: a poor man
doesn’t get to be sick,
a poor man only gets
to be alive for a time.
if only i knew cats'
trick on when to
keep walking
into the moon
and clouds.
portland, oregon / 4.18.2019
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27. |
night ninety three
01:46
|
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night ninety three
from din to solitary smoke,
ain't nothing to drill deep alone
as a hundred hugs and sweet words.
why do i do what i do, that song refrain,
appropriate to my particular affliction,
rain drips and drizzles, as expected,
my thoughts are distant buoyant
on the coastal waves, all ocean,
all washing up distant wrecks.
yes. yes. grateful for the day,
yes. warmed by presence.
but, darlings, am i not
a seagull, city-lost,
am i not an albatross,
chained to a writing desk.
and i still can see my breath,
they say it's good for something,
it is just getting harder to believe
these stories and voices young,
harder to build driftwood huts
of words and our intentions,
and live in them as though
they are gilded mansions.
in watermelon sugar my
mind seeks its wine,
in sleep—its pause
and i am smaller
ever smaller
dream.
portland, oregon / 4.19.2019
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28. |
night ninety four
01:06
|
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night ninety four
do you need it
right this second?
do you need it bad,
this barbecue sauce
elegy, this tin rhapsody?
take your last five minutes.
sing engine rumble hot, bliss
the ill-tended grass barest skin,
scream your mess of hair into soil,
see through the moon and neon signs,
knock on the fortune's door, your rain
insistent, your jungle wilding rooms,
sway to your silence evergreen,
take your last five minutes.
take every second of it.
take every starlit blink.
after. after, there will
be quiet sleep.
there will be
morning.
maybe.
portland, oregon / 4.20.2019
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29. |
night ninety five
01:45
|
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night ninety five
when in distress
i go to a fire, like it
would catch me flame,
would let me cloud rise,
smoke signal above these
house lights. he is risen.
a greeting for this day.
did once they ask
if coming back
was his wish.
or father's.
or spirit's.
the scholars
will have every
answer at the ready
and miss the question.
night ninety five, if not for
effort i would lose the count,
like i am losing count of where
i have slept, which resurrection
am i on, which friend i've wronged
by dying silent to their ever life. yet
still i pass for middle class, unless you
look a bit too close, grandfather taught
my poor well, dress a last supper always,
dress better than the devil that will take
you, still billed eccentric for the webs
of circumstance. it's well. i know this
hiding well. like fire hides in bog
droughts, underground peat
burning, burning still.
portland, oregon / 4.21.2019
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30. |
night ninety six
01:49
|
|||
night ninety six
back to the wall,
lights of every color,
chipped paint on tables,
a chandelier of cheap crystal,
coffee, cigarette, plastic ashtray,
a place and time suspended in its
weird, where unfitting fit somehow.
a portrait on the wall, a woman in red
dress and silk floral shawl, her gaze
upon whoever sits where presently
i take my refuge, her hand mudra
bodhisattva-like, her lips, neither
smile nor a frown, hair—black,
an earring crescent-shaped,
hint of worship of the moon,
bronze or tarnished gold.
thus we are, a tired man
and a woman's portrait
unstoried, latenighted,
though, her wall is
a home to her
and mine is
not. when
midnight strikes
i will have to leave.
walk down the street
to another place, sleep,
then to another place not
unlike this one, would that
i be the portrait on the wall,
gazing quiet at the world.
portland, oregon / 4.22.2019
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31. |
night ninety seven
01:18
|
|||
night ninety seven
pink petals aggregate
on black of asphalt roads,
the city dresses in its spring.
green cathedral cupolas once
more encompass streets, rising,
rising above the detritus of winter,
as if proclaiming, you, dear children,
have survived the storms and deluge,
these temples are your hymnals new,
be merry now, summer berry feasts
are not too far and the rivers await
your weary bodies to wash away
your struggles and despairs.
grass carpets malachite
spread for your feet,
lush and welcome.
nights are softer
now, less stark,
mayhap, i too
am growing,
a moonful
verdant
beast.
portland, oregon / 4.23.2019
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32. |
night ninety eight
01:38
|
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night ninety eight
a man leans in to me after
i read a rifle poem and asks
what do i think of guns. i start
to say all the murder, but another
artist is about to perform, so silence
falls, not unlike one after a gunshot.
later, the man leaves, but tells me:
"i liked your poems, but not the
one about the gun. i disagree"
i get it. it is hard to hear that
death sleeps in one's veins.
hard to hear that next to your
good i feel the cold of your
gun, heat of your bullets,
i remember how blood
flows out of human.
that now you have
to work harder for
me to trust you.
that i know you
may become
killer in one
well-aimed
shot.
and after
even for a hero
there is only fatality,
no redemption. while
the rich men selling
us fear will laugh.
portland, oregon / 4.24.2019
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33. |
night ninety nine
01:35
|
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night ninety nine
i am rich in nights
i have ninety nine of'm
see, every counted night
is an affirmation—another
one, and another one, some
way, somehow, i got to the end
of another day, somewhere i lay
my head and life is almost okay,
circumstances haven't broken
me, and someone cared to
welcome me into their
shelter for a time.
if this isn't hope
i don't know
what is.
so here is
a homeless
poet's blessing
may you always
count your nights,
may they be gentle
stars, may they warm
your lonely and purr on
your chest, may tomorrow
come to you again and again,
know that i am counting with you.
know that ninety nine is a long time.
know that we are rich at least in nights.
portland, oregon / 4.25.2019
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Igor Brezhnev Portland, Oregon
Igor Brezhnev is a poet, an author and an artist, amongst his other sins. He has first-hand experience with confronting depression, homelessness, poverty, and xenophobia, as well as more common ailments like heartbreak and spilled coffee. Igor has authored three books: the book of possibilities (2012), dearest void (2016) and america is a dry cookie and other love stories (2018). ... more
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