nights since - volume one

by Igor Brezhnev

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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. , and , .

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1.	night one 01:55	lyrics	buy track
night one day’s impressions into my mind unfold. how there is an empty chair in front of me and how i like people making small noises, how a young woman writes in the notebook letters large and rounded settling on lines of the paper intended. i think of rivers. headlights of oncoming traffic move past a steady stream i think of rivers. the radio room and people filing in from midnight. i think of rivers. small shed next to a thai food cart behind a strip club. we are waiting for fried rice. i think of rivers. i gave up the taste of russian words its cult-of-might, its learn-your-place its don’t-you-respect-me drink shoved down my throat hot. i think of rivers. falling asleep on a couch, dog scent in the blanket that is my pillow. only four hours of sleep ahead. words piling up chaotic. i jot them down then drift. i think of rivers. morning. this house doesn’t know me. i wonder if it knows what it swallowed whole. it is eight in the morning and i say goodbye to the house and to the dog. i think of rivers. portland, oregon / 1.18.2019
2.	night two 00:32	lyrics	buy track
night two in the morning i will think: i have never been to camas, washington before. i have now. tonight i sleep by a lit fireplace in a different state poetry on my mind grateful for grace. suggested town motto for camas: “the birds are louder here.” camas, washington / 1.19.2019
3.	night three 00:36	lyrics	buy track
night three back sinking into a couch, sound of clothes in a dryer, full belly and all the emotions swirling, what will i dream on this night. where will i end up tomorrow. be praised friends and the land they walk and the next day. an aside. does one ever stop loving and does it ever ... gresham, oregon / 1.20.2019
4.	night four 00:18	lyrics	buy track
night four same couch. head crowned with ache. tired. feathers and wings. there is probably more. gresham, oregon / 1.21.2019
5.	night five 00:40	lyrics	buy track
night five this is a very large bed. and i am so used to narrow. and i am on the edge and there is so much space. i am washed clean and the lights are so soft, they like water wear my hardness round seaglass as though it was always that, forgetting the kiln, forgetting shard, forgetting trash, being a thing you would pick up to keep for a while. portland, oregon / 1.22.2019
6.	night six 00:59	lyrics	buy track
night six missing michaelene it is only the second night in this haven where a tree line reflects zen in the house mirror, where a silver cat purrs comfort, as though it has always been that, deep in my belly is grief for another death somewhere in the state of utah, we never saw each other, we wrote letters, or, rather emails, but how i wish they were letters in ink, something i could hold now. how i wish we could have more time to exchange words, syllable tamer. the expected death is still too sudden and age is not a good enough excuse for an abrupt silence. portland, oregon / 1.23.2019
7.	night seven 01:18	lyrics	buy track
night seven bars are taste of irony in the back of my throat, here i am fifteen-some years, sober with a couple slip-ups, later, sips of bitter coffee, still closing down a bar, still in the loud of it, still drowning life, poems—shots not down, but out—in a bar, still some sort of drunk, just call it a poet, still going back to beds that i do not own, still looking for my own eyes in crowds, it’s coffee that’s bitter, not me, maybe being so close to my personal devil is a reminder i got something to sell at the crossroads, some intangible value that makes it ok to keep waking up after closing another watering hole, saying “thanks, tip your bartender, and good night to you all.” portland, oregon / 1.24.2019
8.	night eight 01:19	lyrics	buy track
night eight i am a king of no land, i am, before you jump to conclusions: i was crowned by a real princess— she had a tiara with ruby jewels and a real princess red dress and matching red socks, doesn’t get any more royal than that, she promised she would protect me, turned me to a castle with a single word and asked if she could have a hug. now you know my kingship is, in fact, real, i am a castle, i am a king of no land, and somewhere there’s a princess who will protect you gift you stolen flowers and give you kingdoms just like that and you will believe every word she says just because she believes in those words, believes in her magic, believes in herself, believes in things most of us chose to forget. portland, oregon / 1.25.2019
9.	night nine 00:36	lyrics	buy track
night nine if we were to trust the tales, it took seven days to make a universe worthwhile, another took nine days to drink wisdom from a well, hanging upside down. i am, on the ninth night, glad for a bed and well wishes, maybe that is some sort of wisdom, maybe eleven is a better number for that sort of foolishness to occur. portland, oregon / 1.26.2019
10.	night ten 00:25	lyrics	buy track
night ten it is still music it is still poetry it is still beauty it is still friends that is forward movement to a tomorrow. anything less is not. portland, oregon / 1.27.2019
11.	night eleven 01:45	lyrics	buy track
night eleven cold feet, cold hands, i could look for meaning in that, for a sly metaphor. headache pulses in temples, tiny demons playing ping-pong, this thought makes it more tolerable. i’m eating cold fruit and corn chips— is it a call back to cold appendages? what makes a jumble of sentences a poem, what would make it sing eleven to you, this parallel prime digit, the sticks, the one after, the let’s-find-meaning-of-it together, the it’s-been- eleven-nights since i left the house of stones. we’ll find out but likely when headache subsides, when we don’t require meaning to mean something beyond the comforting warmth and i have made it through the day mostly intact and with a kind intention, this poem is an awkward way to tell you: thank you, i appreciate your beings, and may your demons rest from their games once in a while, may you rest and make it to the twelfth night too. and to all the poets: it’s eleven:eleven in an odd way- make a wish make it a good one. portland, oregon / 1.28.2019
12.	night twelve 00:49	lyrics	buy track
night twelve we’ll strive to please you every day, foolish phrase, but what of it? as good an end as start and if music be the food, then we certainly are fed. and nothing changed—rain, it still rains on every day, well, almost, every day, and we, we are fools, still and always fools, regal dancing fools, our honor badges— the jester’s caps tintinnabulate to our lives’ dances. portland, oregon / 1.29.2019
13.	night thirteen 02:02	lyrics	buy track
night thirteen i took a day for myself, shuffled it out of a deck like a has-been magician, this is your card—is it not, woke up late and marched myself to a restaurant, sleep still dry in my eyes. got coffee and a giant pancake with a side of grits, i felt so god-damn-country, like america finally made home in my bones, like i-am-one-of-you, spangled and starred right here at the bar, ma’am, thank you, that was the most delicious meal in my life. i walked up the mount, crosses left behind in the foothills, looked up at this blinding sun through the trees, felt small, a child i forgot ever lived. met a beautiful friend, watched dogs greet everything eager, felt wind making home in me, splendor of it all, resting, poverty on a back burner low, sauntering— dearest walt— sauntering down the carmall street, la tienda mexicana making a mark in my mind—i’ve been there before, i should return, talked poetry with a poet, damn you are good at that word entanglement artcraft, sudden stranger, familiar now. i can sleep now. i can sleep. i guess that’s what they call self-care these days, i guess, i can learn that art. portland, oregon / 1.30.2019
14.	night fourteen 01:31	lyrics	buy track
night fourteen a hop and a skip and a jump from the frog to the nest, a rotund rambler roams. i like the word rotund, it’s so architectural, a house that will feed everyone, so sky-shelter, so cavernous, so cauldron steaming. that was, as they say, a tale before the fairytale fairs faint fantasy’s flight. tonight, i dine like the royal, thanks to a couple of bards, two slices and a can of fizzy, i’ve even enough for a carriage of a tri-met bus. watch out world! i got riches to carry me clean through the mystical magical land of tomorrow! day after tomorrow does not yet exist, on the bus there’s laughter from belly up risen and a man sleeping nested into his livelihood bags, aren’t we all some sort of royalty, queens and kings of i made it through all of the days afore midnight, the world has got nothing on us, risen yesterday onto this day and onto the next. portland, oregon / 1.31.2019
15.	night fifteen 00:59	lyrics	buy track
night fifteen i’m again watching people file into the radio room. k-boo, k-boom, k-b-o-o. from midnight or a while after. these are my people. showing up. some of this i will say into the mic. some i will add many nights after. our lighthouse is now dark. off the air. dearest laedi, like the one from the lake, you gave us our swords, our voice, thank you for the place where we could say our truths. it has been two weeks. i survived. portland, oregon / 2.1.2019 & 2.19.2019
16.	night sixteen 01:20	lyrics	buy track
night sixteen catching patterns numbers twirl waltz on clocks pairing up, feeling my gravity’s pull eyelids drooping wet silk, fullness of all conversations blooms camellia in my winter, deep pink on the darkest green, can this poem take flower shape, where in the world is…, complete this question, i am drifting slow why do we come to mountains, our hours have never synced, why do we stare at the moon, aren’t we too reflected light, why do we court the ocean, is our own depth too dark, if it is just a muscle knot, why do we burn so well, as though this burning would light up the sky why, my friend, why. i will sleep on that. sixteenth night. questioning. waking. portland, oregon / 2.2.2019
17.	night seventeen 00:53	lyrics	buy track
night seventeen hear a lily’s voice rising, falling, traveling. do flowers sing too? i may be poor, but how poor are those that do not listen. a strange bird singing, outside is growing colder. there is warmth in song. music is well worth travel it keeps you warm in silence. seventeen nights now, pockets are getting lighter, thoughts grow heavier. what tethers me to the world but what i can give to it. portland, oregon / 2.3.2019
18.	night eighteen 01:10	lyrics	buy track
night eighteen knowing all of my devils, being on the first-name basis with all of my personal demons, saying “good morning, and in case i don’t see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night”—ya got to be polite when you have been through all we have been through together—somehow, we are the show that must go on, and on, and on, i keep saying, no, thank you, i’ll pass on that one for today, ask me again in several months, look at you, you’ve gotten big, i remember when you just started haunting dreams, oh my, that’s beautiful, tell me all about your new circle of hell, tell me what do you have in store for us now. portland, oregon / 2.4.2019
19.	night nineteen 02:18	lyrics	buy track
night nineteen settling under blankets, resting my head on pillows, tiny heater whirring, trying its best to stave off granpaw frost. lucky are we who have blankets. out there the snow falls in spirals to melt on the asphalt under moving cars, writing the next big book no one will get to read, i’m not sure if it is a book of the dead or a book of life, but by the way it swirls it is quite possibly both or neither. i’m sorry it is not a more definitive answer, i am yet to decipher its words descending. tonight, i smoked cigarettes on the porch, i heard poems about skin, and sadness, and what to do on the coast of maine, songs about loves and telephones, songs without words, somehow, still about loves, telephones not as explicitly stated by fading notes. lucky are we who sing of loves. tonight, i’ve read my words, i am much like the snow twirling down from whatever sky that’s made me a water clump that i am, whatever fall that i will become. look, it’s nineteenth eve, look how everything’s bright, this snow has given us pages, to write on with our loving steps how our hearts are like the tiny heaters whirring, trying hard to warm us against that coming good night. portland, oregon / 2.5.2019
20.	night twenty 01:32	lyrics	buy track
night twenty see, a score of nights every one of those ended with words or began, in time after the sun set, before i yielded to tired. i try to squeeze life into familiar line form, i should be asleep, but how stubborn i still am, counting syllables at two. this night was of ice, the snow has melted and froze. slick roads and walkways. groundhog day is still showing at the movie theater. don’t you sometimes wish you could just go, watch a flick, cheap ticket in hand, not miss who might have been there with you before the lit screen. don’t you sometimes wish this ice and this count of nights counted something else, not all of the nights without, but rather all the nights with. don’t you, but you, you don’t need to count nights—i do. every poem—mark, scratch on the wall numbering something, a to or a from. portland, oregon / 2.6.2019
21.	night twenty one 01:40	lyrics	buy track
night twenty one with fond memories of t. pratchett’s books if i were a believer i’d make believe some personal small gods for us. it is night and i got time, so here: our lady of the perpetual exhaustion, for aren’t we always tired, never asleep, our lord of shared bar food and leftovers, for those days we haven’t money for food. our lady of the food and drink establishments, smiting the rich fussy fuckers that never tip, our lord of the bless’d impermanent rental, for those times landlords deserve a hell, our lady of the last bus and train, may she get you through night, our lord of the corner store, who would be a black cat, our lady of the fuck-it, closing those doors behind our backs, those bastards didn’t deserve us in the first place, with a loudest bang. portland, oregon / 2.7.2019
22.	night twenty two 02:17	lyrics	buy track
night twenty two picture a boy in a faraway land rosy cheeks, bundled a snowball, he doesn’t know yet those crucibles that his land uses to burn boys to men, he doesn’t know yet, so he only had four or five summers, born before the fall and its colors and its rain. picture a boy who knows his letters, to you those letters might as well be hieroglyphics, upside down facsimiles of your own characters, rivering deltas. he doesn’t know yet he is fated to trade them for your tongue, all dental fricatives of this and that thought turned to word. picture a boy who likes cherries, he may be in that so much like some boy you knew. he doesn’t know yet that there are oceans and continents and that he is waiting for an airplane to take him somewhere he will not be welcome, your own land. picture now a man, a tired man, remembering a boy who traveled so far to count nights on a mountain, he now knows burned and knows ash, he now knows prices we pay for cherries, he still doesn’t know how it all will end. portland, oregon / 2.8.2019
23.	night twenty three 01:51	lyrics	buy track
night twenty three nourishment, sustenance, manna: receiving on this day word and loaf and i keep thinking that gods are among us, you can be the divine intervention and, you, you could be just a goddess in disguise, a god with a callused hand, wearing flannel and jeans, or that ol’ comfy sweater, how there are laughing gods and gentle ones soles on the asphalt walking quietly to be a god some place for you or for me, unrequiring of worship or sacrifice, better than the gods we keep making up for crosses and crescents their eyes, their lips, their limbs in our own image here leaning comfortable on a wall, curled on a couch lost in music, making something, stealing a fire for us, for them, for the cold times, for all our fallen, for all our risen, for that one day when you needed a god. portland, oregon / 2.9.2019
24.	night twenty four 01:16	lyrics	buy track
night twenty four phone battery is at eighteen percent and dropping, time left to sleep six and a half hours and decreasing. temperature outside is twenty nine degrees fahrenheit and it will get colder. what a mundane recitation, this is not poem, you would say, but is it not a poem to see all things fading, to know impermanence and decay in our everyday? is it not a poem to see how snow melts? is it not a poem to feel toes get cold and wonder how entropy will get to my heart one of these days? how it will get colder, how my winter won’t have a spring even if it is calendar summer. is it not a poem to be grateful for a season with you? portland, oregon 2.10.2019
25.	night twenty five 01:46	lyrics	buy track
night twenty five vietnamese coffee sweet is my tiredness on this night: all that sugar and a tad of bitter, a chicory carnival, heya big easy, all that get-up-wham-get-it-done, but let’s take our sweet time on it, and on completely unrelated note, the dictionary’s word of the day is: bardolater—there was talk of theater some time previous to this moment— i like the bard, i so do, oh, no doubt! dear mr. shaw, what nice wordmaking! though, indeed, i use the word with none of its intended original sting. bard-o-later, bar-do-later, so giddy, can you tell—i had so much coffee! is this anthropomorphic universe conspiring, telling me a secret? the problem with interpreting tasseomantic frequency of the universal voice is that there is so much meaning in every single grain of it and none. sweet paradox. so you just look for a bit, then drink it up, words and all, roll up your sleeves to do the best damn job of work you can do. portland, oregon / 2.11.2019
26.	night twenty six 01:17	lyrics	buy track
night twenty six every day i’m four steps away from . step one. more poverty step two. than i can fit more pain step three. in my body. than i can let more cruelty the world bear. of men rising than fits in one heart. my body wears poverty like jewelry handing out excess to the rich. my world is painted with pain they say the colors become me. my heart spills itself daily, a cup runneth over. stand with me at the edge. hold my hand. take three steps back. we dance even if i will fall one day. we danced. portland, oregon / 2.12.2019
27.	night twenty seven 01:15	lyrics	buy track
night twenty seven twenty seven is the number of bones hidden in the human hand. one night per each bone to grasp a home, a distant echo. twenty seven is the number of letters in spanish alphabet. which nights were vowels and which were consonants, corazón? twenty seven is a club i am thirteen years too late to join now, not for the lack of trying on those dark uncounted nights. twenty seven is the atomic weight of blue sky metal i’m told. can i color the sky then with this number in my hand? twenty seven is written years colored by bones i know i’m grasping for meaning in shallow pools, but i’m a tired man. portland, oregon / 2.13.2019
28.	night twenty eight 01:49	lyrics	buy track
night twenty eight ‘alf layla wa-layla, listen, this story is told: dark nights, one after another, passing manifold. i entertain, pour joy and pain on this sheet of rain, so you, my dearest witness, know in word my small world. not unlike Scheherazade i weave spells under strain, though my sultan isn’t you, but my mind’s constant refrain “don’t stop, keep going, do something with this time, write. write!” see, we just barely made it through another quatrain. twenty eighth sunset after leaving a cozy light. i don’t know if i will write one thousand and one night. such a long tale may be a bit much for all involved. i don’t know if there are that many nights in my sight. meanwhile, i am, like Nasreddin, telling you of cold streets and warm hearts, bridges, which are also hearts, i’m told, isn’t that where you meet the Beloved, in the mundane? isn’t it where stories take us, be they new or quite old? portland, oregon / 2.14.2019
29.	night twenty nine 02:54	lyrics	buy track
night twenty nine if i was a bird i’d be a sparrow, one of them old, puffy molting ones, nothin’ special apart from years lived, you wonder how in the hell this bird is still alive and chirping. if i was a bird i’d be a pigeon, you know walkin’ on the sidewalk, shittin’, pickin’ up crumbs, struttin’, whole life thinking he was an owl, a very confused city bird indeed. if i was a bird i’d be crow, damn i look so good in black, even if a human looks at me and says “well shit, that bird sure is fat.” joke’s on you, human, i made it this far. if i was a bird, i’d fly. spread my fucking wings and fly over cities, over rivers, fly to those i love and peck loud on their windows full of skies. if i was a bird you’d love me, not like you love a canary caged, you’d love the feathers i left behind, you’d love all the croaking and chirping and leave me a nice slice of blackberry pie. if i was a bird, if i was, you would all be birds too, but you’d be those colorful birds, wingspan of six feet or more gliding in the sky above me so damn beautiful. if i was a bird, but i ain’t. this is just a poem about wings i don’t have. just words for feathers. just a beats per minute hummingbird of my heart, this is your valentine card. this is your valentine card, filled with songs, for all of you, i got enough syllables for the whole wide world, enough vowels to harmonize with each and every one of you on this night. portland, oregon / 2.15.2019
30.	night thirty 01:47	lyrics	buy track
night thirty this cat is a poem. blue russian fur coat, soft to the touch luxury, those cadmium yellow eyes, following you with a hungry look. this poem would hunt us, this poem would take a god damn nap for hours, silent, and we would still read it, that is, if we were fond of the feline lines. this poem is a cat. it’s about itself. enough. it stretches its lines outward, it will likely fit in some sort of box, it wants your attention but is very coy, it purrs when it wants, and you want it to. it is a nocturnal creature but doesn’t mind lounging in the sun with its syllables open just enough to see you read it whole. thirty nights. i wrote in each. poetry is something that is every day, something hard, something soft, something wild, something almost tame, but not quite, something loyal, but a bit hungry, something clawed, this poem is a cat then. and cats have always been prowling poems for us. portland, oregon / 2.16.2019
31.	night thirty one 01:05	lyrics	buy track
night thirty one failing mindbody, hello. what spooked you this time? what ghost did you see? sometimes you’re a sturdy home. sometimes—a burning driftwood. what ghost did you see in a life of another, what made you shake so? sometimes you are a steel beam. sometimes—a burnt cattail shook. what made you shake so? did i run too fast for you? what ghost did you see? sometimes, i’m homeless in my failing mindbody, a ghost. portland, oregon / 2.17.2019
32.	night thirty two 03:00	lyrics	buy track
night thirty two hey, i am in a hot tub. it’s got damn jets and, quite possibly, lights. there are nights when i am a damn hobo prince, poeting in the day time, soaking weary bones in hot water half past midnight, ain’t too bad for a pauper, ain’t too shabby at all, those nights are rare, but damn they are fine. once i stayed at a mansion in malibu canyon, once at a monastery on oceanside hills, once i slept in an old tree, i’ve had more homes than i can count, they just weren’t mine to keep. i’ve slept in national forest parks, in japanese cars, in a dodge caravan, on a back seat, heading to san francisco once, in rvs and on floors, i slept on benches, slept in those hostel rows of bunk beds, i slept sitting up. once or a few times i slept under the stars, sharing a blanket with someone who maybe loved me, or at least thought so for some time. on those nights i think orion belt is mine to wear, and a crown of leaves is better than any crowns of silver or gold. that my naked is finer than any fancy designer rags. on those nights my damn crown is mine to give away, my naked is enough of a gift, and my broken is just a song that you’d listen to. because, look at how pretty the scars are after midnight, look, how i’ve healed, look, i made music from all of the pain the world gave me on its silver, look, how gentle my hands learned to be, all i’m saying, look, i’m still breathing. ain’t that a thing, a shiny thing, i can put in the bank. portland, oregon / 2.18.2019
33.	night thirty three 01:38	lyrics	buy track
night thirty three if you know me, you know repetitive numbers play a game with my eyes, i see them everywhere, on clocks and receipts, on license plates and house addresses, in the weirdest places here they are beep-beeping my mind, pretty patterns repeating, now, i am not looking for messages in bottles or some deep meanings, it is just that i think they are nice, one-one-one-ones standing oh so tall and rising, three threes talking cubes and volumes, two-two-two swanning on, lucky sevens’ jig, a one-two one-two marching song, i like the silliness of it, the humanness of it all, the make-a-wish of it, the hey-i-see-you peek-a-boo, ha! it makes a dark world lighter, just a little, for a time. for you: 11:11. portland, oregon / 2.19.2019

about

"couches, radio room, beds, bars while sober, friends, poverty, grief, joy & cats. 33 nights. 33 poems about how we go on living."

This is an audio version of the first volume in the series of poems titled 'nights since'. Since January 18th, 2019 Igor has written a poem each night for 363 nights. These mostly raw and unedited poems are about life, all of it, as colored by being without a permanent home.

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released October 2, 2020

Recorded by Brian Bauer at Shady Pines Media in Portland, OR.
www.shadypinesmedia.com

Released with assistance from Lightship Press.
www.lightshippress.com

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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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I've had the great pleasure to work with Ken on releasing his first spoken word poetry album. Quiver is a tender poetic journey that I have thoroughly enjoyed! I hope you will enjoy too! Igor Brezhnev
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Red O'Hare's poetry explores the aftermath of domestic violence, tragedy, and generational trauma. She recently recorded a collection of poetry at Shady Pines Studio, called 'Seaglass Strange,' Igor Brezhnev
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