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This piece is about 6 printed pages long. It is copyright © Ilya Kriger and Peter Golub and Jacket magazine 2008. See our [»»] Copyright notice. The Internet address of this page is http://jacketmagazine.com/36/rus-kriger-trb-golub.shtml

Russian movie poster, detail.


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Ilya Kriger

Tr. Peter Golub




insomnia

tossed bed bits of sleep
wings white ceiling
i rise to the wall
higher and higher

i did not expect you here

* * *

a lurch
if it is flat
he falls aside
under his coat’s
fur lining but
it rises and runs
the train
“anna karenina”
afraid
to be late
to see the color
of the wheels
k. knows but is possessed
she also no doubt knows, redheaded k.
in fur
and nylon with
a boy
the faces dance
reflections build
them roles
red tongues
for them

***

i lay quartered
by someone, then he maladroitly sewed me back together
these mildew threads are uncomfortable
in the kamchatka night

***

...don’t freeze me, i am your horse

the magnetic fields
behind the event horizon
twinned roads converge
going north
provincial roads
in the fog at night it’s not undangerous to travel
colored ribbons sunny hills
cold mountain spring
coins sparkle at the bottom
the pale sky moving at the bottom
the frozen air all flights are cancelled

***

a house in which no one lives is not a house
                                         — k. marx

in the forests, in the blue forests
in the house made of forest pines
in the house made of forest pitch
in the house made of night silence
in the house somnolent and dark
where the susurrus remains, where it walks across the ceiling
where the wings are cut, where the milk still sits with honey
where quiet weeping, where ivy winds round the top planks
where is time still, motion exists out there, not here
in the house made of cold rain and fog
in the house that sits atop treaded stars
in the house made of forest pines
in the house made of forest pitch
in the house made in of night silence
in the house made of viscid dreams
in the house, where a piece of me securely dwells
either that house is the be all end all
if you stay the night in the house, which I have fortunately left
you won’t continue on your previous path
you’ll die and be born, a stranger to your friends
a part of you will be left there inside the walls
in the forests, in the blue forests
in the house made of forest pines
in the house made of forest pitch
in the house made of night silence

***

they met
in the subway car
she sat across
met glances
she smiled
in noetic gloom
he smiled
to her ideas
and nodded yes
she took a revolver
from her purse
shot several times
he died on the dirty floor
smiling to her

(i saw this in a dream)


photo

we’re
mean
like children
like in a mirror
like a tie
and velvet jacket
suit you
from another’s shoulders
like this blond wig
bride’s dress
suit me
from another’s shoulders
veil
fatum
one can be a woman
sapho
a man
so be a man

***

the two clays
peered
into each other, fell
with whomever
into a thousand leagues
rainbow
gash
under soapy
film
is it me
you is it
not enough
to be used to the prick
of eyelashes
in the head
of the scent of skin
in your hands
a cocoon
I have
the mean
train sleeps
like a drunk
but faking
a mouse
with glistening whiskers
i besiege you
eat only
the clean mice


adventures of the body

1.

a dented ashcan
ash
two are stabbed to death
two jump out of a window holding hands
one hangs himself
one passes from leukemia
one is taken out by car, i
would miss you if you died

2.

of those who have gone let us not forget igor’s saturated color in his last years
the extraordinary foreshortening of the luminous vladimir
the fascinating metallic surface of gleb
sergey with his spatial hallucinations
or the multihued snow leopard coat of philatov

3.

demarcation
show the stitches on the clothes

4.

a profile
en face
newton’s genomial

5.

the 1st person
singular
has countless problems

he inhales the house’s aroma
remembers it
differentiates it from others

one ought not humiliate the 1st person
with stories
about the need for solutions


Ilya Kriger

Ilya Kriger




Ilya Kriger (b. 1978, Arkhangelsk) is a philosophy graduate student at Moscow State University. He has one book of poems Introspection (2005), and was shortlisted for the Debut Prize (2003). He works as a journalist for Novaya Gazeta.

 
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