Springs of Joy

a stub, enclosed

stub detached, no piece of cake

sifting the chaff from the flour, the crew chick pants

two fuckheads find harmony by the beer

kiosk, subverted authority

beats retreat, made a grab

on the crest of success, sweet couple

downs the hooch, the artistic director

of a tight team lost his marbles

a stub detached upon his palm

the stricken cheek burns bright

bewailed unrighteousness, in response

will sound only Oh come now

environmental pollution, peepers

revolve, housepainter performs

atop stepladder, went to town

a fly circles the melon rind

Samaritan woman expelled

with a broom, hand crumples

Treasury bill, a stub attached

where the sun don't shine, shirtfront is wrinkled

the bookworm stood up and walked

ramen is ready, forced entry everywhere

hangover head, over the top

the sweatervest fits the figure

as it turned out

1.

as it turned out, they went barbequing

former classmates, college buddies

packed the skewers, the rusty grill

Moldavian wine, marinated meat

a cooler of beer, two plastic bottles

of mineral water, even paper

napkins, home-made dill pickles

mosquito repellant, a tabloid for kindling

six packs of smokes, audiocassettes

inexpensive vodka, though not everyone relished

ethyl alcohol “Deluxe,” pathetic finances

did not allow for “Russian Standard”

all-in-all a choice inventory, downed a screw-

driver prior to leaving, got into

a freshly painted Opel, the guy that drove it

lucky bastard who broke into small business

2.

knew for sure why he took up space

besides him, the car fit four

three had tried themselves out in trade, in commerce

she still lived off her parents

here she alone represented the fair sex

lucky girl, she was tickled by it but also abashed

the presence of one of her girlfriends would have reduced

the uninvited intensity of attention towards her

but she had no use for the superfluous competition

moreover she had already practiced

intimate relations with three of those present

of differing duration but with the same result

with each partner she felt something wanting

she didn't try it with number four, what kicked in

the instinct of protection from the unnecessary, why

it lay dormant in the three other cases

3.

she explained to herself, lack of experience

youth, curiosity, ants in, there was nothing

to regret, nothing to admire

they parked by the lake, on grounds allotted

to recreation outside city limits, the many fire pits

had already colored the earth brown, ochre, turned it

grayer than a detective's temples or an unpleasant memory

and just as vulgar, conforming to the taste

of the average consumer, mom with stroller

boss with gaunt model-quality wife

pensioner couple with miracle of technology radio

they got out, unloaded the victuals, went to forage

for wood chips, planks, sticks, her assistance

clearly not required, she grabbed a can of beer

with determination set out on a footpath

grumbling, I'm going into the bushes, so they don't bother her

4.

with questions, men occupied with the quest for fire

generally pay no attention to women

her notification was left without proper response

about ten minutes later she clambered out on the overgrown

bank of a stream, even mobilizing her meager

arsenal of botanical knowledge, she hardly could have

named one tenth of the motley quivering mass

presented by the local flora, in her memory there surfaced

lily, water lily, buttercup, pansies, also the story

told by one of her recent lovers, of how he met

his first wife, she won his heart by reciting

without falter, the names of all the trees and shrubbery

later she turned out to be an ordinary bitch, he added

how sad, she lit up, had she been more assiduous

with the curriculum, the rammed knowledge

she would have seen the world as brimming with more

5.

objects, but instead, a child of the city

disdaining to open to tiresome clatter

she stepped cautiously on the sloping, water-licked

rock, took off her tee, tore out a loose thread

the bastards, she thought, the crap they make

removed her jeans with the side pockets

polyester panties, folded the clothes on the grass

looked herself over, weight is the norm, body decent, yes

flat stomach, 34C , two defects

skinny hips, protruding pelvic bone

elongated nipples resembling cigarillos

as a girl, she was wildly ashamed of her figure

stayed away from mirrors, totally had a complex

her second, especially third experience reassured her

she understood, men are caught not by the soft curve of a hip

not by the perfect shape of the breast

6.

but by something other, asymmetrical, sharp, particular

a male, carnivorous hand on her jutting haunch

persuaded she'd been a fool to keep herself back

she never passed for sex bomb, wasn't going like hot cakes

yet enjoyed stable, quite explicable demand

her thoughts shifted, time to stop milking the parents

time to settle down, find a decent job

a girlfriend from school offered her work as a bank teller

paid deservedly, she might even meet a rich client

still, she was scared of being cooped up all day

have a little more fun, a little more wee in the wee hours

on the other hand, it's time to get married, two-

three more years and pop go her looks

youth, spunk, know-how for the life of Reilly

then sadness bore down on her with all its weight

more or less like that time when a plastered lover

7.

cruelly, brutally threw her down, what did I do to you

she asked by knee-jerk, seeing his twisted

absent expression, turned her head, it was useless

in the morning she let him have it, fucking pathetic drunk

for long time after she got the chills, felt gross

now also, she entered the total uselessness

of being here as well as of everything else

for the first time such shock, enlightenment, break through

in risk society, society of endless opportunities

social mobility, private initiatives

the set of winning combinations is so clearly finite

they, her friends along for the ride, just didn't succeed

selling themselves properly, getting their ass in gear

seizing a seat at the table, grasping the market trends

later she'll get taken out on the town not once and not twice

driven in a foreign make, brought along to a reception, wined and dined

8.

but that's it for her former kicks, pleasure, contentment, she'll sooner

see the backs of her ears, fell asleep at the switch, let it slip by

don't be a drama queen, she said to herself, it'll settle, get back

on track, on your block too there'll be a party

compose yourself, don't fall to pieces

firmly decide what to do with that miserable pair

of jeans, she had managed to stain them

with olive oil, even Tide won't wash it out

pulled her clothes on, found the same

way back, one of her companions grunted to her

can you imagine, the skewers we took were too big

as it turned out, meant for another grill

she shrugged her shoulders, wasn't holding the torch

when they hauled the junk out of the closets

men are so childish, have to keep an eye on them

her stomach rumbled, she felt hungry as hell

remote port

the remote port is not responding

cheap thrills from every crack

accusations dog whoever

volunteers for punishment

pricked up his ears, light

reveals defects, crucial info

fell on deaf ears, a dudette

plops down on a chair

they withheld valuable goods

it went to his head, that diva

learned to hold out, please

don't hold your breath

no holds barred, clawed at the walls

from multitasking, petted the babyface

museum gunk, what is

the origin of educational value

forced his opinion on, left

panting in underpants, shut one breach

by opening another, regularly

rang up the house

his knees shake just because

the dog lady messes with the little turds

it's been a long time nothing

between this husband and wife, pristine bedroom

misses no opportunity, got a head

on his shoulders, the adaptor doesn't adapt

held him to his word, committed

herself to the wrong person

she zonked out, the inflow

of refugees gathers steam, grimace face

multicolored smileys, the imbibed

makes itself known

beginnings remain, empty chatter

clogged the ears, did the right thing

according to women's logic, took to bitching

like an old bag

fallen looks, arms laid down

under pressure did not rust

need right approach to remote port

approachability is a major thing

lots of different things

1.

the reader scrutinizes a pile of books

he found out lots of different things from them once

lots of information, many sensible theories, big idioms

lots of correct and precise observations

now these springs of doubt and anxiety

gather dust, piled up in the corner, on a chair

the reader is surprised at himself, what a bookhead

how many of them he managed to read through, sneezing

2.

he flicks the dust off the top covers

he's been feeling too lazy of late

to read much, educational ardor

put on the back burner by

deadlines, he can absorb only

so much, now he values a book

not because of what the mind, the vanity of the author,

his genius had put into it

3.

but for something else entirely, the condition

or the situation when the book lay

on his, the reader's, knees

on in front of him on the table, the book triggers

associations in his memory of the moment

in the past allotted to reading it

carefully, in snatches

unable to put it down, aslant

4.

in his own way, he feels gratitude to each book

it allows him to remember the good and the ugly

this one here he read on the terrace

during a soggy summer, suffering from unrequited

and this one, blissful in a EuroNight

express train second class, a real picture

of beauty with natural goldylocks leaned her

head on his shoulder, fully at his disposal

5.

these two books hooked up in his memory

the first one he was reading almost a decade ago

on a bench in an imperial park, his

twenty-year-old companion bent over

an Italian textbook, one passerby

an amicable middle-aged woman

was delighted, what a beautiful couple

wished them happiness, didn't help

6.

it took years to separate, row after row

the second book he had read on that same bench

in that same park, roughly three months ago

now his girlfriend was about eighteen

not adept at reading, she tugged at him, fidgeted

a woman in her late fifties saw and warmly

decided to pay him a compliment, what

a lovely young lady you're with, didn't fail

7.

to promise them happiness, but shot over

it's already two weeks that they went their ways

this book is associated with difficult moments

for hours he read it in the hospital waiting room outside

the office where the consultation was happening

a hopeless diagnosis given a person

very close to him, had to be confirmed

or overturned, the type kept blurring

8.

one more book he took along while camping

with fellow students, they went kayaking downriver

another he packed for a trip

to America , convenient pocket edition

this one he borrowed but didn't return

because he forgot? because the owner never asked for it back?

A visiting girl of Turkmen origin

left this one at his place after she stayed there

9.

as a gift? a reminder? an indecipherable sign?

in his youth he read rapturously, devoured

serious works on history

philosophy, the humanities, sometimes

even the hard sciences, then there came

either exhaustion or arrogance, a foreign whodunit

from a best-selling series was laid aside at the most

suspenseful point, he never found out who the murderer was

10.

the reader blows the dust away, some of the books

have nothing to do with anything, don't recall anything

he had read them as well, with interest, he decided

that illustrated coffee-table editions

belong elsewhere, moved them to

another space on the bookshelf, straw-colored light

the cellphone had been trilling insistently for some time now

he said, yeah, yeah, of course, I'll be there

monitoring weight

monitored weight, thick chunk

of liverwurst, regression to a state

flies upside down, the jackass

insists on more

first-comers fight

over crumbs, he lifted

the thing asking for it, opportunities

to chill out in the atrium

split their sides with, the fly

chows on anything that moves

a bitch yelps, the first stone

misses the bush

turned green from zeal, eyes

downcast, dawn

vomited over, the gold-digger

at the end of his rope on the prospect

made a killing, raincoat is dangling

off a hook, the last guy

in line nodded yes, a couple

legitimated their relations

beach chair is rented out

starsearch pigsty

on channel one, this gate

opens in

smeared with vaseline, font size

shrunk kind of to the max

harassment, torn at the top

a condom becomes a lifesaver

weight monitored, total freak-out

guy shakes his head

well sorry, jumped in and got mine

unruly cowlick slicked down

May 8—May 15, 2003