Dropped into perestroika events
and I don’t really know myself.
I talk differently than my driving desires
I’m a less apt projection of who I want to be.
I can honestly say sometimes I might be the original
but that’s a last resort in boring places.
Someone once had a quote
about how it’s foolish to know yourself.
But I get so **** scared.
Nothing to hold.
Not even a floor for my shoes.
Not even sure what shoes best suit me.
I’m free to make this soul go anywhere,
Yes, Mr. Voltaire, ****** too free.
Mr. Holy Roller says Jesus already came with his plow truck
and paved a way for me.
But which ways did he pave,
God, where will it all lead?
God, which way is best for me?
Still I might not be supposed to know myself,
But The Self
that we all share.
You and me babe.
and that dog and that deer
and that grass and that car
and that lamp post.
All the same.
All the universe’s
and all the other universes’ weight on my head
that keeps being ****** into a vortex
in between where everything’s all the same goop.
All the same stuff. What am I doing living with it?
******.

“Whoever observes himself arrests his own development. A caterpillar who wanted to know itself would never become a butterfly.” -Andre Gide

I've seen people who claim
not to suffer
cry in hotel bathrooms.
To be born without a heart
is merely practical, not fulfilling.

Those who suffer
have an eye for suffering.

As I've gotten older
I've come to understand
life is an exchange;
you lose something,
you get something.

That's a simple deal,
but no one tells you what to do
when something gets back.

Now you're stuck with an old friend
while you're a new you.
You love him,
but you can't stand him.

Guess I'm sorry for growing up.

But **** it,
give me my ghosts
and let them haunt me.
I'm sick and tired of numbing pain.

A gun only stops shooting when you stop reloading it.
Otherwise you've got generational trauma.

**** people who use their pain
as an excuse to hurt someone else.
**** saying pain made you who you are.
Those who glorify pain haven't healed from it.

We're all in a rush
to be disqualified from being human.
I envy those who are comfortable
with that position.
At least they've found something to hold onto.

Guess the rest of use just have to start over.
Call it a Perestroika of the heart,
call it tearing down the walls,
or don't call it anything.

Only thing that matters is to stop the bullet.

I leave you in the middle of town
I hope you have a map
to get back to the bus station

Over a cider in the posh end of town
which probably cost us both more
than we could afford

after our afternoon's talk of Tolstoy
& a shared love of Enid Blyton
& musicians we both loved

we talked of what the current government
was doing to the British poor
& you told me of your own

straightened circumstances
as a child, relying on food parcels
from the Church to stay alive

& I told you how in the Soviet Union
& during the Perestroika
there was never any food in the shops

for anyone & how my mother
queued for hours to get a single pint of milk
not knowing if she'd get it

& how our life changed
when we came here
for the better

we come from different worlds,
each has had their problems
this & Poetry is what connects us.

Hobbit those characters who lived
within the realm
of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
as far removed as
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
upon squelched cusp of progressivism,
now most likely
experience bitterness at the autocracy
of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

Impossible mission to believe
amidst audacity, atrocity, egocentricity,
ferocity, mendacity, rapacity, et cetera
former KGB intelligence officer currently
serving as President of Russia
total mortal kombat of Ukraine did conceive
author of these words doth grieve
needless wanton death and destruction
analogous to volcano that lays waste
to innocent lives indiscriminately
spews forth horror as fiery lava
belches forth instantaneously
devastating explosions heave
leveling great swaths landscape
Gaia retching liquid rock
rendering utter wasteland
entombed survivors cannot leave.

The older generation
most likely experienced taste of democracy
(or the closest approximation thereof)
as I (am American baby boomer)
felt wowed by revolutionary changes,
when Ronald Reagan
occupied the White House.

Permafrost of the cold war thawed
when Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev
(a Russian: born 2 March 1931)
ranked as salutary Soviet statesman.

As eighth leader of Soviet Union,
he rang successful posts as follows:
General Secretary of Communist Party
Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991.

He headed country of sprawling Soviet state
from 1988 until 1991
Chairman of Presidium of Supreme Soviet
from 1988 to 1989,
Chairman of Supreme Soviet from 1989 to 1990,
and President of Soviet Union from 1990 to 1991.

Gorbachev was born in Stavropol Krai
into a peasant Ukrainian–Russian family knoll high
in his teens, operated combine harvesters
on collective farms as strapping guy.

He graduated from Moscow State University
in 1955 with a degree in law.

While at university, he joined Communist Party,
and soon became jaw
burr walk key i.e. very active mouthpiece per se.
In 1970, his near flawless
dossier a boon asper getting appointed
First Party Secretary drawing
salary of Stavropol Regional Committee,
First Secretary as “Chaw”

Bach ca qua Supreme Soviet in 1974,
and appointed as member of Politburo in 1979.

Within three years after death of Soviet leader
Leonid Brezhnev, following brief "interregna"
of Andropov and Chernenko, Gorbachev
elected general secretary chief
by Politburo in 1985.

Before reaching said post,
his bona fides occasioned bill leaf
As top dog name-dropped
in Western newspapers
as a likely next leader and reef
furred as barrier to manage
younger generation at top level.

Gorbachev's policies of glasnost ("openness")
and perestroika ("restructuring") and
his reorientation of Soviet
strategic aims contributed
to end Cold War.

Under a rustling brand
new program, the role
of Communist Party in governing
the state was removed demand
did via the constitution,
which inadvertently led to crisis-level
political instability fanned
surge of regional nationalist
and anti-communist activism
culminating in dissolution hand
of Soviet Union. Gorbachev
later expressed regret
for failure to save USSR, Mother land
though he insisted his policies not failures,
but rather vitally necessary reforms, miss man
aged, sabotaged and exploited by opportunists.

He was awarded the Otto Hahn
Peace Medal in 1989,
the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990
and Harvey Prize in 1992, plus un-cease
sing honorary doctorates from various universities.

In September 2008, Gorbachev vis
a vis, and business oligarch Alexander Lebedev
announced formation of Independent
Democratic Party of Russia,
and in May 2009 Gorbachev
announced that launch meant
to be imminent.

This third attempt Gorbachev
sought to establish a political party, rent
asunder from disparate competitors started
Social Democratic Party of Russia in tent
toward legitimacy dated 2001,
and Union of Social Democrats
in 2007 voice of the people to vent.

Hobbit those characters who lived
within the realm
of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien
as far removed as
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
upon squelched cusp of progressivism,
now most likely
experience bitterness at the autocracy
of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

Permafrost of the cold war thawed
when Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev
(a Russian: born 2 March 1931)
ranked as salutary Soviet statesman.

As eighth leader of Soviet Union,
he rang successful posts as follows:
General Secretary of Communist Party
Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991.

He headed country of sprawling Soviet state
from 1988 until 1991
Chairman of Presidium of Supreme Soviet
from 1988 to 1989,
Chairman of Supreme Soviet from 1989 to 1990,
and President of Soviet Union from 1990 to 1991.

Gorbachev was born in Stavropol Krai
into a peasant Ukrainian–Russian family knoll high
in his teens, operated combine harvesters
on collective farms as strapping guy.

He graduated from Moscow State University
in 1955 with a degree in law.

While at university, he joined Communist Party,
and soon became jaw
burr walk key i.e. very active mouthpiece per se.

In 1970, his near flawless
dossier a boon asper getting appointed
First Party Secretary drawing
salary of Stavropol Regional Committee,
First Secretary as “Chaw”

Bach ca qua Supreme Soviet in 1974,
and appointed as member of Politburo in 1979.

Within three years after death of Soviet leader
Leonid Brezhnev, following brief "interregna"
of Andropov and Chernenko, Gorbachev
elected general secretary chief
by Politburo in 1985.

Before reaching said post,
his bona fides occasioned bill leaf
As top dog name-dropped
in Western newspapers
as a likely next leader and reef
furred as barrier to manage
younger generation at top level.

Gorbachev's policies of glasnost ("openness")
and perestroika ("restructuring") and
his reorientation of Soviet
strategic aims contributed
to end Cold War.

Under a rustling brand
new program, the role
of Communist Party in governing
the state was removed demand
did via the constitution,
which inadvertently led to crisis-level
political instability fanned
surge of regional nationalist
and anti-communist activism
culminating in dissolution hand
of Soviet Union. Gorbachev
later expressed regret
for failure to save USSR, Mother land
though he insisted his policies not failures,
but rather vitally necessary reforms, miss man
aged, sabotaged and exploited by opportunists.

He was awarded the Otto Hahn
Peace Medal in 1989,
the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990
and Harvey Prize in 1992, plus un-cease
sing honorary doctorates from various universities.

In September 2008, Gorbachev vis
a vis, and business oligarch Alexander Lebedev
announced formation of Independent
Democratic Party of Russia,
and in May 2009 Gorbachev
announced that launch meant
to be imminent.

This third attempt Gorbachev
sought to establish a political party, rent
asunder from disparate competitors started
Social Democratic Party of Russia in tent
toward legitimacy dated 2001,
and Union of Social Democrats
in 2007 voice of the people to vent.

This silent pen,
This flowing aromatic
This spare confessional,
This alchemy of light.

And you light a cigarette,
Prowl the room like a leopard.
And the trains run east to west,
And somehow this comforts you
On the way to your other gig.
And the sun roars against the window,
Your face,
Gliding up the road.
And you think of Yeats,
Shelly, the Shaw Of Iran,
Perestroika, Persian rugs,
Brahms And bikinis,
And you know your friends,
Watch your enemies,
Keep a checklist,
Forget the checklist
As the woman with the legs
Crosses against the light.

And the lights come up,
The movie's ended.
The streetlights shine in the mist.
You walk to your car,
And rain dots the windshield
As cars hiss up the street.