When I’m alone at 5pm on a Wednesday or have a thought that I can’t get out of my head, I write a poem. Most of them never get finished, because the point is not to have something to show someone else. The point is simply writing it. They’re how I make sense of the world around me and keep track of what matters, and that has led to my poetry folder getting pretty full throughout this trip. I’ve written about the things I’ve loved here, and the things I’ve hated.
A few weeks ago, my professor Victoria, knowing my tendency to write poetry for fun, told me I could publish a few of my poems in lieu of writing one of my blog posts. And here I am, with three (essentially) finished poems. I’m no poet laureate, but I do like writing it. I hope you enjoy reading them as least a fourth as much as I like writing them.
The tiny bugs on my screen
microscopic until
they’re on top of
what you’re writing
yellow or green
sometimes brown
the size of a pinhead
just walking around
like everyone else here
in the city that lives out
of their tiny apartments
lining the lively riverside
that looks suspiciously
like a canal draped in air
that feels like a soft blanket
over your shoulders
while I run into
my new friends at
the little circle
where a Kazakh man
sings American songs
every Sunday morning
that’s only four minutes
from my Soviet block
apartment’s front door
A list names I’ve been called in the past half year pulled from my notebook
Second name
In a family of Dmitry, Vasya, and Natasha
I am the American son
With only a last name shared with this family
Until Babushka gave me a beautiful Russian name
Older than the new country
Елисей
But to my father I was
Лисёнок little fox
Чучело scarecrow
Since Елисей
Is not a child’s name
My names are the only words
I remembered
Past five
In what should’ve been
My inheritance
A second language
I was 18
When I found a chance
To learn this language
To return to my old name
To spend fifty weeks
Following the road East
Meeting Circe along the way
Turning me into Леся
Until I left her behind
Greeting each stranger
As Елисей
Approaching the country
That kept my family
In the Great Patriotic War
Carrying a warning under my arm
That no one would believe me to be
Елисей
Upon arrival I declared
My name is Елисей
To everyone who asked
Hoping that somebody
Would believe that
I have a second great name
But just as they called Katya Kate
They left my American name butchered
And my Russian name untouched
It took one week
Before I realized
Nobody believes
That I am Елисей
Since no American boy
Has a silly Russian name
There was no funeral
The day that Елисей died
Since he was gone when
I forgot this language
For the first time
A sunset on the Kazakh steppe
A leap of faith
I’m stuck in the snowy plains
Where summer and winter are only distinguished
By whether the wind is biting or all consuming
Horses, motorcycles, cars, trains
Race past me
A race to the end of the line
While I try to find meaning in the tiny forests
One day’s journey from the last
Houses hide in the forests
Always abandoned, ramshackled to the past
So ancient that the forest must have grown around them
The forest of trees standing crooked
Pointing towards the mountains
Beneath the horizon
Somebody built a home here
Then left it to melt into the landscape
Lives are buried in the dirt
Now I’m here to run
Not to build a life
I’m looking out over
Horses grazing on endless steppe
Reminded that someone said
That things are simple here
While I’m left to wonder
What simple means at all
I think its four days until my next stop
On my journey to nowhere
Another chance to try things out
Before I leave prematurely
To wander further
Taking another leap of faith
Because I can’t remember
What I was searching for
But for now I’m high in a tree
Sitting next to an abandoned crows nest
Watching the sun set over the entire world
Comforted by the certainty
I don’t know what I’m doing
The day after next
