Mishka
Zakharin: Biography
I was born in 1970 in Watertown, Wisconsin. I graduated “Madame Cum Loudly” from the University of Wisconsin
– Whitewater with a BA in English and history
(I’d wanted a BS, but was informed I already had enough of that, I
didn’t need a degree in it besides…).
For the most part, I write. In
lieu of an actual life, I mean. The
result of this is just pages upon pages of incessant rambling—some of which
turns out to be worthwhile in a poetic, philosophical, or humorous kind of way,
and so I deem to share it with the world… if the world doesn’t want it,
however, that’s the world’s problem—stay the hell off my website then! I don’t need this crap from you!!…
But I digress… to get back on track, my writing tends to fall into
three main categories: inanely absurd;
sexy or romantic; and darkly philosophical.
And, of course, just to mix things up a bit and keep the reader on his
or her literary toes, a lot of the time something will cross over into one—if
not both—of the other main themes… (oh, okay, alright, alright, okay—so
maybe it’s not so much to mix things up as I’m just a bit unstable… hob nob… do
what you do, be what you will, get off my back already, dammit, I’m just doing
what I’m doing here… [~drifting~] …and so it goes…). Oh, Well!
Warm weather, swimming, volleyball, the Beatles, Monty Python, the Marx
Brothers, Steve Martin, William Shakespeare, Feodor Dostoyevski, the occasional
really nasty cigar, a wonderfully rare steak smothered in mushrooms and onions,
a lovely cabernet sauvignon or merlot, (or just skip the bleedin’ wine and
pour the vodka…), and beautiful women are amongst those things I find the
most enjoyable; on the other hand, winter, bad drivers, small-minded people who
revel in their own barbaric ignorance, any meat that has been made into a loaf,
reptiles that move without legs, and beautiful women are some of the things I
find truly bothersome….
Over-all, if the truth be told, my life has been almost entirely
mundane and ordinary—indeed, I am forced to admit, if it weren’t for the fact
that I was raised by gypsies and have a goiter on my lung that makes it
impossible for me to be killed by drowning, there would probably be absolutely
nothing even worth mentioning….
September 2005:
Ever since moving to Vyetehr-Kamyehngorod (—which
is about halfway between Watertown and Milwaukee—) I can’t help but think,
‘Oh—well, what with all the trains…!’
It really is quite exciting!!…
…yet life is really so unknown—it just
rolls along, endlessly through the night—and then through the day… and—uh!—another
night again… a bit like a train, I suppose… rolling along the infinite tracks
of time… blowing my horn at every crossing… (hoping for some young hotty
with a nice caboose to hop aboard e’ery now an’ agee to blow it for me…!)
…sometimes someone gets in the way—and all you can do is plow them down, cut
them to bits, and get on with things already… just like poor, old, poor
great-great-great grandpa Shversinskya… (though he’s been dead as long as
I’ve known him… so—hob nob, mespozes…)
—butanyhoo… rattling down the tracks of life—rat-a-tat-tat!—and
when you flush, all the heinous waste of life splatters on the rails—as if the
very essence of civilization’s and human-kind’s rebirth!—for the derelicts and
winos and hobos and jackaroos to slip on and—
—and now shall come the autumn… cool,
fresh, and cleansing… and then winter—and death, cold, bitter, all-consuming,
never-forgiving, unholy, unrighteous, unmitigated, and thoroughly heinous
death!… And then the spring, and the
rebirth of my soul….
(—or will the darkness find me here as
well…)
Potemkin—in darkness, whilst fires of hell
rage within… held in check by Groshnyi’s firm restraint—in a glance… don’t
tread on me… don’t judge me—just don’t, do NOT, dammit, and get
off it already!…
…or, perhaps, a silly, sleepy stagnation
amidst the sloppy, swirling splay of springtime sopor… an’, possibly, a ride
upon the rails—hop a freight car with a companion bottle of v., and a-rat-a-tat-tat-tat!!—off
on over the horizon….
(If I ever do that ‘rat-a-tat’ crap
again—anyone, feel free to stab me in the neck with something… hob nob—mayhap
do it now… why take chances…)
Copyright:
2005 Mishka Zakharin