Mishka, Mishka
—by Mishka Zakharin
Mishka
Zakharin’s latest anthology, Mishka, Mishka, is really like five poetry
collections in one…
‘Mishka’s
Polonaise #6 (in F)’—mellifluous musings on the love of lyricism and the
lyricism of love…
‘Mishkabury
Tales’ collects a variety of tales to tell, rants to ramble, epics to enthrall…
‘Mishka’s
Blue Period’, though nothing to do with Picasso… more like ‘Muddy Mishka Sings
the Blues’…
‘Bohemian
Mishkapsody’—Beat or Bohemian?—licentious libertine or just plain wacky on the
crackers?!…
and ‘The
Mishka Sutra’, the thread of life—the ups, downs, and in-betweens of living…
Poetry iUniverse
Copyright: 2004 ISBN:
0-595-31792-8
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December 12, 2002
Amidst chaos
I dwell in silent stasis
an isolation wrought
by contemplation
—if you know not, you ought—
of my sublime adoration:
You fill my soul—
your very essence consumes…
from my core
I burn through;
never could another imbue
such consummate emotion…
Affection ascending
through desire transcending—
the heat in your kiss
inspiring such pleasure;
the magick in your touch,
a bliss beyond measure…
Your love sweeps over me,
surrounds,
sinking into me—
enwraps,
then enraptures,
ensconced all within me—
the satiation of a yearning
from which I hope
never to be free….
So this is my life…
vodka and cigars
and champagne…
and her…
—No, no, of course not,
don’t be ridiculous…
not Her…
(but—holy crud!—
wouldn’t that be something!…)
…just the chicky from the gas station,
with the short, dirty-dishwater-blonde hair,
and the dull, gray eyes,
and the nice face
punctuated by the stud in her nose
(and I don’t mean me…
—none of your business!
Just back off, jack’!
hrmpf!~)
…soft hands, strong legs, cold feet,
and nubby, yet exuberantly striving, breasts….
Listening to ‘Moulin Rouge’
and making various degrees of love…
(or reasonable facsimiles thereof…)—
and spiders! Spiders—everywhere!
You can never kill them all,
the blood-sucking, little bastards!!…
She doesn’t say much…
I jest, I joke, I offer and indulge—
I flirt and verbally crawl all about her person,
as if a reptilian-parasitic-marsupialish-
worshiper/sacrifice-at-the-altar-of-her-love!…
A tolerant smile cracks her face
—(a smiling toleration faces
her crack?!…
No knowing, no nothing!
I’ve said too much…)—
as she remembers the vodka
and cigars and champagne are mine…
and I slip readily into the moist warmth
of her subterfuge…
And then I awaken—
on some other day
(in either the distant ‘hither
and yon!’
or a mind-blearied ‘wherefore whosooth what-the?!’…)
she is gone…
as is the vodka—
though the last of the cigars
still smolders in the carpet
beside the empty champagne bottle…
the ‘Moulin Rouge’ soundtrack
somehow mystically plays on—
though I know,
without bothering to look,
she has stolen the stereo….
When she laughed
it sounded as if
someone may have
sat upon a small dog—
and she smelled
like that, too…
but he loved her
like Nero loved Rome—
he fiddled
while she burned…
and, sure,
they had issues
in their relationship,
but who doesn’t?…
besides, quite frankly,
if they hadn’t had issues,
they wouldn’t have had
anything at all….
What matters the eternal love
of an infinite soul
when placed in a finite being
of limited circumstance?…
How can the hope for paradise
compete with the promise
of “’til death do us part”?…
Every moment relived,
each emotion felt once more,
yet focused, intensified,
almost too much to bear all at once:
The spark in her eyes
when first you met,
mirroring the fire that flared
to life in your heart;
the first kiss;
the first your hand reached for hers
and it was already there;
the first “I love you”;
the first you held her in the night,
feeling as if your soul could soar
through highest heaven and back,
but not daring to move
for fear of waking her;
—the first you really, completely realized
she will never again be there for you—
the sound of her voice,
never again to be heard…
the touch of her hand,
never again to be felt…
the scent of her hair,
never again to be smelled…
the unspoken thoughts,
given life through knowing glances
only the two of you knew,
never again to be shared….
The warmth within,
at the very core of being,
making you feel whole, complete,
suddenly and violently torn away…
she was always there,
always with you
no matter where she was—
but now she’s gone…
and the cold, empty abyss left behind
threatens to pull you into lonely oblivion;
once everything that truly mattered,
now reduced by the whim of Fate
to ever fading memories—
that you must, for sanity,
try to push away,
even as you cling to them
with ultimate desperation,
because there is nothing else left—
of a “Once upon a time”
that could not live up
to its “Happily ever after…”
“O heinous, abhorrent clouds
of ill-intent—
release the glory of my god
to shine down over me once more!
Leave me not in shadowed doubt
as to Apollo’s gilded glory,
but disperse with thine own bad self
and interrupt not his brilliant reign
o’er the heavens of day
wi’ thy shenanigous ne’er-do-well’dness!…
“Ah—and as the bilious obscurers
to my blissful tranquility
scatter off in fear and petty loathing,
thus leaving unhindered
my lord’s splendorous might—
thereby leatherizing
mine outer-most layer
of cancer cells—
sizzle, sizzle goes the flesh of Mishka!
Huzzah!…”
On the front porch of the world—
searching for words,
but looking for answers…
My cigar has gone out,
and my beer, now nigh thoroughly depleted,
the snow drizzles down undeterminedly—
a hazy, wet almost
of nearly inspired unintent…
—there is a ripple
of nothing
through the night,
as the snow melts upon contact,
to glisten from the browning grass
under the gray, empty sky—
like unfulfilled hopes
upon relentless dreams
that won’t die….
The belated summer sun
at last smiles
its golden warmth
into me,
a breeze
cushioning the intensity—
if only slightly—
of Apollo’s brazen pride…
Against the backdrop
of a shimmering cityscape—
as if of glimmering palaces
with crystal towers
and gilded turrets—
and the sprightly dance
of sparkling waters beyond,
I am encircled
within the lush green
of Nature’s reawakening,
beneath a vibrant canopy
of clear, open, endless blue…
Passersby wander
in bedazzled wonder—
hesitantly, as if at last revisiting
a cherished dream from childhood,
fearful of rousing—
dazed by such brilliant glory
after being held so long
in the direful clutches
of cold, wet, dreary spring…
So easily lost in the magic—
for the moment, at least,
the chiggers of the past are forgotten,
the probable rickets of the future unthought;
I bask in the splendor of the elements,
and drift in the wonder of knowing
all that really matters is now.
* * * * * *
Contents—
Mishka’s
Polonaise #6 (in F)
Pleiades – Part 2
Within Me
Hekate’s Intimation
December 12, 2002
Psychic Serum
Kilimanjaro
‘Someday Luna…’
O Goddess!
Symbiotic Juxtaposition
November 12, 2002
‘Friday, 7:52 p.m.’
All That You Are to Me
January 4, 2003
January 23, 2003
Your Pervading Essence
Ode to Tatyana
Ode to Tatyana II
Ode to Tatyana III
Words (2)
Midvintersblot Eve
Poets’Passion
Mishkabury
Tales
Eleventh Night
The Groggery 2: Shakespeare’s Barstool
Froggies X: Parallel Lives
Bastard Stigma (2)
Sleepless Nights
Life Looms
The Alchemist
July 25, 2002
Nyx’s Daughter
Reminiscence Interruptus
Round Table
Amazon Love
August 2, 2001
The Descension of Night
Manifestly Undestined
No Greater Love
The Hunger II
Tuesday Night
Palliatively Yours
Musings - #54
Blueberry Blues
Notes of an Angstridden Vagabond
Mishka’s Blue
Period
June 18, 2003
Dissolution
February 13, 2003 (3)
Eyes That Hide
‘Woe Is Me…’
February 13, 2003
without you
March 16, 2003
March 26, 2003
World of Woe
April 3, 2003
With This Love
Musings - #40
February 13, 2003 (4)
Perspectives
July 22, 2002 - #2
Declivitous Decline
Half-life
Things
February 9, 2003
Pariah
Day 1,131
Parcae’s Paramour
‘Complainte de la Butte’
Bohemian
Mishkapsody
Ascendancy
Tiger Elegy 1
Canticle
Tiger Elegy 2
July 12, 2003
Tiger Elegy 3
Musings - #33
Musings #46
Tiger Elegy 4
July 31, 2002
‘Poppy Seeds’
Tiger Elegy 5: Coveting Dmitri’s Yucca Tree
The Mishka
Sutra
Ode to Musings - #6
Looking For God
Looking For Truth
God Loves You
Musings - #53
Musings - #44
December 12, 2001 - #2
On the Eve of Agincourt
Duplicity
Self
January 28, 2002
Life Unlived
Musings - #34
Purgatory
Distances
The Prisoner
Pusillanimous
September 5, 2001
December 12, 2001
Musings - #48
On Being Human
Carpe Diem
Spring Ahead, Fall Back
Bereavement
The Nature of Being Human
Excremental Existentialism
The Road From Eden
MacArthur Square
Musings - #47
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