Mishka’s Decameron
—by Mishka Zakharin
…In the dark days of the early Twenty-first Century,
a vile heinousness arose to threaten the established order – a plague of
goiters had descended upon the town, and terror held the populous in its
grip…. And so it came to pass that ten
comrades chose to take leave of their thyroidially pox’d home, to travel the
countryside, passing the time in the creative endeavor of poetic expression…
for each of the ten days they roamed, all would take a turn upon that day’s
particular theme, in the end to have voiced a collective cental of poems as
they vaunted in a crapulent copiousness of potables…. The Decameron is the superlative collection of Mishka’s
poetry: humor, philosophy, sexuality,
wisdom, and everything one could want from a veritable sculptor of words….
Poetry BookSurge
Copyright: 2003 ISBN 1-59109-696-0
Excerpts—
Mists of Inspiration
The stream of my consciousness
is wide and burbling
and cold in the shadow of the trees,
but warm and sparkling in the noonday sun—
and it is often very shallow
and rocky and heading over a cliff somewhere…
at the last, twirling
in swirling vortexes of creativity
through the pooling depths
before the precipice—
rolling over the edge
to cascade in glimmering drops
and rivulets of prisms plunging
into a brightening abyss,
to fall upon the rough, course rocks
of society’s righteous indignation
and ignorance and scorn,
only to rebound and disperse
once more toward the open sky
in a splaying spray
of the mists of inspiration…
—though there are those
who would say
I’m really just all wet….
Endocrinological Affections
I thought for sure I’d contracted the Plague…
little was my reassurance to discover
it was really only pemphigus…
She makes my thyroid gland
swell with enlarged wonder—
at her miraculous beauty,
at her enchanting grace,
at her seductive ambiance…
engorged with thyroxine,
I am helpless but to secrete—
nay, to spew!—
my love all over her,
my very favorite craniate vertebrate…
and, still, my goiter bleeds…
Musings – #29
I don’t like the smell of things…
Epimethial regrets stir
beneath the surface…
but there is no going back,
and no viable solutions
are presented
to clear a path forward….
“This
is my blood
that
I have given up for…
(well,
it escapes me just now…)”
My hand burns—
and
I rub and I rub,
but
the blood won’t come off!…
—my fingers become entirely
obscured in flames,
licking hungrily
at my flesh,
seeking to consume
as much of me as they can
before some way is proffered
to cease their progression….
The wine has turned to vinegar—
I drink it nonetheless…
for what am I,
if not the bilious brine of
something else that has gone bad?…
I await the day
when all shall be forgotten…
(better
it had never been known…)
“Manitou”
“From the moment I first saw you…”
I know I’ve said those words often—
for effect, for drama, for romance,
for poetic ‘what have you’…
but, literally, the moment we met
I felt a jolt, like electricity,
coursing through me…
from the very first,
I was falling in love with you….
A feeling inherently permeated
with the essence of Destiny—
a love ordained from Divine Decree,
mapped by the spinners of Fate
and enacted by the motion
of the stars and planets above;
emotions that swell within,
arising in spite of their contrary nature
to my beliefs of the workings of the Universe…
my world seems turned upside down—
the only thing I know for sure that makes sense
is you….
I tried to hide it, to bury it away
where it wouldn’t bother anyone…
—Where
it couldn’t destroy me!—
but the wall I have built to contain it
crumbles ever away…
and more of all that I feel for you
comes pouring out,
crashing like ocean waves
all around me—
I might, at any moment,
be swept entirely away…
yet my only fear
is that you will not be there
to hold me safely grounded
within the tempest
of my love for you….
Metaphysical Mêlée
I don’t care so much
to be lumped casually in with
those who are labeled “Human”—
I rather prefer to be seen
as something between
a Monkey and a God…
(but
that’s just Me…).
Rooted too deeply in Reality,
I see the illusion of Life all around—
always just barely out of reach,
never meant for Me…
accessible only to those
who cannot Believe.
Within the reputed context,
despite the vagaries of the Dream,
it all makes a certain sense—
yet extrinsically, upon Awakening,
I realize it’s really
not even a Thing at all….
Contents—
Exordium
The First Day – Where Mishka Strays
Where Mishka Strays
August 6, 2000
“Mikhail Ivanovich—Where Are You?! . . .”
June 1, 2000
Incessancy—2
The Nature of Things: Why I Didn’t Go Into Botany . . .
May 30, 2000
Eccentricities: My Butt
Ode to Lower Primates
Dental Hygiene
The Second Day – Mists of Inspiration
Mists of Inspiration
Haiku
‘Navel’ Maneuvers
winter in shangri-la
“Only Up To The Navel”
Afflatus
Muses
Muses II
Words
tabula
rasa
The Third Day – My All, My Everything
My All, My Everything
De
Pascha Comutus
Quadra-Quata
Quata Two
Quata
Coquettish Ruminations
Michele
The Most Beautiful Girl in the World
Shall I Compare Thee . . .
A Certain Something
The Fourth Day – Personal Growth
Personal Growth
The Eve of the Eve of the Eve of St. Valentine’s Day
Endocrinological Affections
Musings - #31
The Glow in Her Eyes . . .
Meshuga Eve
Musings - #35, Revisited
Musings - #35
October 5, 1997 (2)
July 22, 2001
The Fifth Day – My Winter Holiday
How I Spent My Winter Holiday
Musings - #30
Rita
#267
My Winter Holiday: Week Two
Nebraskan Stripper
Musings - #27
Musings - #28
Business Before Pleasure
My Winter Holiday: Week Three
The Sixth Day – Desolation
Desolation
December 29, 1999
November 18, 1999
Umbra
February
Ignis Fatuus
December 18, 2001 (1)
Musings - #29
Musings - #39
Adrift
The Seventh Day – Bodaciously Edacious
Bodaciously Edacious
“She of Gentle Morsels”
The Angst-ridden Vagabond
Ode to a Random Woman
Froggies 9: Puddingish
Fruit Salad
Ode to Chipped Beef
When Love Goes Bad . . .
Que Said-je
The Eighth Day – Forbidden Love
Our Forbidden Love . . .
“Manitou”
Hebe
the masque of agamemnon
April 18, 2001
By the Light of Day
Artemis
February 14, 2000
October 19, 1999
Q-3
The Ninth Day – Soulful Regurgitation
Soulful Regurgitation
The Baobab Tree
Clinging
The Red Herring
Penumbra
The Groggery
Monkey Business
The First Noble Truth
Allegory
Solar Winds
The Tenth Day – Metaphysical Melee
Metaphysical Melee
“The Proud Man’s Contumely”
98.6 degrees
January 2, 2000
Life Is
Life
Standing Naked in the Cold of Winter’s Night
Naked
Musings - #18
Musings - #36
Terminus
The Mishkan Book of the Dead