Sergei Yesenin 1895-1925

Abstract

Th is matted and glossy photo of Yesenin bought at a Leningrad newsstand—permanently tilted on my desk: he doesn’t stare at me he stares at nothing; the diff erence between a plane crash and a noose adds up to nothing. And what can I do with heroes with my brain fixed on so few of them? Again nothing. Regard his flat magazine eyes with my half-cocked own, both of us seeing nothing. In the vodka was nothing and Isadora was nothing, the pistol waved in New York was nothing, and that plank bridge near your village home in Ryazan covered seven feet of nothing, the clumsy noose that swung the tilted body was nothing but a noose, a law of gravity this seeking for the ground, a few feet of nothing between shoes and the floor a light year away. So this is a song of Yesenin’s noose which came to nothing, but did a good job as we say back home where there’s nothing but snow. But I stood under your balcony in St. Petersburg, yes St. Petersburg! a crazed tourist with so much nothing in my heart it wanted to implode. And I walked down to the Neva