Sergei Yesenin 1895-1925

to D.G.

This matted and glossy photo of Yeseninbought at a Leningrad newsstand—permanentlytilted on my desk: he doesn't stare at mehe stares at nothing; the diff erence betweena plane crash and a noose adds up to nothing.And what can I do with heroes with my brain fixedon so few of them? Again nothing. Regard his flatmagazine eyes with my half-cocked own, bothof us seeing nothing. In the vodka was nothingand Isadora was nothing, the pistol wavedin New York was nothing, and that plank bridgenear your village home in Ryazan covered seven feetof nothing, the clumsy noose that swung the tiltedbody was nothing but a noose, a law of gravitythis seeking for the ground, a few feet of nothingbetween shoes and the floor a light year away.So this is a song of Yesenin's noose which cameto nothing, but did a good job as we say back homewhere there's nothing but snow. But I stood underyour balcony in St. Petersburg, yes St. Petersburg!a crazed tourist with so much nothing in my heartit wanted to implode. And I walked down to the Neva embankment with a fine sleet falling and there wasfinally something, a great river vastly flowing, flatas your eyes; something to marry to my nothing heartother than the poems you hurled into nothing thoseyears before the articulate noose