Without Lifting A Finger

 I lived a good distance away from Gorky. Walking the streets at night was exhausting and not without its dangers: a person could get robbed. For this reason, it was not uncommon for me to stay the night; a bed would be made up for me on the divan that stood in the dining room. Late in the evening, the hustle and bustle would die down. The hour would arrive for the family to take their tea. I served as an audience for Gorky’s much-loved reminiscences, the ones that he always trotted out when he wished to “charm” his new acquaintances. Later on, I would learn that these stories were rather limited in number and that, though they retained the appearance of improvisations, they would repeat themselves verbatim, year after year. More than once, I came across character sketches written by people who had happened to visit Gorky’s at one time or another and each time I would laugh when I arrived at the stereotypical phrase: “Alexei Maximovich’s thoughts unexpectedly turn toward the past, ...

 In 1917, Klyuev’s influence, which essentially resonated with Esenin’s own worldview, gave way to the influence of the left-wing SRs. It was at that time that the SRs explained to Esenin that the Rus’ that was to come, the one he had been dreaming of, was, in fact, the new state. This new state would also be built on a religious foundation: not on a pagan or a Christian foundation, but, rather, on a socialist one; not on a faith in redeeming gods, but on faith in the self-organized human being. They explained to him that “there is socialism and then there is Socialism”—that socialism with a lowercase letter is merely a social and political program, but that there is Socialism with a capital letter, too: a “religious idea, a new faith and a new knowledge to which the knowledge and old faith of Christianity are giving way…The best even of professional Christian theologians see this, know this.” “The new universal idea (Socialism) will act as dynamite; it will break the chains that C...

 Three videos (Lumix FZ300 4K Burst) from this morning @ Bolsa Chica. While the videos are "passable" the still "extracts" are not. I tried. At that time of the morning (6 - 8), and with a marine layer, that's the lay of the land. Coyote, Kingfisher, Juvenile Cowbirds. #rl_swihart13 #huntingtonbeachca #bolsachicareserve #coyote #kingfisher #juvenilecowbird #nature #beauty #earlymorning #poetry #videos #readmorepoetry2021

Sorta an anti-poem poem: Notes on "Description of a Struggle." Perhaps towo many allusions for most. Give it a look anyhoo. I have some "simpler" poems coming out eventually. Thanks to Ricardo and Isabel Nirenberg @ Offcourse. Simply the best. https://www.albany.edu/offcourse/issue86/swihart_rl.html

Been jumping around a bit, but one constant has been rereading Nabokov: Speak Memory, Glory (first time and I got a bit bored), Sebastian Knight.  In rereading Knight I thought how wonderfully Nabokov draws from (always tweaking) his own bio. I also (not totally out of the blue) thought of Khodasevich, who I hadn't read (I only know a few poems via Nabokov) or read about for some while. I scratched the itch (this morning) and long story short: I downloaded his Necropolis (prose, memoirs, The Symbolists) and am reading the first "essay" on Nina Petrovskaya: Nina Petrovskaya was not attractive. But in 1903 she was young—and that makes quite a difference. She was “rather smart,” as Blok said, and she was “sensitive,” as they might have said if she had lived a century earlier. Most importantly, she was very good at “matching pitch.” She immediately became the object of a number of loves.

White Point Beach. Send in the clowns. It was a thrill to  cross the gap between mainland and "island" (my shoes usually got wet but I took that as a plus), nod to the sentinel gull (on a large rock overlooking the breakfast table), and watch the oystercatchers (blacks & hybrids) playing their breakfast game. I had so much fun I'll probably go back. Though hybrids are beautiful too, I'd love to see a true American oystercatcher drilling in the sand.:) #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #sanpedro #whitepointbeach #birdsofinstagram #breakfastclub #tidepools #seafoodbuffet #oystercatchers #blackoystercatchers #sendintheclowns #nature #beauty #poetry #readmorepoetry2021

Rock Wren @ White Point Beach. Took me three walks (past the restroom and along a thin path -- like no path -- 'twixt cliff and rocky shore) to get a decent pic of this little guy, but yesterday it was as though he were waiting for me, sitting so quietly on a log.  #rlswihart13 #rl_swihart #sanpedro #whitepointbeach #birdsofinstagram #wrensoftheworld #wrens #rockwrens #stonybeaches #beauty #nature #poetry #readmorepoetry2021