A. Z. Foreman

Alexander Pushkin Writes on a White Night 

  ...Воспоминание безмолвно предо мной    "...Without a sound, Remembrance of Things Past 
      Свой длинный развивает свиток...         Unwinds before me her long scroll..."
                                                       — from Remembrance by A.S. Pushkin 

Pinned to his bed by yet another whore's 
fresh STD, the dark light of the pole
is penal in Saint Petersburg. The soul 
falls fatally in love with its own sores. 

The time to write has found him. Mercury cures
won't heal the truth. His angels of belief
are girlfriends' phantoms paling against grief. 
The rhymes twist like the serpents of remorse. 

See the secreter of the Russian Soul. 
Whenever pious memory's gonorrhean
skin opens for you like a history scroll,
look for the lines that you can look between. 

He did. A man no good for anything
but verses hearing more than you dare sing.

A. Z. Foreman is a poet and translator pursuing a doctorate in Near Eastern Languages at the Ohio State University. His work has been featured or is forthcoming in the Threepenny Review, the Los Angeles Review, ANMLY and elsewhere. He hopes one day to be featured in either the Starfleet Academy Quarterly or the Tatooine Review. In any case, he’s most proud of having had his work featured in two people’s tattoos. Most importantly, if you have a dog he’d love to pet it.