1. The sun is setting again.
A shimmering haze over the ocean.
On the glossy water-a sailboat,
a slender fin.
Summer ends too soon.
Autumn in the heart. Autumn.
Life flows away into the sky.
Winter is coming.


July 31, 2019

From the Haiku collection

***

2. I'm by the river...
 The water lilies are swaying
   on the waves,
their yellow heads
   and broad leaves...
And my heart and mind
  are getting a little lighter...

My life is waning and meaningless...

I had an anchor - my mom...

Now she is gone...

I'm praying for her soul...

I don't want her to know
   how awful it is for me
to live without her...

"What will happen to you
   when I'm gone," -
she once said.

She was worri-
  ed
and not for no reason...

I've never thought
   it would be such a draught...

I've lived my life alone
  and speculated
it would be the same without her.

Alas, 
   I was wrong...

The International shows
   want nothing, but money...
Then they would praise you and eulogize...

The rest of the world
 wants nothing at all
from me...

I should finish
  the projects
of me-
  mo-
   ry...

I really want
   my family names
remain
   in the country's
scientific his-
   tory...

Then I will leave this world
   with relief...



July 17, 2026


***

3. After a good swim
   I'm getting out of the river -
the feeling is quite Baltic -
  and walk on the grass
 imagining
I'm walking to my mom,
   my step-father
and my little brother
   along the sands of Pärnu...

That was my last holiday 
   with my parents
     before my last year
      at secondary school
And before my fatal mistake
   when I dumped my first and true love...
who was intended as a spouse for my life-time...

I was so happy back then -
   with my parents and their friends...
And my little brother was so sweet...
  Now he is 53 and has 4 kids...

That summer
   I could have gone
to an International camp
  in Československo
with the girls from my form.

Somehow I didn't regret it at all...
 And I don't
regret it now...

In Pärnu
 we had a little house of our own.

It wasn't our own,
  but felt as if it were...

My life was all in store -
   with all the sufferings 
and glamour of my work...

And - most importantly -
   I was in love
and with my parents...

Now they are gone...


July 17, 2026
The Silver Forest



***


4. Somewhere...
   deep down
    in the heart
      of this grey-haired
       ageing man
lives a boy of 14...

He was a miraculous Prince
   and in love with me...

We should have lived this whole life together -
   the King and the Queen.

My fault.

Now... what can I do?
   I've lived alone,
without you...



August 4, 2026


***

5. As mama used to say:
"I don't like it when my subconscious is empty..."

She meant:
if some mathematical problem isn't spinning in her head,
life becomes uninteresting...

The Presidium of the Academy of Sciences
wrote that "she thought decades ahead,"
ahead of her time...

And I want to endlessly create my own world -
a world of images and words.

The world around us
can be anything...

But art must be beautiful...

P.S. And I want to shoot a film



August 4, 2026


***

6. And all these cars,
rushing about their business, to Nowhere,
and all the trams polishing the rails,
which, however, will never be polished,
and the stores selling all sorts of food to sustain the spirit in the body,
and the operators of bee-line, MTS and telecom...

All this fuss
became meaningless when Mom left this world forever...

July 22, 2026


***

7. Landscape for mama

Mama!
I captured this landscape for you -
and not an abstract one,
not cubist -
realistic,
just as you loved...

And the white marble angel...
 I photographed it...
  I cannot put it on your grave,
but I can have it engraved on a creative monument
 of an extraordinary shape.

There was Mom,
a wonderful Mom...
She worked hard,
raised us,
built our home,
laughed,
made jokes,
went to concerts,
went to museums,
advanced hydro and gas dynamics,
attended scientific Congresses,
read good books with interest...

And now, a small plot...
And in the church - a candle stand...

But that's here,
in the material world...

And in That One, Invisible and Eternal,
Mom lives.

I feel it.
I know it.
But earthly life
takes its toll.

I understand -
we come here to work,
we rest there...,

The soul, like a bird,

takes off
and dissolves in the Spiritual World...

But how will those who remain here live on...



July 22, 2026

***

8. 

Zebra swings in the yard...
They have red handles for ears,
like sword handles...,
so that the children don't fall off.

Children are Angels...

And these
wooden zebras,
who want to bring them joy,
and the sparse grass,
the crooked asphalt
and the apartment blocks
that frame the yard so absurdly, 
chaotically,
I will not make a fuss about them -

they're not worth these little children,
their unspeakably soft skin
and innocent eyes...

They come into this world from Heaven
and hold on to the handles
stuck in the holes for zebras' ears,
so that they do not fall off the swings...

Nobody knows
  what else they'll have to go through and endure...
the Guardians of their souls, they know...




July 22, 2026


***


9. In summer
   Moscow feels
like a coastal city

You might think,
   the sea 
is just
  some subway stations away...

But the sea is away -
  hours by air away...

I haven't been to to the sea
   for quite some time...

It's hot
  and the city is different,
like a place in the South

One cannot imagine the winter now...
  It will come, though

But at the moment...
   here are the summer months


   Let's enjoy what we have



May 22, 2026


                                     ***

10. Along the river,
on her back,
   floats a gray-haired woman-
her hair pinned up in a bun-
her gaze fixed on the distance...

And within her floats a young girl
   with long chestnut hair,
the girl she once was...

Her hair streams in the water.
  She rejoices and laughs-
her whole life lies ahead...



August 6, 2026


                                         ***

11. Fleurs de la nuit...
- Have you ever seen?
- Only in my dream...
- Can you describe them?
- Not a hint.
   Things
that don't belong to this world
  should not be touched 
by a word.




Feb. 28, 2023


                                         ***


12. So... just like that -
  The Winter came at Night...
So suddenly...
   So unexpectedly...


  't was raining yesterday
After the Evening Mass
   I walked alone
      filled up with Autumn
Umbrella stayed at home

And in the dark
   before the dawn
woke up
  and...
There was Winter
   in my window -
The Earth, the leaves, the roofs:
   all - white...

So suddenly...

So... from now on -
   we'll have the snow, the cold...


Oh, irrevocably!


November 15, 2025


                                      ***


14. I'm walking through the snow
   People are out with their dogs,
some have 2 or 3 on the leashes
  as if we lived in a tundra
and any minute rein deers can show up

I'd photograph
  this castle of a sky-scraper
   through the fir trees, but...

left my camera at home...

I have a camera in my old basic phone
   that I'm using now,
because my regular one is kaput

I'm trying to make a picture with it,
   but it says
"Insert the memory card"

Just what does it mean?
  There is one in

I remember my mother
   photographing in Sagrada Familia
(she called it Zagrada for some reason)
   with her basic phone

How could she do that at all!

We went to Barcelona
   for her World Congress on Mathematical Computation

Almost 12 years have passed

  She has left this world

And I'm alone,
   in a broken health

If this weakness prolongs
  I may quite the scene 
    very soon -
for better? for worse?

Today I was suffocating in my masks
  on the tram,
in the Trade
   Center

I don't wanna to take them off
  If I get another virus or cold
it may be it

I could have never thought
   my life would come
to such a misery

I mustn't complain, though
 No...
   I'm not complaining at all

During the covid
  most of my things turned to rags -
because of the keeping conditions

And what have I turned into
  because of my living conditions...?

I cannot improve them
   Never could

My flat
   is stuffy and small -
not enough space for all
  my clothes and archives

The key word  -
   it's warm and mine

When I moved in
   it was cold and drafty,
so I had bigger radiators installed,
  had windows made fit for the frames,
so that there were no gaps or cracks

I'm not capable of such feats anymore

Also redecorated the old thing,
  but it never changed its ways -
falling apart before I could fix some part

When I moved in
  I lied on the sofa
   and looked up at the ceiling

I saw very clearly -
   it will be my grave,
my sepulcher

40 years have passed
  in a tough struggle

It was a difficult war...

Now I surrender at last
   raising and waving the White Flag

Yield...
  Defen-
ded...


It has won,
   my flat


Feb. 12, 2026


                                        ***

15. To B.D.



In the heart of the Night
  when you're further away
    than before
      our love
        seems
         to be possible.

I don't say,
  seems to be real,
   'cause it's more real
      than this lamp
       or that window.

Yes,
  all of a sudden
   it seems to be possible
    when all your passions
      have ebbed away from me,

only the idea has stayed
  in its ideal form -
    wishful thinking.




Jan. 21, 2005






to be continued