Gregory discovered Yesenin’s poetry in high school. In it, he found a relatable romantic obscurity; an albatross of a body of work that then consumed his every scholastic ambition. He wasn’t interested in math nor philosophy nor social studies. He found himself more drawn to reading the prose of a man devoured by his own humanity; Yesenin, who existed in a context little explored in the American public school system.
Not everyone has his soulmate,
But she was like a song to me,
Because she never took from the dog's collar
Any of the notes I wrote. **
He writes:
Boredom, I think, is what drives my lack of… being compelled to chase after the blonde female. She bores me. Aesthetically, she is not off-putting, but she is by far not interesting. Blonde hair and blue eyes on a woman remind me of high school and my piss-poor attempts at building an obsession, a one-sided preoccupation with developing a relationship that would come to nothing but my own disappointment and resentment over wasted time. Though, I suppose that these days, I like to call what I did then practice. I lived, ate, and shat Yesenin, so naturally my advances were poetic and pretentious and generally not very exciting.
Gregory sat at bus stops each morning regretting not killing himself the night before. The obsession experienced vicariously through Yesenin wore thin on his patience. He sometimes wondered if that stupid girl even read the poems that he’d laboriously transcribed (from the book, not the Russian, which would’ve been more than impressive) all the while ignoring homework assignments and friends.
Gradually, he became frustrated with her distance, and more phenomenally heartbreaking, the shrugging off of his poetically inspired courting. The painfully obvious was that she wasn’t interested, and his undaunted pursuit would, with persistence, only become more wholly fruitless.
You, yourself, under the rain of my caresses will caste off your silk train, And I'll carry you, lightheaded, to the bush till morning. ***
This morning he wakes up and makes a list in his journal. Yesenin was married five times. Gregory believes not in trying for once. There’s vodka in the freezer and whiskey on the floor. Maybe he’ll spend some time outside today. Catch some sun. Finish one of the many books he began reading so long ago.
(2008)
By Patrick Patterson-Carroll
Notes: * -- from Sergei Yesenin "Goodbye, my friend, goodbye" 1925
** -- from Sergei Yesenin "Son of a Bitch" 1924
*** -- from Sergei Yesenin "The Scarlet of Dawn" 1910
** and *** from translations by Lyuba Coffey and * by Geoffrey Hurley.
