New Poetry by Aleksandr Smechov

DFW The Night Before The Morning He Hangs Himself

Finishing his prandial grub,

Wallace lays recumbent

on his saffron divan.

A minutia fly gives a sort of like

meddling look,

like “what are You planning in that sinuous head,

Wallace ol’ boy?”

He stares at the curlicues bifurcating on the ceiling,

merging and convolving and abdicating.

Him thinking,

that’s how my life’s been.

And then thinking like that last thought was a tad bromidic, no?

A Big Red tonic, empty, standing on his magenta lacquered bureau

reverberates the sharp sun rays that break through

the off-white venetian blinds.

Wallace, supine for like two hours by this time,

ruminates on infamous penultimate and ultimate

Last Words.

“See you tomorrow,” and then

“I love you.”

Some African parrot the night before the morning the grief-spasmed owner found it

supine on its back.

The fly’s landed in the jamb of the

open-just-enough-for-a-bit-of-oxygen window.

it dances a sort of Greek dance,

a sort of Kalamatiano,

Wallace figures.

He recalls the Ambrose story, with the Confederate.

The soda bottle’s not reflecting the rays anymore, and the fly

has eloped and Wallace

is alone.

A skullcap is what he would don,

if he had to choose what his personal hat would be,

and not because it matches his quiddity or anything like that,

just that it feels right.

- Aleksandr Smechov 2012

Frederick the First was a rock

I found him one grey day

While climbing the Vilnius pines;

From a gaunt bough I spotted him,

Lying there, insolent and haughty, like

He owned the damn meadow.

I Don’t Think So, I though, and

Took him home,

Washed him,

Even gave him a nice spot by the window.

I figured he’d be lonely there, so sometimes

I took him with me.

We rolled down mountains,

Climbed mammoth trees,

Braved mud pits with our bare feet.

One day I threw him off a hill, and

When I rolled down he wasn’t there. Grandma and I

Searched for hours.

We looked every day,

but Frederick I was lost.

How easy it is to kill a king

When he’s not in his palace.

Fredrick II was a giant cockroach.

He lived under the bathroom’s washing machine,

In his moist castle.

I tried to assassinate him many times,

But I always failed;

He was too fast, too lean, too small to get caught.

One day my mom screamed.

Fredrick II was in the bathtub.

I turned on the steaming water

And he washed down

His watery tomb.

How easy it is to kill a king

When he’s not in his palace.

- Aleksandr Smechov 2012

Aleksandr was born in Belarus, moved to Lithuania for a year and then immigrated to the United States. He has lived in the Bronx ever since, going back to Lithuania several times. He attends Baruch College where he majors in journalism. He plans to become an investigative journalist, but what he truly wants to do is write fiction. His favorite author (for now) is David Foster Wallace. He is also a Borges junkie. Taking a class with poet Laurie Sheck was what really improved and galvanized his poetry. He is 20 years old.