Stanislav Mogilev. this is about this

Stanislava Mogileva is a poet, curator, and editor. Born in Norilsk, lives in St. Petersburg. She has been published in the magazines “UFO”, “Air”, “Volga”, kntxt, etc., in the online magazines TextOnly, “Circus Olympus”, “Colon”, “Articulation”, etc. Author of books of poems “Reverse Order” and “This Happens to Someone Else”. The poems have been translated into Swedish and Polish.

The relationship between internal speech (conditionally “mute”) and external speech (external, articulated) here is extremely magnetized and mutually reversible. Quotation marks, parentheses, and line separators do not always and certainly do not immediately help to decouple these two instances. This is intimacy. Moreover, in each of them someone else speaks, interjecting. And even if this someone is not directly indicated in the text (“Nastya says”, “Galya says”, “Lena” says...), out of the corner of our eyes/ears we constantly catch their background presence, voices. This is how, through the slash, this intimate membrane, our senses and our bodies come into contact. And let's add texts. Inner speech grates, drills through outer speech, and vice versa. The eye must be able to hear, not only see; hearing, in turn, must be able to read “from sight.” All these are hackneyed things, but they deserve repetition to the extent that a poetic text that persistently thematizes violence, the experience of violence - “this is about this” - at the same time does not isolate or stigmatize this experience as exclusively external and alien, but, on the contrary, introduces it inside, makes it an integral part of the very structure of the utterance - including at the level of modalities and registers that register the source of violence in the subject itself. Such an operation is always risky, it confuses political, gender, sociological alignments, suspends the subject in a kind of multi-channel resonance chamber (aka a torture chamber), where the voice of the introjected other is sometimes impossible to distinguish from one’s own. But what is your own voice? “We speak with a voice that we do not have and that has never been written down” (Agamben, quoting Benjamin, paraphrasing Aristotle, referring to Sophocles). Poetry is the same, just listen to the voices that permeate it.

Alexander Skidan

diary. Sunday
(don't speak)

read the banality of evil
says Nastya
it will get easier
after I answer her
to the question “how do I feel”
how do I feel
read, says Nastya,
this is about this

"it's about this"
it was half an hour ago
at the after-party after the closing of Polina's exhibition
about n. with transparent scary material evidence
/package, meat grinder, dick/
where everyone was talking and I was silent
outside, but spoke inside
and I felt bad
I was only thinking about
that n. — it’s me, what n. inside me
like everything I can't say
no matter how much I try
that I have nothing else inside me
that nothing but n. doesn't exist
not living, not “alive”
and understand what is “alive” and what is not
The only way to do this is to zoom in
that here I am inside n. which is inside me
and where is this great prospect about which, for example,
Galya says why don’t I see her?
that is, I seem to see it, but no, I don’t see it
I'm-beyond-her

"kill father"
Lena says
where to find it
where is he found?
this father
how to recognize it

I returned home ten minutes ago
I'll install it now
toni braxton
unbreakmyheart
who played in a taxi
in three minutes one hundred seventeen rubles
which I listened to and loved then, that summer,
one of the events described
in the text “I went with him into the forest”
which I read today
I read and shook
all kinds of tremors
but not from the excitement that

which / which / which

Is sensory reflection important?
in a poetic text
what else do we want to know about the “author”
about his positions and reasons
about what “no” means to him
even if he's not there
even if he is only a voice
even if he is a voice

or feel for yourself
feel it for yourself if you can
if you can “afford” yourself
Is articulate autobiography important?
in a poetic text narrated “in the first person”
I think not: my auto-replica was a mistake
I liked Kostya's text
/back then, a year ago/
I liked what was in it
The “author” does not evaluate his feelings
/ok, “evaluates” through “Mashenka”/ -
this way you can find and evaluate your own
so you can find and survive
own repentance

does repentance preclude repetition?
situation that caused repentance
I won't answer this question
let the answer be “mashenka”
she has the voice for it

how much a landscape should be
drawn, detailed
where is the door to exit/enter?

five hours ago I bought
books for 666 rubles (this is true)
in word order
laughed with OA and
random shopper
over a funny number
which doesn't mean anything anymore

a few days ago
after the magazine presentation Wednesday
met a sculptor
"I would like to sculpt your head"
wrote in PM to VK that same evening
If it's blinding, I'll put it on
next to the Valaam portrait
I'll watch:
here I am

you are a time machine
Inga said today
when we met
on practical f-writing
referring to the way I'm dressed
meaning that we dressed “like this”
fifteen years ago
when we were almost children of Moscow and the literary institute
and I dressed like that on purpose
I always dress like this on purpose
when I don't know how I feel
to balance, to coincide with oneself,
to look stupid, wild, “like”:
photo enlargement

after Toni Braxton
I will read the banality of evil
lies on the desktop
waiting

waited

I adopted your gestures
the movements of your hands
which you produce
when you speak
which you always produce
every time you speak
took over, appropriated
(attempt to connect)
I noticed this today
while she was silent outside
and spoke inside
looking into the face of “Masha”
into the stingy “mashenka” eyes
under the gaze of “Mashenka”
who doesn't explain or ask

neither patient nor merciful
does not envy, does not boast, is not proud
does not act outrageously, does not seek his own, does not get irritated
does not think evil and does not rejoice in unrighteousness

there is no benefit to anything
write so as not to forget
to remember later
when I forget
where does this gesture come from?

diary. Saturday

after the presentation of the forest newspaper
Sasha asks Ilya
aren't you disappointed in this type of communication?
when you invite someone and they respond
when you invite someone who responds

horizontal connections
in non-horizontal space
how they work
how they work, what they connect
where they miss

I read your dream
“although there is death directly and the benefits from it”
you write
What do you mean?
I feel it, but I don’t understand it
I can’t reflect and verbalize the feeling
please explain
help me name: what do I feel?

when one of us will return
the other one will buy herself new panties
in intimissimi on promotion
lace, black or burgundy
for three hundred ninety-nine rubles

the other one will buy herself new panties
so that you can take them off me in the dark
so that you never see them
but he took them off me in the dark
so that you take a long time to remove them from me in the dark
long night lasting night
so that you never see what
I'm a woman
who bought herself new panties
so that you never
scary to say
so that you never
but I'll tell you

to the freaks of guilt meetings
to stuff complex feelings
to plating touches
I love rotting bodies

to chthonic
to tectonic

to coincide, fell

but the house of writers burned down
I didn't have time
and everything was gone

I will explore with my tongue the tongue of the tongue
crushed pubic bones
worn out hips, non-healing kneecaps
looks like boxing, torn fabrics of hunting

the saleswoman at Dixie knows me
and no longer asks for a passport

how many times does your head hit the tiles?
can the human head withstand
now this is the stitching
piercing weaving new hands
in return for those taken away there, in the forest belt

I would be glad to tear it off, remove it
distinguish, cure

but here she is
tourniquet and worm
black fucking heart
scarlet
creepy

diary. Thursday

our portraits were not useful
Lena, they won't throw darts
into our portraits in their kitchens

we are saved

this time
mi spaseni

how you scrape it off with sandpaper
sleep germs from the inside
eyeballs, fascinated by leafing through the bitter tape
half an hour before waking up

let's discuss
and we'll discuss this

abrasive grains will help, sister
in an enamel mug on gas
heated wax and wooden spatula
and such long strips of paper
pull out the fur that obscures your vision
preventing the tongue from reaching

take it out of sight
one hit is enough
I think when I write to Inge:

[ now sometimes when we stand hugging each other, I
I feel like he's literally collapsing
my neck and I can’t do anything about it ]

neither with feeling
neither with the neck

surface lying on a surface
other inclusive practices

in one motion

[another]

transition
lasts faster than a second
the rest is inertia, the past
irresistible, first of all
affordable for living

that night at the foundry Galya showed me
all these damn letters, their roots and crowns

now Yulia Vysotskaya will tell us how to cook
by-products so that their biological value
didn't go down, didn't go down, didn't go down otherwise.

Galya showed
it seemed to me

Charles, the dog's name was Mensch
Gennady, red drop in the snow
hoarseness, fatty lice
autumn holiday in kindergarten

equal/equal
or at least scary

my daughter tells me:

go faster than seconds go by
slower than printing f-calendar

daughter tells me:
crumbled and fell
hybrid war
but never, nowhere
was not and will not be

neither me nor you

like past lovers
not obvious to the present
less than a second later
and how the transition lasts
less than a second

ave, eva
go ahead, dare

turn around

diary. day eight

you belong to yourself says Nastya
you need to accept that you
you belong only to yourself

do we understand
that we are having sex
while we're having sex
when we have sex

worlds recede, descend
but don't disappear

find the border, point
act from it
find and forget

without her
act as if from it

we will meet tomorrow
we are sparkles, flakes of attention -
see you tomorrow

physically ill
from one's own excess
from bodily excess

tolerate [oneself]

"if this is not the worst evil in the world
then it's not evil"

did you hear what I said?
I didn't say that
if you haven't heard
I can repeat it

Hello
I am the court of the insulted

the eighth day is the same
when we're finally left
unattended
when we're finally free
and defenseless
now you can do whatever you want
and even more
no one will see
no one will say:
stand up
the court is offended

what is danger
and her feeling
where boundaries are turned inside out
and discomfort
and unbearable sensations
and feelings incompatible with life

jump from white to black
from painful to not painful

it will be the same without you
just like with you

safety and its feeling fall out of speech
why does the feeling fall out of speech?
where does it fall out why no sound
tongue sticks out of mouth
eyes pop out from under the eyelids
air flows
while we're having sex
We
liver trashy sad attention
pathetic bowels of attention
on day eight
safe day

those who “meet you tomorrow”

this feeling requires
confirmation

choking on vomit
you choke on fear like vomit
abandoned and free

"every day"
"not the last one, but"
"most recent"

grab what's missing
from what
there's nothing left

this is not a scarlet car with an open hood
this is a trash can