The hounds bark, the horses neigh, the deer snort…
And what a forehead she has – round, depraved, her purse is murky, she's wearing jeans, and a shirt of a girl-tramp. There are many like her on the two shores of our great empire, both here and in California. She lies down here, she sits down there, takes a bite, lights up a cigarette…
During the absence of her king (he was hunting), the queen says that she misses him – no one believes her. The courtiers politely clear their throats, the king laughs – everyone knows that the queen is an out-and-out slut. That is everyone with the exception of a court jester huddling in a corner of a picture. He's a secret admirer and the author of the romantic hymns. Though the entire palace and its inhabitants know about the jester's passion – the queen is an out-and-out slut, and her forehead is round.
Shit! Imagine me lounging at a cute little restaurant – I cross my legs and call on the servants. And the girls – lovely and hungry – I bring them along. «You cocksuckers,» I address the servants poetically, «bring in the girls! Feed the girls, give them Russian caviar, vodka, bring 'em all kinds of juices and whiskey. I'll take 'em dancing afterwards. Come-on, move and make sure everything is high-quality; for the girls, I want everything the best, the most expensive. If I find something amiss, I'll shoot every (how many are you here?) fifth one».
That's what I call pleasure. And we arrived not in any old car but in an armored carrier, it puffs outside by the door, its machine guns stick out rudely in all directions. The driver, by the way, is a Brazilian.
I always keep my knife in my pocket. I walk along a street and the knife is open in my pocket – I can stroke the blade. I get home, sit at the table – there, I have two knives. When I write something, I play with them automatically. When I go to sleep, I have yet another knife, the main one, the biggest-it's kept under my pillow. Thus my entire life is surrounded by knives.
And safety is not really the reason why – what can you do against this world with just a knife? I keep it for the pleasure of seeing and feeling a knife. A revolver is a different matter altogether – it only requires a decision; a knife is braver.
And to tell you the truth, I've always been and remained to this day a criminal from the working-class suburbs: I see trouble – I go for the knife. Whenever I look at my picture where I'm nineteen – the crooked grin, the cruel eyes and lips, the shape of the nose – it's plenty clear, it explains the knives. And you were saying how I've changed.
But have I really? I just put on the glasses and let my hair grow long.
I have nobody to fuck now, guys! That is, yes I do, I have two objects, but I don't love them. I'm ashamed to fuck them, though I do sometimes when I'm drunk and smoked out, though I berate myself afterwards. No, honest, I have nobody to fuck now. You see I'm not lying, I'm not striking a pose.
«My prick, you're my baby, unemployed, an integral part of me. Poor baby. If you could only live by yourself, separately, just using the smarts of the dashing fellow Eddie Limonov, then you'd be really happy.»
My ancestors, I bet, loved the earth. As soon as spring comes I'm tormented by a longing to plough and sow, to feel soil with my hand, to run to the earth. I'm sure I'd make a good, thrifty peasant. The females would love and fear me, and so would my sons and neighbors: The neighborhood. I'd probably be rich and would get drunk just twice a year to maintain the order. So why did my destiny bring me here, to this hotel on Broadway?
Let's go into the temple. We'll steal in quietly. We'll light the candles and we'll commit a sin. It's not like I'm going lie on top of you or anything like that-we'll do this in a cheep, depraved way, the way they have it in the porno-magazine. Standing, you'll rest your arms, face, and shoulders on the pulpit. I'll fold up your black coat: your white behind bare-I'll roll my eyes from this vision of the aging, white dampness. You'll squat a little and, not without some effort, settle my prick into your well-we'll go for a ride. We'll be accompanied by the soft winds and gazes of our Lord and by this whole interior of stone, wooden, and redolent beauty… And the ohs, and the sighs, and the candles' shimmer, and in some nooks there's the sensation: it's a Christmas tree, it's the New Year's celebration, it's the childhood and mama baked some sweet pies. You eat them and it's warm in the stomach. And you eat them for the last time.
We shot the sisters as we were supposed to – at the sunrise. There were my three Croatian friends, an Austrian from the Sixth International and a deputy from the Italian ultra Castelli, a Japanese Ioshimura, and me – the Emissary Extraordinaire of the Annihilation League. We've designed the execution in the style of the beginning of the 20th century. We've chosen the mustached Bozhimir to announce the sentence. The mountain bushes were already broken in by the sun's edge, when these women fell into the dewy grass. We stood opposite them as it's depicted in all the classical paintings. We've divided our targets: one sister per three shooters.
At this point, I'm not sure the death sentence was necessary, but perhaps it was made necessary by this severe, mountainous country. Perhaps, had this taken place in some coastal town where the wine screams and sparkles, where there's dancing to the vinyl in a cafe, then there would not be an execution but simply a rape, and even then I don't mean a gangrape. I as the Annihilation League representative was their chief.
Nonetheless, before the execution the youngest Jewess was brought to me and lying in her white tatters, she was quite lovely. And as I was shooting, I aimed at that spot. As it is, I'm known for my eccentricities but I couldn't hold myself.
to M.S.
If I lie down to sleep, I'll envelope myself into pork's fat or lamb's fat. And I won't be cold, just as long as it doesn't start growing into me. Before sitting yourself down, spread onto the seat a thin layer of meat. Girdle yourself with meat to cover your naked parts. When it will wear off, throw it away, find another meat.
Put a fat, chubby piece of meat under your head.
Frame and hang meat on your wall.
Piss blood.
(And never part with your knife.)
A nurse was sitting in a corner.
Paul was standing by the window, he was smiling.
Jean was standing by the door, he was smiling.
Pierre was standing by the wall, he was smiling.
The nurse became frightened by their smiles.
In the town of Arle, the reception desk at twelfth municipal hospital opens at 6 a.m. The sick entertain bizarre fantasies-the General Council of the Sick, their trade union has voted unanimously and now the hospital opens with the burst of the fountain in the yard-and this even in the winter, at 6 a.m. Through the doors, in walk the new arrivals – words fail to describe them. One has to see these faces, the expression of these faces.
A Russian newspaper smells of graves and an old man's urine. Everything is paltry and pathetic – outdated – from the ads to the articles to the poems. Even Aunt Mary's recipe is there. And what do you think it is? Why of course it's a «Low-Fat Barley Soup.» What can be more disgusting and mediocre? It's not a goose, not a duck, not even simply a huge steak, no – it's a low-fat barley soup. It's as if to say-Look how mediocre, how drab, how defeated by life we are.