word by Boris But
colour by Alex Andreev
The obsidian titan looms from
Below, a weary vision bestowed
On the fallow dreamer dreary-
Minded by the sea.
st-petersburg montreal
Your quiet eyes pace through
My possessions: strangling rope,
Brine-soaked pages, symbols of the
Lost hope of an exiled meanderer.
st-petersburg montreal
Dear stranger, learn of home
And sing of it. When us strangers
Gather on stranger seas, we
Recall a home we never see.
st-petersburg montreal
Tale by tale you regale of the forgotten,
The sea-tossed bottle lost in tribal
Misunderstanding, a tongue
Lashing at hollow space,
st-petersburg montreal
Our anguish laid bare in mutual
Vulnerability, pyrobabble in place
Of a strange silence. Your eyes
Glimmer beneath a buried quaver,
st-petersburg montreal
A ripple pulsing from an unknown
Provenance ripping apart
In a fear or pain
Lost to a generation unto me.
st-petersburg montreal
My adrifted mind scrambles for some
Consolation of storied survivors or
A measure of a distinguished nature, blessed
By the godliness of constellations above,
st-petersburg montreal
The mortal shipwrecked sands below.
But let me rot here with you
Borne in eternal entropy,
Born to be forever forgotten.
st-petersburg montreal
Do dead men cry? Do words die?
Who swims and who sinks in your currents?
This home will be home again. Welcome,
Old friend, and dare not stay silent.
st-petersburg montreal
word by Boris But
“What stranger does not first appear to be alien? Inspired by Alex Andreev’s masterful piece and anguished by the refugee crises and the oft-overlooked diaspora of vagrants everywhere, I crafted a poem about two strangers, perhaps parallel images, making a common home. What estranges people is the failure to recognize humanity in what we find unfamiliar. Stories imbue us with a transcendental magic, building homes where nothing should be.”
colour by Alex Andreev
“Alex Andreev lives in St. Petersburg, Russian Federation.
He’s been drawing, painting and doing graphic design over last 20 years.
He works as art-director in advertising agency and as senior concept artist for movie and game production. Born in 1972, Russia”
wordandcolour 