Hanging In A Jar

I send my regards to the poet Leonidze and to his poetry with the same kind of warmth as his wife, his future and his household. I can force myself to be even more explicit: I send regards to the spark of childishness which runs through his hands and his manuscripts and descends upon his children. I do not speak of that false, Raphaelesque and over-sentimentalised conception of childhood, which does not exist except on chocolate boxes, but of the simplicity and foolishness and defencelessness of a child, of its electro-conductivity; of childhood's ability to build a world on a toy and to be killed in crossing a road; of the spectacle of a child in the midst of a great life which has in the meantime forged ahead and with which he copes in child-like fashion, simply, foolishly, quickly and defencelessly. But this message is so weighty that it is best not to give it. (Pasternak)

Portraits of patients at Bedlam, taken by Henry Hering.

There he is on the wall, trapped beneath the glass with just a couple of cabbies and a few dropouts for company. The sight of him! 2 years in the clink and he's nothing but an Adam's apple resting in some hair gel. 2 years had seemed exceptionally harsh for stealing a car, he was only 17 after all. They let him go. He's trouble. I heard he's not Catholic. He appears to be high. Someone in the store said that he just got out of St Cloud.  You're not to see him again, you hear me? St Cloud Reformatory But he could drive! They drove and drove and found themselves in South Dakota - they tried to marry but it didn't work out. So they carried on in secret, she double-dated and he triple dated but she didn't know that. Her little sister was pretty cool about it. He promised her driving lessons in his car and she swore not to say a word. And she didn't, for a while. He stopped showing up. It wasn't his fault, he was sick, tired, he slep...

A frosty sun. From the parade ground More and more soldiers keep coming. I am happy, this January noon. And my troubles are few. Here I remember each twig, And every silhouette. Raspberry light seeps Through the frosty white net. There was a house here, almost white,  And a sun porch. How many times my dead-white hand Held the bell pull. So many times...Soldiers, play on, And I will look for my house, I'll recognise it by its sloping roof, Its everlasting ivy. But someone has carried it off, Taken it to another town, Or torn from my memory forever The road that leads there. The sound of the bagpipe dies down, Snow flies, like cherry blossoms... And it's obvious nobody knows That the white house is gone. (A. Akhmatova)

Writer, actor, modest.