Scantily Clad Press, 2009

To enface Verb transitive Means to write or print (a memorandum, direction, or the like) On the face of a draft, bill, etc. Etc.

Bulletproof skeletons they And us live flesh Nothingproof for a while Us strong brain Of whom no small number Skull they said in the old days So proofed against Nothing's further nothing For a short lil while Shyly once

To hear in the echo The goal of the ego Now as of ago Full of vertigo

Figure out what Kant meant Find out what Descartes meant Harvard University Philosophy Department

In rain strobe the birch Leaves on the birch Do nothing at all Do not disturb them Let them die undisturbed.

OneOneOneOne had what One hadhadhadhad one Had whatwhatwhatwhat one Had oneoneoneone had What one hadhadhadhad

there is no better way to define paradise than as freedom and hell a kind of slavery whether volun tary or involuntary in the latter you're controlled by force or form in the for mer you're ab solutely free whatever those may be

If only the city allowed graffiti to grow I'd write my poems with my own bones on some walls.

Trippingly swimmingly for a while Ailingly failingly for a while Then OK again for a while Haltingdly faultingly for a while Vauntedly hauntingly for a while For once for a while For not such a long while Then nowise

Who she Who she Was fish Now sushi

Their malcontent intent And ambivalent content Invite you to their conference Add you to their contacts And yet The littlest hiatus The whole enterprise sinks The eternal simple A little starlight on a dying world

A poem is a poems; But no more of poetry's Shoeshine moonshine, The indwelling quatrain.

They mean the same thing but sound different They sound much the same meaning two different things

Born in Moscow in 1966 and raised in Russia and Moldova, Philip Nikolayev Philip Nikolayev Philip Nikolayev Philip Nikolayev grew up equally fluent in English and Russian. On relocating to the US in 1990 to attend Harvard he has written primarily in English. His poetry is published internationally. Nikolayev's volumes of poetry include Letters from Aldenderry (Salt, 2006), Monkey Time, winner of the 2001 Verse Prize (Verse Press, 2003); Dusk Raga (Writers Workshop, Calcutta, 1998); and Artery Lumen, winner of the Barbara Matteau Editions Chapbook Prize (Barbara Matteau Editions, 1996). He lives in Boston and co-edits Fulcrum.