Boris Kokotov
A Segue
To memorize names, like Heidegger or Xenakis,
insert them into your poem – they wouldn't escape a collage.
You will discover a pattern later, and maybe others
will figure it out reading your text or listening to Tetras glissandi –
the same record you were listening to in a car
driving at night to the house of your lover, the cellist,
who recklessly said that mating music with poetry borders incest,
and you argued: poetry reveals being, borrowing that line
from the German philosopher your lover never heard of.
Does it really matter since poems are fading as quickly as names,
almost as quickly as love?
Bio
Boris Kokotov was born in Moscow, Russia. Currently he lives in Baltimore. He writes poems and short stories in Russian and English languages. He is the author of several poetry collections. He also translated selected poems of German Romantics and contemporary American poets to Russian language. His work appeared in periodicals, most recently in Allegro, The Bewildering Stories, Boston Poetry Magazine, Constellations, Chiron Review, The Lake, The Muse, Adelaide, and Entropy.