Artwork © Eric N. Peterson

 

The Russian Influence

Cult
of Personality
equating pedophilia to
ho-
mosexuality
mythologizing ruinous
past
Chernobyl Disaster reframed
as a Scientific Breakthrough

jeans
in a pot on the stove
steam from acid-wash chemicals
me
spying through a keyhole
my parents gawking 9½
Weeks
with living room doors locked
obscene waste of produce – sex scene

Nut-
cracker by Tchaikovsky
his great Swan Lake of world acclaim
gut-
wrenching literature
by Tolstoy and Dostoevsky
Push-
kin lulls with metered verse
that Green Oak Tree stands By the Sea
Cold
War thawed with port wine stain
Gorbachev’s oily forehead display
Bold
to go where no man has but still
some ice remained until the
dawn
of New Millennium
when Baryshnikov hit HBO

rap
battles are the real ploy
to destroy Classical music
wrap
the rhymes with Censorship
take the hooligans to the Bolshoy
trap
all kinds of Progress
use Religion as a Weapon

squash
any opposition
Navalny just like Pussy Riot
Pri-
Or to him, punished for
Resisting to Bow to the Czar
put
him up against the Wall
Putin’s most-wanted Fish in a Bowl

War?
“There is No War in Ukraine,
Just a Special Operation
for
Denazification – Nazis
sponsored by United Nations”
Sure!
Like “gays don’t exist in Chechnya”
I’m Frustrated to be Russian
 
 

Originally from Moscow, Russia, Pavel Frolov (He/Him) is a queer-identified New York City-based performer and writer. He holds a BA in Communication from Brooklyn College. Pavel’s recent poems have appeared online in Elevator Stories, Ariel’s Dream, Milk Carton Press, Visible Magazine, Poetry Festival and in print anthologies from Beyond Words & Wingless Dreamer. Also, Pavel’s short story “The Appetite Zone or Penny Dreadful for a Marxist” was published in Mixed Mag Issue 13 this year.

Eric N. Peterson is from Atlanta, Ga. He’s been drawing cartoons all his life. He leans towards the absurd, imaginative, and the surreal, as that’s where all the flavor is.