Thank you, Alexey. I was...
Chalcedon stillbirth in its Ohio womb.
Thank you, Alexey. There was...
Earth inside of me, and you dug.
The nine poems that follow are written half-about-myself, as I half-recount how half-I half-got into the enterprise of vapouring poetry. Half-milord, half-merchant, half-sage, half-ignoramus, half-scoundrel, Count Vorontsov and perhaps I am made full at last.
A note on the poetic form: I have chosen to refrain from using any punctuations (save from a pair of brackets) in the following poems, following the tradition of traditional Chinese poets. The verse is done (save from the last one) in heroic couplets, following the tradition of some traditional English poets.