The Thoughts Of A Prisoner - They're

When The Whole Discussion Of "developing A National Idea" Hastily Began In Post-soviet Russia, I Tried To Pour Cold Water On It With The Objection That, After All The Devastating Losses We Had Experienced, It Would Be Quite Sufficient To Have Just One Task: The Preservation Of A Dying People.

In The Camp, This Meant Committing My Verse-many Thousands Of Lines-to Memory. To Help Me With This I Improvised Decimal Counting Beads And, In Transit Prisons, Broke Up Matchsticks And Used The Fragments As Tallies. As I Approached The End Of My Sentences I Grew More Confident Of My Powers Of Memory, And Began Writing Down And Memorizing Prose-dialogue At First, But Then, Bit By Bit, Whole Densely Written Passages. My Memory Found Room For Them! It Worked. But More And More Of My Time-in The End As Much As One Week Every Month-went Into The Regular Repetition Of All I Had Memorized.

We Are All Human, And Our Senses Are Quicker To Prompt Us Than Our Reason. Every Man Gives Off A Scent, And That Scent Tells You How To Act Before Your Head Does.

Not Everything Has A Name. Some Things Lead Us Into A Realm Beyond Words.

The Battleline Between Good And Evil Runs Through The Heart Of Every Man.