![\"ostashevsky-bw\"](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/ostashevsky-bw.jpg\")
<\/p>\nBy Eugene Ostashevsky.<\/p>\n
This is the story of the pirate
\nand his parrot, not unlike
\nthe ballad of Bonnie and Clyde
\nwho, however, were a little more
\ndesperate. And disparate.
\nOn the day of their meeting,
\nthe pirate was not yet a pirate
\nalthough, always aspiring
\nto become one when an adult,
\nhe had amassed a vast
\nprivate collection of pirate arms:
\nyatagans, grappling hooks,
\nblunderbusses, Malaysian krisses\u2014
\nthree hundred and fifty eight total!
\nThe parrot was already a parrot.
\nHow they met, closed-circuit cameras agree:
\nin a dark pet store on a dank day,
\n(both nose and beak were full of mucus),
\nnot a little nervously
\nthe two confided in each other how much they loved to play
\nwith BOORISHLY! BOOMING!! BAZOOKAS!!!
\nThey assaulted tourists from Bali
\nall the way to the Venice Biennale,
\nthen took a trip down to Cali-
\nfornia, where they worked as instructors of cali-
\nsthenics, calibration and calligraphy;
\ncooked cauliflowers; then reallo-
\ncated themselves to crime; and finally
\nwith the proceeds bought themselves a galleon
\nin case they should come across a large store of gold bullion.
\nIt was then they took to the sea
\nand took up piracy.
\nThey raided packet boats, pedal boats
\nand boats at once packet and pedal,
\npalanders, pirogues, pontoons,
\nand gondolas made of metal,
\ndhows, dinghies, baidarakas,
\ncatamarans and clippers,
\nfeluccas, garrookuhs, tankers,
\nbathtubs and bedroom slippers!
\nBut whether on the wavy wave
\nor on the coconut-strewn shore
\nthey never did forget
\nthat old dark and dank pet store,
\nnot even when filling their coffers
\nor beheading recently met kafirs.
\nThey worked hard,
\nbecame successful and wealthy,
\nthey bought art
\nand a split-level house in New Jersey,
\nalthough they were never in it for the cash
\nbut because the criminal form of life is such a blast!<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat a beautiful song,” said the pirate. \u201cI wish I knew all the ship-names in it.”
\n\u201cShhh,” said the parrot, \u201cWe’ll look \u2018em up later.”
\n\u201cLater when?” asked the pirate.
\n\u201cWhen this book is over,” said the parrot.
\nThe pirate fell into deep thought.
\n\u201cWill we exist when this book is over?” he suddenly asked.
\n\u201cIf it’s a good book,” said the parrot.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Listen, parrot, says the pirate,
\nthe lights have gone out all over the ocean
\nand we’re alone. What shall I tell you
\nthat might fit the occasion, my
\nPiggy\u2026 Porky\u2026 what was his name,
\nthe one that was with Winnie the Pooh? Piglet,
\nsays the parrot. Yes, says the pirate,
\nare we not just like them,
\nparagons of a perfect friendship?
\nI’m not sure, says the parrot.
\nWould you prefer then, says the pirate,
\nanother proverbial pair of companions,
\nSocrates and Alcibiades? No,
\nsays the parrot. I mean to say,
\nsays the pirate, this: just as an omelet
\nhas properties other than the properties
\nof eggs, milk, cheese, and whatever other parts,
\nso a pirate and a parrot are more
\nthan a pirate without a parrot
\nand a parrot without a pirate.
\nAlso the number two is not the same
\nas two ones: it is an even number, and they aren’t.
\nSocrates says this in Hippias Major.
\nSocrates can say whatever he pleases,
\nsays the parrot, but I still don’t feel
\nwe relate to each other; I feel
\nyou’re a stranger to me, pirate, you can’t
\nmake me out really, you think
\nI’m some interchangeable bird. Oh, no,
\nsays the pirate, how can you even say that?
\nis it the night, the darkness? No, parrot,
\nstars shine even if clouds cover them\u2026
\nAnd the two of us are on the deck of a ship
\nheaded somewhere, God knows where,
\nand we’re headed together. But maybe
\nit wasn’t meant like that, says the parrot,
\nmaybe we’re here by chance.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Like first-order and second-order logic are complete and incomplete in different ways,
\nThe differences between the pirate and the parrot never cease to amaze.<\/p>\n
The parrot has just spent a half-hour reading a sentence that says: \u201cFor whereas if it is impossible that A, it is impossible that both A and not-B (and similarly if it is necessary that B), that it is necessary that if A then B does not so obviously follow from the claim that A is impossible (or B is necessary),”
\nBut the pirate used to have a part-time job as a Mohel-in-the-Box who, when he jumps out of the box, breaks into \u201cIt’s a long way to Tipperary!”<\/p>\n
The pirate relaxes by playing with action figures depicting Einstein, Eisenstein, Gertrude Stein, Frankenstein and Wittgenstein,
\nBut the parrot once stole Gertrude Stein, telling the pirate she emigrated to Palestine;<\/p>\n
He dressed Einstein and Eisenstein in the costumes of Batstein and Robinstein,
\nAnd made Frankenstein wrestle Wittgenstein in the landscape of Liechtenstein (with speech bubbles saying Ow, my hip! and Your name STILL isn’t Frankenstein generously provided by Roy Lichtenstein). <\/p>\n
The parrot likes rhyme
\nBut the pirate thinks no rhyme is no crime, as long as there’s the Sublime!<\/p>\n
Another time, the pirate lost a regatta in a cutter that took on too much ricotta,
\nWhich the parrot, trying to deballast, ate so much of that he had greater runs than a cantata or a toccata,<\/p>\n
And as he hung over the railings losing his insides like some kind of pi\u00c3\u00b1ata,
\nThe pirate didn’t know whether to curse or laugh and so was suddenly struck by a stupendous stutter,<\/p>\n
And thereafter\u2014like the old man of Alma-Ata who fell into a gutter after eating panna cotta while sexually molesting Harry Potter,
\nThat Harry Potter who, with his spook tackles off, looked like an Eros\u2014without errata<\/p>\n
To the old man of Alma-Ata who, later lying in the gutter, got an urging to utter, \u201cI feel so ashamed cause my wife, whose motto was Nothing in excess, has just died and I already forgot her!”
\nBut managed to mutter only incoherencies and inconsistencies because his entire self was so erotically aflutter\u2014<\/p>\n
The pirate solved his speech impediment by rubbing his palate with almost liquid sticks of par(s)ley-sprinked butter
\nAnd the parrot sat on a stopper to stop his splutter.<\/p>\n
Reading this poem, the parrot finds some of the jokes funny and some forced, the total effect as arbitrary as Aristophanes,
\nand the pirate responds, \u201c Aristophanes? I don’t even know \u2018er knees!”<\/p>\n
The pirate believes nothing is anything: that the world is just a coagulation of gunk that acquires form only in contact with language (and that the form thus acquired is unique to each contact),
\nAs for the parrot, he sometimes takes this for a fact, and sometimes decides this is not a fact; sometimes he opines it might be a fact; sometimes he asks himself whether, if it were (or even were not) a fact, it would be possible to ascertain whether it might or might not be a fact\u2026 and then he tries to figure out what a fact is and becomes sidetracked\u2026<\/p>\n
When the parrot is molting he lowers the shades so that no light escapes, not even a single photon,
\nThe pirate, on the other hand, often photographs himself as Che Guevara smoking Cuban cigars next to signs that admonish,
\n\u201cNur f\u00c3\u00bcr Kapitalisten:
\n Rauchen
\nverboten!” <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/strong> And as he hung over the railings losing his insides like some kind of pi\u00c3\u00b1ata, And thereafter\u2013like the old man of Alma-Ata who fell into a gutter after eating panna cotta while sexually molesting Harry Potter, To the old man of Alma-Ata who, later lying in the gutter, got an urging to utter, \u201cI feel so ashamed cause my wife, whose motto was Nothing in excess, has just died and I already forgot her!\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n By Eugene Ostashevsky.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[484,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-maintenant","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/155"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44827\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nEugene Ostashevsky<\/strong> is a Russian-American poet and translator from New York. He edited OBERIU: An Anthology of Russian Absurdism<\/em>, the first English-language collection of the writings of Daniil Kharms and the poets and philosophers of his circle in 1930s Leningrad. He is currently preparing a volume of Alexander Vvedensky for the New York Review of Books<\/em>. Books of his own poetry, Iterature, The Life and Opinions of DJ Spinoza<\/em> and Enter Morris Imposternak, Pursued by Ironies<\/em>, published in New York by Ugly Duckling Presse, are critically acclaimed for their negotiation between, and defiance of, the Russian and American poetic traditions. The poems presented here come from The Pirate Who Does Not Know the Value of Pi<\/em>, a work-in-progress about the relationship between a pirate and a parrot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![](\"https:\/\/www.3ammagazine.com\/3am\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/ostashevsky-bw-150x150.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\nThe pirate didn’t know whether to curse or laugh and so was suddenly struck by a stupendous stutter,<\/p>\n
\nThat Harry Potter who, with his spook tackles off, looked like an Eros\u2013without errata<\/p>\n