forgive me forgive me my friend
let me perish
it isn’t about that
don’t run along the shore after me
along a path that doesn’t exist
legs collapsing under you
don’t look for my wooden box
bobbing in the shallows
caught in the reeds
and most of all: don’t take off the lid
turn your back on the old world
don’t take off my lid
don’t go back to mother
don’t wander the villages speaking
from lips chalky white petrified
——
depart from me for I am a sinful man
said the eagle to the headwind
depart from me for I am an infirm man
said the red clay to the hands
depart from me
I am not man at all
I am a recording device
——
and snow fell, and it was kind of:
the azure light disappeared like a cataract
——
under the spindle of a low sky
a dust trail on the near shore
two cars, a jawa motorbike
a woman in a scarf, her face hidden
the young are beautiful, the old are more so
a shop without a signboard
loaves of bread on the shelf
in rows like soldiers on parade
still warm to the touch
each loaf reluctantly cooling
by the factory gates
a briar rose in raspberry cuffs
points in its madness
to where the sickening smell comes from
where did you get to, mr speaker
from the regional office
how long, my dear
have we been traveling
over this bridge in our little car
will we ever leave this place
——
the high towers are lit up red
and on them tall flags are talking
in the skies the stars assemble in rows
and jet planes, rising
tanks on parade with heavy paunches
armoured chariots
dolphin-heroes
swallow-martyrs
lions picked for their stature, their roar
people people and people
above them floats apple blossom
scented buds of white acacia
crinkle-edged paper poppies
heads
on poles
——
apparition of these faces in the metro
lamps on a wet black wire
——
Instead of scribbles in soft pencil lead:
Spinnrade the brook the mill weir,
You find the homunculus stone dead
His fetal hands pressed to his ears,
And guards to the left and the right of the door
And
You’ll stand in the entrance hall to read your verse
The stitches drawn so tight you’ll forget all the words.
—
Plush Soviet rose
Drilling the briar shoot
But the shoot sows
Itself silently, hides deep among the roots
You beat to death those without babble
And honour those without grace
But if you look with a gaze that is level
The spines have grown on your face.
—
See how Pushkin’s cobbler
Measures the foot with a sole
The litigant follows his example
And the author is tied to a pole.
But it’s Pushkin’s miller!
The auditorium is slowly filling
A re-educated pine tall as a pillar
Stretches confesses it was once a willow
——
…. …… .
——
and so I decided
it was told to me that I should think back
so I thought back
and remembered
and it upset me
so I went and died
I died
and nothing came of it
apart from books
which came at some point
after fifty years
and former men
lost the form they once had
——
tell her to come out and say something
(
and the dog-heart growls and shrinks
and the son is born on the barracks floor
two friends lived like
and if one of them said yes
the underground water rose in the darkness
I’ll sing of that soon
no says the other
no and that is an end
there are no children in the army
which is made up of many men
but the friends could say nothing
when I sprang forth
between tree bole and gun bore
my cradle was caught
——
before the great war the apples were so fine
you might have heard that once at market—but who’s left alive
——
click
trigger (shutter) cocked
chink viewfinder sight
the photographer takes the picture
(things are taken from their places)
trans-ferr-al
and trans-ition trans-lates the space anew
(where corpses lie alongside the quick)
trans-humans transhumance
ex-isled con-sumers
jesters creatives
students
peasants
(great-grandfather grigory with his two hands
factory machine will chew off the right hand, but later,
great-grandfather whose face I never saw)
gawpers and gazers, proceeding arm-in-arm
and jews unassigned scattered
(we-jews)
o what bewildering confusion
from wild profusion
click
springtime, green garden, maytime
brooch at her throat, hair gathered in a bun
my grandmother (only a little older than me)
feeding a squirrel in a park on the outskirts of moscow
lonely soldier drinking mineral with syrup
school uniform, fitting room, apron-winged, unhemmed
festive streets, the houses and pavements illuminated in tiny lights
five-year-old mother flicks her silken ribbon
looks
click
click
wide-hipped rowing boats drawn up on the shore
their hulls bright in the sun
gondola swings flying over the abyss
a gypsy camp by the roadside, surly children in headscarves
home for former revolutionaries, two old ladies on a bench
(one is mine)
crimea, nineteen thirty eight, cascades of bathing beauties
(which one’s you)
croquet on the dacha lawn, moscow region
twenty years later in forty three
siberia, in evacuation