The Voice Over

the postbag snagged in the stream

the tin spoon

the quick streams slipping the quicksilver

  slip sliding away to the estuary

this little piggy went to market

and this little piggy froze to death

and the landowner put a gun to his head

and a black car came for the officer

the greek in odessa, the jew in warsaw

the callow young cavalryman

the soviet schoolboy

gastello the pilot

and all those who died in this land

out of the murky pool, the surface still warmed by the sun

in a night in may, steps rus al ka and quickly begins her work

throws her wet clothes from her tramples with her wet feet

her black body shines her white smock cast

mother, mother is that you? alyosha I don’t rightly know

o swallow, swallow, is it her? she flew away, my friend

——

such high-minded intercourse

topples and must fall at last

a plague a’ both your

(ivy-clad turret, waterside folly)

masha learns on breakfast tv

’er petticoat was yaller an’ ’er little cap was green

till apples grow on an orange tree

breaches of password security

if I were drowned in the deepest sea

thus sung the maid down in the valley

russian actor mikhail porechenkov

fingers his warm little rifle

like the latest novelty musical box

like he’s desperate

to grow his own golden fleece

and the narrow water’s already round his knees

svyatoslav in kiev did hear the ringing of that knell

and tom thumb

bid them listen

who were of the lands of surozh and korsun:

black night brings long strings

foot-foot-foot-foot slogging

all the millers-of-god

hi ho hi ho and off they go

to civil war

——

lay to the left

a general touched his side

over the marxist’s chest

the liberal’s curls spread wide

o your goldenes haar

and a pair of blue eyes

few words spoken

feel free to surmise

thou art the armorer of the heart

sing me a ditty, something from rossini

rosina, perhaps, like on radio rossiya

——

as in a chariot race

the chosen one, glistening like quartz

in his roaring metal carapace

whips this way along the course

but the chariot is cleverer

throwing up stones

crashes the barrier

and crushes

the marrow from bones,

so, setting out rooks and queen

in their checkered chambers

culture leads fear

down the gauntlet of human nature,

stinking of laurel wreaths

steeped in a boiling pan,

to where there’s a lively trade

in the living unit of man

sing to me of how, on an ancient alley on your family’s estate,

the weathered bones lay bleached and scattered

under a birch tree; quietly they chattered:

there was no point to us, we didn’t lend each other our hands

like babes we lay in the nursery in our swaddling bands

——

I can just imagine coming under him

says one, and I can hear everything

and the other is speaking, speaking

fruits of the curbside reads the jar label

from whatever takes root in the stony rubbish

embers, sawdust, scorched wood

suspended in sweet amber sugar

cockerel-shaped lollies for the day of the dead.

when I’m off to market, or when I’m coming home

I always remember what she said back then

——

one leg crossed the other: who goes on top

one leg vows to the other: I’ll top you

——

when we seize all the banks!

share out the fruits of labor!

and the engines in all the tanks

flooded with rainwater

then we’ll help the poor earth

shake the wig from her head

erect a polytunnel instead

with a multiplication of those poles: cold and dead

and the south will come knocking at our ears

pears will droop in the heat

gleaming bulbous pears

swollen globular fruit

and the pizza delivery’s well-oiled

and the truth wears at our heart:

for the rapid soil

shall bring forth its own bard.

——

were it not seemly, citizens

to begin in ancient diction

to stay silent

——

oh in paris I could have lived and died

if there had been nowhere else besides

moscow of your land

china of your water

and tanganyika of the small trees

where the saplings and new roots are hidden

when it comes to it

somebody’s been put here to keep guard over it all

here, at the crossroads

of two legs, vast, fumble-footed

the un-russian god rose

the puddles reflected

to swell the goats and plump the hazel shell

the shadows under a birch like a cut out

my darling priapus, surely it’s time to sprout?

or is the geist not doing so well?

nothing here corresponds to the spotted skin

and the pink dusk

comes from the time of a nation’s devastation

no one calls for coolness,

             all want con flag ration

and here the iambs trip-trap: tetrameters chirrup

but trip up on naked vowels

and fall so far from europe

bleeding pelts, they howl

——

children in the yard played at being olympian gods

and then at gestapo interrogation—tbh it’s much the same

I had a dream

night in its nuptial attire

the cornfield the melon’s swelling belly

under the stars the machine gunner sings

to the machine gun,

swaddled

cradled at his breast

sleep my sunflower

sleep my poppy

soon the warm sun will come back from the south

and there’ll be new life in the

pedestrian subway

playing on the half-dismembered harmony

and soldiers soldiers

gather the light ash in pots

——

how little earth was saved on the bosom of the earth

lift the corner of the blanket, replace the hot water bottle