up and down the road and the road
swallet
grim
droop
spinybroom
steep
stonecrop
cumb
the unbending river vodopr’
can’t swallow enough water—
its shame next to the
perfectly round hills
they call the hills “mounts”
and we walked on the mount
we strolled in ornamental gardens
reflected in the long shanks of birch
we gazed in the heavenly blue
we noticed that populousness is bluer:
roofs fences
cars
heavy colors like a waterproof tarp
no one from our family
has been in these lands
since nineteen sixteen
glare of white handkerchiefs
spread wide
on the uncharted waters
non op posing
non meta morph osing
non harvest table
non stop able
——
life, you are a gash in need of stitching
death, you are a crust that yearns for filling
——
those who carry in their mouths, at first with care, heads with seeing eyes
those who touched newspaper print in their heads, as mother said never to do, never, wash your hands
those who rip apart in flight, carrying from nest to nest, smearing on the glass
attempt to mount the blunt-snouted body on a set of wheels,
set it trundling, throat outstretched and spouting fire
yes, them and these, too
but actually more these
for them conscripts spread their green arms wide
like a tablecloth plentifully spread
lie heaped at their feet like birch logs
to please the valkyries
at the harpies’ hearts desire
to the bayan’s thrum
the accordion’s reveille
and o, those children’s voices, singing where once there was a dome
in the soiled field
surrounded by corn and scarecrows
——
not on the earth but above or below
war’s deep grunt
producing slimy rivers of sweat
its hand feels for the gut
and we stagger
carry ourselves through the darkness
and mother demeter mithering in the muck
and anguish of the fields
hears from below: mother fuck
yet the sky might be brightening, or so it feels
and mother hecate comes out for a smoke
from the back street
from the foul black streets from the pecking fowl
the puddles of spilt milk
the earth lying like a kitbag
behind enemy lines give it tongue
mother mary hurries
but hasn’t yet come
——
in a great and strong wind
a still small voice
she who cradles leviathan in her hands like the infant
and she who rises above the rye
all are present for this, as it happens
they watch, they steadily
unspeaking
as the ice in the ice house and the tear in the bottle come of age
as the soil tastes the first weight of the rain
as the ice-stoves send out blocks of
smoking death
in the big brother house a fight opens like a flower
women in flip-flops
fixated
shut the fuck up why don’t
spring in the recruiting office
knee jerk, stethoscope down the spine
picking out the shaggy the short-legged the sinewy
under matron’s watchful eye
how the thick plaits of herring stream away
the lines of tanks on bridges flash in the sun
a waiter’s flourish reveals a pitiful morsel
shivering, drizzled in salt, underdone
and over there is everything that I kiss from afar
that I love to smithereens
all of it still shouting alleluia
but no respite from the shameful dream
serpents and all deeps
tin soldiers at the city walls
all the ranks of angels
nanny lena digging vegetables
snow like wool and hoarfrost like ashes
throat like spindrift, legs like a foal
heart thrust through the noose
like a button through a button hole
a memory
won’t save us
lies in the ashes
biting its own tail
——
like the tailor who sews
not the straitjacket
(which from childhood has begged to sit up
woken from the canvas)
but the pattern
cuts on the bias
like a court proceeding
down the long hospital corridor
with a heavy trolley
handing out the tightly wrapped packages
the little living weights of verdicts
like when in a moment’s confusion you spit out a barbed word
and it lodges in a treebody
or the body of a comrade
or a friendlip
and the line
goes taut
like a mound
under a snowdrift
means nothing
writing on a tomb
sees no one
writing on a stone
nothing, we read
it not
but it is
2015
Today Before Yesterday
(excerpt)
We often want to return to any day before yesterday, to turn it over like a reversible coat and put it on again. In foul times, this is like scratching away at a scab, or a kind of nervous tic: the search for analogies appropriate to one’s situation spins out of control. You can compare any situation to what is going on today and draw immediate and terrifying conclusions. This is especially visible in the overlay of different blueprints—in the conversations about a Third World War, which is to begin in yet another August ’14. This somehow reminds me of the fretting over the arrival of the new millennium, the fear and trembling before the round date—as if fate shared mankind’s predilection for exact dates and historical reenactment.