The Voice Over

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

save us from the right hand of falsehood

a memory

won’t save us

lies in the ashes

biting its own tail

he taketh not pleasure in the legs of a man

nor the strength of a horse

——

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

and the dress isn’t tight

just itchy

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

three per cord, ladies

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

fish hooks a fish

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.