I peeked
and what
and what
would you think
I caught sight of
I was expecting
branches
I was expecting
a bird
I was expecting
a house
by a lake great and silent
but there
on a glass counter
I caught sight of a pair
of silk stockings
my God
I’ll buy her those stockings
I’ll buy them
but—what will appear then
on the glass counter
of the little soul
will it be something
which cannot be touched
even with one finger of a dream
MY CITY
An ocean forms on its bed
a star of salt
a wind distills
shining rocks
fallible memory draws up
the map of a city
the starfish of streets
planets of far squares
parks’ green nebulae
émigrés in beat-up military caps
complain of a lack of substance
leaky treasure chests
shed precious stones
I dreamed I was walking
from my parents’ house to school
after all I know the way
on the left Paszanda’s store
the Third Gymnasium and bookshops
I even see through the pane
the head of old Bodeke
I want to turn to the cathedral
the view suddenly breaks off
there is no next installment
I simply can’t go any farther
but I know quite well after all
that this is not a dead-end road
the ocean of flighty memory
washes crumbles the images
in the end a stone is left
upon which I was born
every night
I stand barefoot
before the locked gate
of my city
FIVE MEN
1
They take them out in the morning
to the stone courtyard
and put them against the wall
five men
two of them very young
the others middle-aged
nothing more
can be said about them
2
when the platoon
level their guns
everything suddenly appears
in the garish light
of obviousness
the yellow wall
the cold blue
the black wire on the wall
instead of a horizon
that is the moment
when the five senses rebel
they would gladly escape
like rats from a sinking ship
before the bullet reaches its destination
the eye will perceive the flight of the projectile
the ear record a steely rustle
the nostrils will be filled with biting smoke
a petal of blood will brush the palate
the touch will shrink and then slacken
now they lie on the ground
covered up to their eyes with shadow
the platoon walks away
their buttons straps
and steel helmets
are more alive
than those lying beside the wall
3
I did not learn this today
I knew it before yesterday
so why have I been writing
unimportant poems on flowers
what did the five talk of
the night before the execution
of prophetic dreams
of an escapade in a brothel
of automobile parts
of a sea voyage
of how when he had spades
he ought not to have opened
of how vodka is best
after wine you get a headache
of girls
of fruit
of life
thus one can use in poetry
names of Greek shepherds
one can attempt to catch the color of morning sky
write of love
and also
once again
in dead earnest
offer to the betrayed world
a rose
A LIFE
1
He wrote his first poem on a rose
and bathed his fake in a teary rain
gymnasium
Class II A
he swore on his one and only heart
that he would always defend the beautiful
that he would never go in fear of violence
that never ever
always always
under his school desk
that boy now lies
clasping to his breast
a helpless confession
on the desk his name
the formula for a cone’s volume
the declension of puer bonus
and the word Jadzia
2
the caretaker ran out with the big bell
opened his mouth
and sounded the fire alarm
pictures quickly turned away
the white building turned red
then trees entered the picture
trees that stood by the school
into the schoolyard
where boys were playing
armed men came running
and a game of catch began
those who were able
to run into the wood
went on playing
cops and robbers
3
that one from II A—
but in fact that boy
was quite different
trading currencies
beaten on the face
taken for execution
lying on concrete
stubbornly crawling
to the bowl filled
with hunger for life
stripped to the bone
and yet still alive
when he was freed
he wept for shame
for the second time
4
justice should be rendered to him
he wasn’t easily reconciled to life
the rapid stream of events quickened
he stood in a wilderness and howled
he searched the ruins for mementos
prayed with the names of the dead
poetry is the sister of memory
guards bodies in the wilderness
poems’ murmurs are worth no more
than the breath of others they carry
he sits by himself at a little table
drums his fingers summons a void
5
a well-meaning fellow comes up
sits down and says
I can’t bear to see how you suffer
and your writing is getting worse
you’re being sucked dry
by the greedy mouths of the dead
on your one string
you play a mosquito’s complaint
you will be cast off
by the greedy arms of the living
I know
it’s hard to be reconciled
not everything is exactly
the way it ought to be
but please turn around
and step into the future
leave memories behind
enter the land of hope
you tried to outyell time
addressing the dead
now try to outyell time
addressing the unborn
no one wants you
to betray yourself
stick to your subject
write on what is n
ot
6
at night the poet reads
economics pamphlets
at night the poet builds
a paradise for his dead
it is a white rectangle
like a block of cheese
where each has a hole
oily quiet and warm
paradise will be finished
when the class struggle ends
and when from one hectare
we will get a given amount
then a billion lightbulbs
will light up
and loudspeakers sing out
7
again the poet is writing
summoning the unborn
to the future’s paradise
over a rocky precipice
he spans a straw bridge
he runs across it
lighthearted as hope
8
they rebuilt the poet
his table downtown
they rebuilt the café
a fish tank for artists
he’s no longer alone
sitting with him are
a young musician
a certain sculptor
a red-maned critic
and two girl models
how great to march with the people
—the poet thinks—
and shuffles his feet under the table
sometimes they discuss whether
the dictatorship of the proletariat
may exclude art in the true sense
then they look at each other
with a burst of laughter
at not having kicked the habit
of rhetorical questions
TO HIS FIST
Five fingers straying over strings
and curling like iron in a flame
to a pomegranate dead embrace
ten fingers page boys of caresses
kneeling and tearing tender silk
they will die the death of leaves
a myriad fingers blooms of palms
weigh an open friendship a grain
and spin the cocoon of long days
then comes a great ruler threads
turn opaque friendship ensnares
empty words rattle in poppy-heads
then clotted blood in the banners
and the knot of fingers overhead
the same knot in the brain a fist
REQUEST
Teach us too to fold our fingers
to brace a door on the other side
of rooms of a love already lost
may what dreamed of happiness
and shielded a slender flame
when the need arises form a fist
and after the struggle is ended
allow us to straighten our fingers
even if it leaves us only a void
taking defeat in an open hand
holding a skull in soft fingers
at that moment you start again
the great cause of open hands
a playful traveling over strings
the ultimate grain of salvation
ORNAMENT MAKERS
Praised be the ornament makers
the masons and the decorators
the creators of flitting angels
also the makers of ribbons
and on them hearty inscriptions
(fluttered by a great river-wind)
flutists and fiddlers who ensure
that every note played is pure
guarding Bach’s Air on the G-string
and poets it goes without saying
the defenders of children playing
giving voice to smiles hands and eyes
they’re right it is not art’s business
to seek out the truth is for science
masons guard the heart’s warmth
so that there be a mosaic over the gate
a dove a branch or a sun amid daisies
(past the gate symbols’ strings are pulled)
we already have words colors rhymes
that laugh and cry as if alive
the masons will preserve these words
that by this dark mills are powered
we masons frankly can’t be bothered
we are the party of life and delight
in a street with a joyful carnival
there’s the eyesore of a prison wall
an ugly stain on an ideal landscape
they called out the best of the masons
and all night they painted the prisons
pink even the backs of the men inside
DRUM SONG
Pastoral flutes are departed
the gold of Sunday trumpets
the vernal echoes the horns
and the strings are departed—
only the drum remains
and the drum plays on
a festive march a funeral march
primitive feelings keep the pace
on legs straight as rods
the drummer boy plays
thought is one and one the word
as a drum summons a sheer abyss
we carry gleanings or a tombstone
we take wise orders from the drum
our step pounding the paving’s skin
a proud step that will turn the world
into one procession and one slogan
at last all mankind is going
at last all are fallen into step
the calfskin and two sticks
razed steeples and solitude
and silence was trampled too
death en masse is not so bad
dust mounts above the march
the acquiescent sea will part
we will go down to the depths
to empty hell and up on high
make sure no heaven exists
then freed from its trepidation
all the march will turn to sand
carried by the mocking wind
so the ultimate echo will fade
of earth’s disobedient mold
leaving only a drum a drum
the dictator of gutted music
A LITTLE BIRD
O tree spreading like the tree of Genesis
intended for us birds to be a green house
under the revolving spheres’ bated breath
amid sand and clay amid clay and sand
in the midst of deserts which kindly winds
bring nothing but a waterless rain of ash
where to live but in the one and only tree
where you hear thick drops of falling bees
and the rustling of a pitcher full of leaves
I a little bird know I know my place
bound to a branch I’d like to be a leaf
that most diminutive quivering leaf
—for the wise serpent who lives in the tree
who twines round the tree and rules the tree
says that he who leaves the tree will perish
from thirst and hunger from fear of himself
even if he prettily calls his flight freedom
truly I say unto you says the wise serpent
if you won’t be as obedient as the leaves
as humble weak at a wind’s beck and call
you will perish and leave no trace behind—
I a little bird know my worth I do
I’m not like that cricket under a stone
free and easy he who has just a husk
soon to be left as an empty monument
but we have history and ruins of nests
and houses lined ingeniously with fluff
and a school of singing which we trust
to outlast mute and tone-deaf swarms of stars —a bird’s death leaves a hole in the sky
strewing gray dust on the green of earth—
• • •
the sacrifice of wings hurts at first
but song may be made of the hurt
later you come to like n
ot moving
and fear dictates words to the song
fending off the verdict with a song
governed by an instinct of survival
deep down we hide a rebel spark
while praising the sweet use of force
from a tight throat lengthy odes
this will surely burst our throats
and burst our hearts when eyes
unmoving come too close to us
you there reading under the tree
who are a bird among humanity
here is a pen—if you can
write an elegy on my death
a pen preserve in it the shades
of terror and love and despair
with it you may write an epic
on a bird’s fate in a harsh age
PARABLE OF THE RUSSIAN ÉMIGRÉS
It was in the year twenty
or perhaps twenty-one
the Russian émigrés
came to us
tall blond people
with visionary eyes
and women like a dream
when they crossed the market-place
we used to say—migratory birds
they used to attend the soirees of the gentry
everyone would whisper—look what pearls
but when the lights of the ball were extinguished
helpless people remained
the gray newspapers were continuously silent
only solitaire showed pity
the guitars beyond the windows would cease playing
and even dark eyes faded
in the evening a samovar with a whistle
would carry them back to their family railway-stations
after a couple of years
only three of them were spoken about
the one who went mad
the one who hanged himself
she to whom men used to come
the rest lived out of the way
slowly turning into dust
This parable is told by Nicholas
who understands historical necessities
in order to terrify me i.e. to convince me
HOW WE WERE INITIATED
To duplicitous patrons
I was playing out in the street
no one was minding me much
I was busy making sand pies
absently muttering Rimbaud
once an older guy heard me
why you are a poet my boy
we’re just now putting together
a grassroots literary movement
petting my dirty little head
he gave me a big lollipop
The Collected Poems Page 7