the maw
in the fog
you see only
the flickering of nothingness
Mr Cogito’s monster
lacks all dimensions
it’s hard to describe
it eludes definitions
it’s like a vast depression
hanging over the country
it can’t be pierced
by a pen
an argument
a spear
if not for its stifling weight
and the death it sends
you might conclude
that it was a phantom
a disease of the imagination
but it’s there
it’s there all right
it fills crannies of houses
temples bazaars like gas
it poisons the wells
destroys a mind’s constructs
covers the bread with mold
proof the monster exists
is offered by its victims
indirect proof
but sufficient
2
the sensible say
you can coexist
with the monster
just try to avoid
violent gestures
violent speech
when threatened
take on the form
of a stone or leaf
obey wise Nature
who urges mimicry
breathe shallowly
play we’re not here
Mr Cogito however
dislikes living as-if
he’d like to fight
the monster
on solid ground
so he goes out at dawn
to the sleeping suburbs
intrepidly fitted out
with a long sharp object
he calls to the monster
through empty streets
he insults the monster
provokes the monster
like the daredevil scout
of a non-existent army
he calls—
come out you dirty coward
through the fog
you see only
the huge mug of nothingness
Mr Cogito wants to
join the unqual fray
this should happen
as soon as possible
before he is felled
by powerlessness
common death without glory
suffocation by shapelessness
REGICIDES
As Régis suggests they resemble each other like twins
Ravaillac and Princip Clement and Caserio
most often they come from lines of epileptics and suicides
though they themselves are healthy that is to say average
usually young very young and they stay that way forever
their solitude they sharpen their knives for months and years
and in the forest outside the city they train in sharpshooting
they work out the attack they’re diligent alone and very honest
bring meager earnings to their mothers care for siblings don’t drink
no girls or friends
after the attack they surrender without a struggle
they hold up manfully under torture don’t ask for a pardon
deny alleged partners in crime produced by the prosecution
there was no conspiracy they were really acting on their own
their inhuman sincerity and simplicity
drives judges defense lawyers the public crazy no sensation
they who send these souls off into the other world
will be struck by the calm of the condemned men in their last hour
calmness an absence of anger of regret and even of hatred
often a kind of radiance
their brains are rummaged through
their hearts are weighed stomachs opened however no deviations
from the norm are discovered
not one of them managed to change the course of history
but a dark message passed from generation to generation
so those small hands are worthy of our careful reflection
the small hands in which trembles the sureness of a blow
DAMASTES NICKNAMED PROCRUSTES SPEAKS
My portable empire between Athens and Megara
all on my own I ruled over the woodlands gorges precipice
without the advice of old men silly insignia nothing but a club in hand
dressed in a wolf’s shadow and the chilling sound of the word Damastes
I lacked subjects that is I had them only briefly
they didn’t live till dawn but it is slander to call me a thug
as do the counterfeiters of history
in fact I was a scholar a social reformer
my true passion was anthropometry
I designed a bed to the size of the perfect man
I measured captured travelers against that bed
it was hard to avoid—I admit—stretching limbs
trimming extremities
the patients died but the more of them perished
the surer I became that my research was correct
the end was sublime progress requires sacrifice
I wanted to remove the distance between high and low
to give a single form to repellingly diverse humanity
I never wavered in my endeavors to even people out
my life was taken by Theseus killer of the innocent Minotaur
the one who fathomed the labyrinth with a prissy ball of yarn
a fraud full of ruses without principle or vision of the future
I live in the undying hope that others will assume my task
and will bring a labor so boldly initiated to its completion
ANABASIS
The condottieri of Cyrus the Foreign Legion
crafty and ruthless—to be sure—murdered
two hundred and fifteen daylong marches
—please kill us we can’t go any farther—
thirty-four thousand six hundred fifty stadia
harrowed by insomnia they traversed wild countries
tricky fords snowy mountain passes and salty plains
hacking a path through the living bodies of peoples
it’s good they didn’t claim to be defending civilization
the famous cry on the mountain of Teches
is interpreted incorrectly by sentimental poets
they had just found the sea a way out of the dungeon
they journeyed without Bible prophets burning bushes
without signs on earth without signs from the heavens
with the terrible consciousness that life is momentous
ABANDONED
1
I arrived too late
for the last transport
I stayed in the city
which is not a city
without morning papers
without evening papers
there’s no
prison
clock
or water
I am enjoying
some time off
outside time
I go on long walks
down avenues of burned houses
avenues of sugar
of broken glass
of rice
I could write a treatise
on the abrupt change
of life into archaeology
2
there’s a terrible silence
the artillery in the suburbs
choked on its own courage
at times
you hear nothing
but the tolling of scattered walls
and the soft thunder
of tin roofing swaying in the air
there’s a terrible silence
before a predator’s night
sometimes
an absurd airplane
appears in the s
ky
it throws out leaflets
calling for surrender
I would be happy to surrender
but I’ve no one to surrender to
3
at present I live
in the best hotel
a murdered porter
keeps to his lodge
from a pile of debris
I walk straight out
onto the first floor
into the rooms
of the former mistress
of the former chief of police
I sleep on a bed of newspaper
cover myself with the poster
promising an ultimate victory
in the bar there’s still
medicine for solitude
bottles of gold liquid
and a symbolic label
—Johnnie
tipping his top hat
hurries to the west
I bear no one any grudge
for my being abandoned
I ran out of luck
and a right hand
on the ceiling
the light bulb
resembles an upside-down skull
I wait for the victors
I drink to the fallen
I drink to deserters
I have rid myself
of dark thoughts
even forebodings of death
have abandoned me now
BEETHOVEN
They say that he went deaf—but it isn’t true
the demons of his hearing worked tirelessly
no dead lake ever slept in the shells of his ears
otitis media then acuta
made his hearing aid catch
shrieking tones and hisses
rumbling and a thrush’s call the wooden bell of forests
he took from this what he could—high violin descants
lined with the thick blackness of string basses
the list of his illnesses passions falls
is as rich as the list of his finished works
tympano-labyrinthische Sklerose probably lues
finally what had to come came—a great stupor
mute hands beating on dark boxes and strings
the angels’ puffed-out cheeks proclaim silence
typhus in childhood then angina pectoris arterial sclerosis
in the Cavatina of Quartet Opus 130
you hear shallow breathing a contracted heart dyspnea
slovenly quarrelsome with his face marked by chicken pox
he drank to excess and cheaply—beer cab driver’s schnapps
his liver weakened by tuberculosis finally gave up the game
there’s nothing to mourn—the creditors have died
the mistresses the skivvies and the countesses too
the princes and patrons—the candelabras sobbed
he borrows money as if he were still alive rushes
between heaven and earth makes his connections
but the moon is the moon even without its sonata
MR COGITO THINKS ABOUT BLOOD
1
Mr Cogito
reading a book
on the horizons of science
a history of thought’s progress
from the murky depths of deism
into the daylight of knowledge
happened on an episode
which cast darkness on
his private horizon
like a cloud
a minor contribution
to the bulky history
of man’s fatal errors
for a very long time
the conviction was sustained
that a man carries within him
a plentiful reservoir of blood
a pot-bellied keg
twenty plus liters
—no big deal
this may explain
the flowing descriptions of battles
fields red as coral reefs
pulsing streams of gore
a heaven that repeats
inglorious hecatombs
also the universal
method of healing
the diseased
had their arteries opened
and the precious fluid
was blithely let
into a tin basin
not everyone held out
Descartes mouthed in his agony
Messieurs épargnez—
2
today we know exactly
that in each human body
hangman or hanged
there swim barely
four or five liters
of what is called
the body’s soul
a few bottles of burgundy
a pitcher
a quarter
of a trash can’s contents
not much
Mr Cogito
naively wonders
why this discovery
didn’t bring about a turn
in the sphere of customs
it should at least incline
to a reasonable frugality
we can’t as we used to
squander it prodigally
on war’s killing fields
on sites of execution
there’s truly not much
less than water or oil
our sources of energy
but it has happened otherwise
base conclusions were drawn
instead of restraint
improvidence
precise measurement
strengthened nihilists
gave tyrants new scope
they now know for sure
a human being is fragile
easily drained of blood
four or five liters
a negligable sum
the triumph of science
has not fed us in spirit
nor offered a principle
of action a moral norm
it’s a meager consolation
Mr Cogito is thinking
that researchers’ efforts
alter nothing in its course
and barely weigh as much
as the inspiration of a poet
blood
swims on
crosses the body’s horizon
the borders of imagination
—looks like there’ll be a flood
MR COGITO AND MARIA RASPUTIN—AN ATTEMPT AT CONTACT
1
Sunday
early afternoon
a hot day
years ago
in far-off California—
leafing through
The Voice of the Pacific
Mr Cogito
received the news
of the death of Maria Rasputin
daughter of Rasputin the Terrible
the short notice
on the last page
touched him personally
moved him profoundly
there was nothing
tying him to Maria
whose narrow life
can’t be woven in
an epic’s tapestry
here is her outline history
mundane
and slightly banal
at the time
when the usurper Vladimir Ilyich
wiped out the anointed Nicholas
Maria hid away
across an ocean
swapped willows
for palm trees
she waited on
White émigrés
in the aroma of her native tongue
and pancakes cucumbers borscht
her odd ambition was
to wash dinner plates
for men of noble birth
if not a prince
at least a baron
if need be the widow
of an officer of the guard
unexpectedly
an artistic career
opened its gates
she made her debut
/>
in the silent film
Jimmie the Jolly Sailor
this silly picture
didn’t ensure Maria
any enduring place
in the history of the tenth Muse
later
she appeared in revues
at second-rate theaters
in vaudeville shows
in the end
a pinnacle
she won fame
in the circus act
Dance with the Bear
or Siberian Wedding
the furor was short-lived
her partner Misha
hugged her too ardently
the violent caress
of a jilted homeland
a miracle she survived
all of this
plus two
failed marriages
and another important detail
she proudly rejected an offer made
to publish a fictitious autobiography
under the title Daughter of Lucifer
she showed more tact
than a certain Svetlana
2
the note in the Voice of the Pacific
is adorned with a photograph
of the deceased
a robust
woman
hewn from strong timber
stands
in front of a wall
her hand holds
a leather object
something between
a lady’s necessaire
and a mailman’s bag
Mr Cogito’s attention
is drawn
not to Maria’s Asiatic face
or her tiny little bear’s eyes
the sturdy silhouette of a one-time dancer
but above all
that fiercely clutched
leather object
what
was she
carrying
across wildernesses
urban wastelands
forests
mountains
valleys
—Petersburg nights
—a Tula samovar
—an Old Church Slavonic songbook
—a stolen silver soup ladle
with the tsarina’s monogram
—a tooth of Saint Cyril
—war and peace
—a pearl dried in herbs
—a lump of frozen earth
—an icon
no one will know
she took the bag
with her
3
now
the earthly remains
of Maria Rasputin
daughter of the last demon
of the last of the Romanovs
lie in an American cemetery
unmourned
by church bells
a priestly bass
what is she doing
The Collected Poems Page 20