Tsvetayeva Long Poems

Poem of the Mountain

 

Dedication

 

You will wince – and mountain from shoulders,

And to mountain – soul.

Let me about my mountains

Sing a song.

 

Black not today, not further,

Not to plug the hole.

Allow me to sing of sorrow

At the mountain top.


 

1

 

Thus was mountain, like recruit’s

Chest, by the shell tossed.

Thus the mountain wanted lips

Of the girl, in wedding dress

 

Mountain did demand.

Into auricle the ocean

Suddenly bursting hurrah!

That the mountain had advocated and driven.

 

That like lightning was the mountain!

In vain with titans we are flirting!

The last home of that mountain

You recall – at suburbs’ outskirts?

 

That mountain has been – the worlds!

God highly charges for the world!

Sorrow from the mountain started.

That mountain had been over the city.


 

2

 

Not Sinai, not Parnas –

Just the denuded barracks’

Hill. – Stand to! Fire!

Wherefore to my eyes

(Not May but October)

That mountain was – paradise?


 

3

 

Like heaven given in the palm –

Don’t take, as it is burning up!

Mountain has fallen

At the feet of steep potholes.

 

Like under titans’ paws

Of needles and shrub –

Mountain has taken by the floors,

Ordering: Stop!

 

O, far not alphabetical

Heaven – draft of drafts!

The mountain attracted us: Lie down,

The mountain brought us down!

 

Under pressure stunned,

How? Don’t understand today!

Like procuress, the mountains –

To sainthood pointed way.


 

4

 

Persephone’s pomegranate grain!

How to forget you in winter chill?

The lips I recall,

Opened by my twin sink.

 

Persephone, runed by grain!

Lips’ stubborn clover,

And eyelashes – jagged,

And the star’s prong of gold.


 

5

 

Not deceit – passion, and not fantasy,

And don’t lie – just not long!

Oh when as commoners of love

We appeared in the world!

 

And when, healthy and simple:

Simple – hill, simple – mound…

(The say – with rope to abysses

They measure the level of mounts.)

 

In heaps of brown heather,

In islands of needles in pain…

(The height of delirium above the level

Of life.) Is it yours! Mine…

 

But families are quick favors,

But birdlings fly – alas!

From what we in the world appear –

The celestials of love!


 

6

 

The mountain sorrowed (and of muddy mountain

Bitterly grieve in the hours of parting),

The mountain sorrowed of the pigeon

Tenderness of our fameless mornings.

 

The mountain sorrowed of our friendship:

Lips – immutable relationship!

Mountain spoke, that anyone here

Came true – under his tears.

 

More said the mountain, that the camp –

Life, which for century was market for hearts!

Still sorrowed mountain: at least

With the babe – let off Agar!

 

Still spoke, that this is the demon

Circling, that there’s no intention in game.

We had decided to judge the mountain.

Mountain spoke, and we were dumb.


 

7

 

Mountain sorrowed, that only the sorrow

Will be – what is now blood and heat.

Mountain spoke, that would not allow

Us to go, with another would not let us be!

 

Mountain sorrowed, that only as fume

It will remain – what now: World, and Rome.

Mountain spoke, that to be with others

We would (don’t envy one another!)

 

Mountain sorrowed of fearsome load

Of the vow, which it is late to bet.

Mountain spoke that is old

Gordian knot – passion and debt.

 

Mountain sorrowed in our woe –

Tomorrow! Not once! When over forehead –

Not the momento, but simply – sea!

Tomorrow, when we will understand.

 

Sound… Apparently it is simple,

But… Crying nearby?

Mountain sorrowed that below

Under which dirt – is life,

 

Of which we all know:

Rabble – market – barracks.

I still said that all the poems

Of mountains – are written – thus.


 

8

 

Thus was mountain, like coffin

Of Atlas, the moaning titan.

Town will be proud of the mountain

Where we from morning till evening

 

Live our life – like hit the card!

Passionate, don’t he hard of mind.

Along the levy of the bear

And apostles, all twelve there –

 

Honor my silent grotto.

(Grotto – was, and jumped the waves!)

Your game’s final movement

You recall – at suburbs’ edge?

 

Thus the mountain was – the worlds!

Gods take vengeance on their likeness!

…………………………..

From the mount woe started.

A tombstone for me - that mountain.


 

9

 

Pass the years, and here remaining

Stone, flat interchangeable, is withdrawn.

With dachas will be built our mountain –

Front gardens are embarrassing.

 

They say that on these outskirts

Air is cleaner and it’s easier to live.

And they will go to cut the patches,

Thus ruffle the crossbeams.

 

To string my passes,

Bottoms up all my ravines!

For it is needed – how to somebody

Happiness to home and home to happiness!

 

Happiness – at home! Love without fantasy!

Without the pouring wires!

I must be woman – and endure!

(Was, when I walked, happiness –

 

At home!) Love, not painted

Not with parting, not with knife.

On the ruins of our happiness

Stands the city – husbands and wives.

 

And upon the air blessed

While you still can – sin!

There will be shopkeepers at rest

All the profits chewing,

 

Floors and moves to contemplate

That into the home – each thread!

Thus we need – if to somebody

Roofs with the stork’s nest!


 

10

 

But under the heaviness of this basement

The mountain will not forget the game.

There are dissolute, there are no forgetful:

Mountain has mountains of time!

 

Through the stubborn crevasses

Summer resident will understand, grasping late:

Not the hillock overgrown with families –

Crater, into circulation put!

 

With the vineyards of Vesuvius

Do not forge! Giant flax

Do not tie! Of madness one

Lips – enough, that like a lion

 

Vineyards have tossed and turned,

Hatred of lava’s jet.

Our daughters will become maidens,

And our sons will be poets!

 

Daughter, a child grown out of wedlock!

Son, with gypsies yourself end!

There will not be green places,

Bodies, on my blood!

 

Harder than a cornerstone,

The suicide’s oath on bed:

There will not be a happiness

On my mountain, ants!

 

In hour unknown, in time unheralded

With all family will recognize

The immense and the vast

Mountain of seventh command!

Afterword

 

There are gaps in memory, nebula

On the eyes: seven veils…

I don’t remember you – singly.

In place of features – the fizzle pale.

 

Without omens. With the white space –

All. (Soul, all in wounds,

Wound – entirely.) Marking

The limbs with chalk – the tailors’ deed.

Founded strongly is the sky.

Ocean – the splatter pool?

Without omen. True – special – all.

Love is connection, not a spy.

The crow, fair-haired suit –

Let neighbour say: He is gifted with sight.

Is it cut up into parts, the passion?

Am I a watchmaker or medicine man?

 

You – like a circle, whole and complete:

Whole vortex, tetanus full.

And I you do not recollect

Apart from love. Sign of being equal.

 

(In sleepy fluff of the sleep:

Waterfall, foam of the hills –

Newness, till hearing secret,

Instead of “I” a throne room “We”)…

 

But that in the poor and deprived

Life – “Like it is, life” –

I do not see myself jointly

With one:

Vengeance of memory.


 

The Red Bull

 

He will play – time for candle:

With the bones – yes – in the dimple.

Mother! What a funny dream!

What a dream! Mom!

 

From right candle – the wax pours…

The child’s dimples!

The red bull will run

After me along the green grass!

 

Does not pour,

Salty tear!

Bull is red,

Grass is green!

 

Rusty lock, cheeky yawn

Inscription: “no extradition.”

Your bull is here, your horn is here!

Relatives, coming after.

 

Liquid lime, sticky liquid

Cemetery (mother:) “garden.”

Your bull is here… to live and live…

Relatives, staring after.

 

Now one, another tomorrow.

Clod. Quiet silence.

The mud clod, the voice clod.

In the right – handkerchief crumpled.

 

Sky? And so – haven’t been! Only

Twig of adjacent tombs.

From the shame you stare at ground?

Or the shame – you grow dumb?

 

The eyeball’s field – with sorrow’s field

What has become.

Without anchor:

Heels – after them,

With which they enchanted the stare.

 

Not to raise! Feeling – to understand!

Pushed out the door.

Not to forget - in the clay

Up to ankle – the old mother.

Having-spent, that is – handing over – from hands

(Not the hands?) – the next one!

Here’s your bull, here’s your meadow…

Relatives, returning…

 

Having established (just sell!)

That the man – is the mud…

Clear deed! With whom – bull?

Simply rushed to the mind.

 

Long, long, long, long

Way – three cities on the feet!

Mud, mud, mud, mud

In the hiking boots.

 

“At home,” “at home,” “at home,” “at home,”

We will then take Moscow…

Don’s, Don’s, Don’s, Don’s

Kissel, savory soil.

 

You are the mud band,

Ashbury candy!

Latitude-you-homeland!

Latitude of currant!

 

Pipy, pipy, pipy, pipy

In ears – stomping, in ears – nail.

Bull’s, bull’s, bull’s, bull’s

Bolshevik – is the name.

 

“Out of luck!” – “Give me a lift!”

Not in lacquer to go to war!

Boots day and night

Are chomping in dirt.

 

Black soil – black people –

Whispered with fig!

What after the boots

Smack after the hooves?

 

To me dirt in hooves thin

Road! Road! Road!

And I – bull! And I – horn! And I – fear!

On the horns! On the horns! On the horns!

 

I – highway,

Bolshevik,

I paint field with blood.

Pretty – poppy,

Pretty – bull,

Pretty – our time!

 

Turquoise –

Shores!

The spring air!

Not from evil –

On the horns –

Joy from the soul!

 

The heart – hearth.

On – the – side.

Mommy?

Merciful God!

The red bull…

The Bolshevik…

Markov’s, Kor-nilov’s!

 

Long, long, long, long

Way. – Bandage on the sleeve!

Mud, mud, mud, mud

In French heels

Of mother.


 

On the Red Horse

 

And wide open, and wide open

Arms – two.

And back! Stomp, equestrian!

That my spirit, vaulted from ribs – to You,

Not with mortal wife – with one born!

 

Not Muse, not Muse

Over poor crib

Sang to me, took by hand.

Not Muse warmed two cold hands,

Chilled the hot eyelids.

Drew off cowlick from the forehead – not Muse,

Drove into the big fields – not Muse.

 

Not Muse, not black braids, not beads,

Not fables – just two fair-haired wings –

Short – over the winged brow.

Figure in armor.

Sultan.

 

Don’t to the lips bow,

Didn’t baptize the dream.

Of broken doll

Did not with me grieve.

All my birds – into freedom

Let out – and later – not sparing spurs,

Among the blue mountains – on the red horse

The thundering ice drift!

 

Firemen! – Broad scream!

Wide like a glow – scream!

Firemen! – Soul burns!

Does not our house burn?!

 

Full blown bell thunders,

Sway-swing the tongue,

Full blown bell! Great

Is the fire! The spirit burns!

 

From fearsome beauty dancing,

On red torches, tourniquets.

I applaud – I shout – I whistle,

I roar – I aim the sparks.

 

Who bore it? Who through fumes and thunder

Delighted with eagle? I won’t awake!

Shirt – long – till heels

On me – and the beads’ thread.

 

Howl of fire, clang of glass…

At each one – instead of eyes –

Flight of featherbeds! Two glows!

We are burning! We are burning! We are burning!

 

Crackle, the thousand-year chest!

Burn, accumulated load!

Lord of all is my home,

I have nothing to want.

 

Firemen! Rooster, be strong!

Crash into the gilded foreheads!

That the fire wouldn’t go out, wouldn’t go out!

That the poles would collapse!

 

What did – suddenly – collapse – suddenly?

That had not collapsed the pole!

Crazy splash of little hands

In the sky – and shout – doll!

 

Who this – after – with lope chased

Threw to me the glance – overbearing?

Who this – after – with lope from horse

Red – in home – red one?

 

Shout – and out-shouting all

Shout. – The hit of thunder.

Like armor, uplifting the doll,

Rises, like the Fire.

 

Like Tsar amid fiery swells

Rises, moves the brow.

I saved her for you, - smash!

Free the Love!

 

What suddenly – collapsed? – No,

Did not collapse the world!

That wo arms – to equestrian – after

Girl – without – the doll.

 

Angry moon – slot in windows.

This is my first dream.

 

We stand, embracing tightly,

Over noise, where there is stream.

Up to the elastic foot

Flies the foam’s tuft.

 

We look, mutely embracing,

On the poles of foam.

Me – all his harems,

He – all my coats of arms.

 

We stand, intertwined sharply:

Side to side, palm to palm.

All to the foot shoeless

Soars up the horse of foam…

 

Swear, that now – to the bridge,

Flower while I’m there,

Handkerchief… He sees – and – simply

Into stream – with lowered head…

 

Does bridge shake, do I – tremble?

Blood or shaft – moans?

Petrified – dully – I stare,

While my life drowns.

 

Who here suddenly - with wave of coat

Threw me into the air?

Who here suddenly – with red splashing

Will flame – in blue fire?

 

Splash – and the victorious call

Smooth jump - from abyss.

Lifting body like haul,

Like the Stream itself does rise.

 

Like the Tsar amid reared swells

Rises, moves the brows.

I saved him for you – kill!

Liberate the Love!

 

What here suddenly – dashed – no! –

It is not tornado-blizzard!

The two arms – to equestrian – after

Girl – without – the friend!

 

Turbid haze – in slit of windows.

A new dream I am dreaming.

Night rushes – and way is such:

In the veins is pressed the blood.

Son! My sides’ child, -

The leader, lead!

 

Take heart, teen! Mountain’s spirit

One – there is of us two.

Here are only dawns and eagles,

And me and you.

 

Swirl! Gods did not return,

Not scary to the eagles…

Rise, firstborn!

Span after span – height will be ours!

 

For this I did give birth to son,

Gnawing the bottom dust –

That from the eagle’s wing

He took me – thunder of God!

 

Black height. – Sheer cliff.

The little hands – rods.

Who there – exactly Zeus

In the cradle the eagle holds?

 

Laughter – and in return – furious splash

Of the wings and nails – drill.

Who after him – cutting across –

With lightning – in the screaming of eagle?!

 

Rattle – and a thundering roar

Dissected the mountain chest.

Like having uplifted the firstborn,

Rises the self-same Raid.

 

Like Tsar among cloudy swells

Stands, moving the brow.

I saved her for you, - kill!

Liberate the Love!

 

What suddenly – crunched – no! –

This is not tree - dry land.

Two arms – to equestrian – woman

After – without gut!

 

Mean dawn – in slit of windows.

I am dreaming the third dream.

 

February. Curved roads.

In the fields – snowstorm.

Sweeps the big roads

Of the winds – the team.

 

Jumping on the ridges bent,

That – cool again.

After the red, red equestrian

Is the same way.

 

That – here’s he! Reach with arm!

Like teases: Hold!

You pull the insane arms,

And horse – with the snow.

 

Sultan – shaggy – in head,

And so – the willows?

Eh, matchmakers, don’t fold the hands,

Sweep, winds!

 

Sweep, piled up thresholds,

Above the rocks,

That liked dug in – became

His steep-legged horse.

 

And will heed the winds – with moan

To the moan in response,

And hurries with red rutting

My dream of a horse.

 

Shaggy resurrection’s takeoffs,

And thus – willows?

Uplift, uplift, the brooms!

Hold tight, the winds!

 

And what there the lump

Floats up – there?

Like reared up with the blizzard

The temple of hundred heads.

 

End and crown to the chase!

Crackling, into the forehead,

To me flame of horseshoes,

Into palms – edge of coat!

 

To help, with sword and thunder,

All the Hosts’ Tsar!

But spins horse – and with thunder

He thundered on altar!

 

I strive, after me – army

Of the winds in pursuit.

Had not chilled – on the choirs –

The horseshoes’ flight.

 

Like rumble of Sorokoust,

The snowstorm has swept up:

Throw down throne! – It is empty!

As if died down in the ground.

 

Moan, moan, walls!

The snowstorm, rage!

Faded from horses’ foam

Chausibles’ radiance.

 

Reels the dome. – Crumble,

Glory’s and strength’s host!

Body collapses – arms

Having crucified with cross.

 

With rainbows of battle vast –

The expansion of lamps.

Accept me, clean and sweet,

Crucified – after dreams.

 

Jealous hand – your holiday!

Accept the flames!

But what – from height – the horseman,

And what the horse?

 

Armor on him – like sun…

The abrupt flight –

And right in chest – the equestrian

Stands with his foot.

 

Flaming coat – in slit of windows.

Fiery – jumping – the stallion.

 

And not the snowstorm

Sweeps – did sweep.

And not swing of a sultan –

Willows,

Scattering the gray tousles –

The mill shakes – and not beak of an eagle

Empyreal – burying the nose

In the dense cloud of kettle –

With a rag in the hands –

Broad.

 

And damask covered with glass.

Again to sip - leaves.

What is my dream? And dream is this:

Your Angel does not love thee.

 

On the skull the first thunder –

People, people! – Or scarp on skull?

Biting into dry pillow with forehead,

Said at first: Does not love!

 

Does not love! – I need no braids!

Does not love! – I need no red beads!

Does not love! – Thus I’ll jump on the horse!

Does not love! – I’ll jump – to skies!

 

Spirit of granddads, jump up from chain!

Rock the century-old pines!

Spirit of granddads – Aeolus – tremble

My golden braids!

 

On the white horse ahead of regiments

Ahead – under silver thunder of horseshoes!

We’ll see, we’ll see in the battle

Which proud man is on the red horse!

 

Broken is sky! – Good sign:

My helmet is reddened by dawn!

Soldiers! One step to the sky:

With law of grain – in the ground

 

Ahead – through moat! - Tore off? – Row

Another – through moat! – Tore off? – At once

Another – through moat! Armors on the snow

I know: dawn? Blood?

 

Soldiers! Which enemy do we beat?

Burns the chill in the chest.

And enters, and enters with the steel spear

On the left chest – ray.

 

And whisper: Such I had wished you!

And rumbling: Such I you did choose,

Child of my passion – sister – brother –

Armor – the bride in the ice.

 

My and no one’s – till end of years.

I, uplifting hands: Light!

Will be? No – would be nobody’s?

I, pressing the wound: Not.

 

Not Muse, not Muse – not mortal bonds

Of birth – not your fetters,

O Friendship! – Not with woman’s hand –

Pulled on me the knot –

Fierce.

 

Here’s fearsome union. – In blackness of ditch

I lie – and light is the Sunrise.

O who my two weightless wings

Weighed

The shoulder behind?

 

The dumb voyeur

Of living storms –

I lie – and

I follow shade.

 

How long won’t rush off

Me in azure

On the red horse –

My Genius!


 

Unfulfilled Poem

 

 

Future – quarrelsome!

Where’s the motor, carrying – into the past?

Into storage, not tearing from the nets

Truths – obviously-notorious.

Into the home,

Where built in row,

Things stand in the end.

 

Not a second! We chase and we chase!

And – do you know which – rest?

And armchairs like horses in the house!

Would have thrown off the riders!

 

And rider – do you know at what?

Elbow, throwing off elbow –

Himself at us – with sharp elbow!

 

I won’t get off – I’ll throw off and crack:

To the rider the horse is no friend.

About what the armchair thinks,

Having strained the lion’s fist.

 

Took – with bottom, took – with pressure –

Grandfathers - not such is weight!

Of what are moaning the strings –

Under our spools’ zeroes…

 

Creak: Our week!

Crackle…

In our days – it’s much more hard

To sit than to stand.

 

To furniture – the new sun

Got busy! Century is not such!

Is in not time with horse’s hair

To beat damask and leather!

 

Damask – decayed, leather – decayed,

Hair – alive, pressure is done!

(Horse and throne: familiar deed:

Not after him – then under him!)

 

Who from you, granddads and uncles,

In some days, in armchairs sitting,

Saw scary dream about the flock

Of armchairs, under us tearing,

 

Grandkids?

Damask, thought, leather?

What be not – we thought in vain!

Our belongings became similar

To soldiers in October days!

 

Incorrigible one of cracks!

After Russia I don’t believe in things:

I remember, throwing back the head,

The furniture as it burns –

 

This – I’ll break through and this – it is much!

After Russia I do not believe in an inch.

With swing into oven –

The thing decomposed.

 

Not defended with previous lacquer,

Each thing stands with sign of words.

The first bonfire – covers.

 

Not compacted with previous,

Sour, each thing a meaning became.

Each block of chest

Sounded with oak of pain –

 

And in branches nightingales trill!

After Russia in ancestors I believe not.

In hour, when ship gave roll –

Why they did not come down from the walls,

 

Crumbling? With the floor boards crackling,

They did not walk, did not sit in armchair,

Looking: Do not touch! It’s mine!

Freezing the fire.

 

Did not burn things,

But previous days.

Country, where all firs,

Country, where all burned.

 

Hop-haired carpenter and cutter!

Well – got along, and burned – better!

Because the things have burned in fire,

They burned – in time, it was clear!

 

There was no deal: burning – burnt –

Visual bid: us – and bunk.

With brick near his home

The men fell into the flame.

 

Those, whom I into stove tossed

Those said: burn!

Thing, that like copper did heat,

I knew once: to burn!

 

What is not diamond on fire – slag is.

After Russia I don’t trust in lacquer.

Not naphthalin in nodule, but salt:

After Russia I don’t trust in mole:

 

All had burned! Fire – with

Raspberry poured – and with Ladoga spilled!

There was fire in Russia – moth:

Mole has burnt. Had burnt – it all.

 

======

 

The angst had called:

THERE. We rode on the spines

Of aliens: I sin: alive is God,

Alien! Upon the top of alien

 

Trees, with remainder of alien

Winters. Upon the tops – of alien ones.

 

Who – we? Drowned in the bears

The land, drowned in runners.

Who – we? Not from those who ride – Here –

We! And from those, who bear:

 

Teamsters. In wounds that burn

For luck hammered into dirt.

 

Lucky! Through done – with the naked ice!

Brother – thus with patron last.

I did not salt the stew, bread

Has gone. We were so fortunate!

 

All Russia in the drawn muzzles

We bore on our stooped shoulders.

 

Didn’t take out! Run with pedestrians –

In the night – coughed up with men!

Who – we? On all terminals…

Who – we? On all plants…

 

On all the harem abscesses,

We, for village standing,

For the tree…

 

For the gear having managed with broad,

Thus are we – white liners?

Knights with Mahova, and with Bronne,

We – gold-miners?

 

Coffin diggers, bedbugs –

Approached! Approached!

We did not let out the word:

Good! Good!

 

Dishwashers, rat-poisoners,

Home – top, thunder – stifling,

Thus we let out the word:

Good! Good! –

Russia.

 

Painters in the skies –

Thus we – rave from fat?

In the Fifth we built barricades –

We, fellows.

History.

 

Barricades, and now – thrones,

And the calluses’ gloss!

And now at Sharantona

They don’t hold the Russian woe.

 

We die of them. Under coat torn –

We die, into delirium pointing gun.

Rebuild the Bedlams!

All small – for Russian troubles!

 

Crutch raves with the spur. Sharpen!

With machine gun – empty cuff.

In the heart, after opening,

Is the ice hike’s sign.

 

Had not uprooted with all heels!

It will be known – there:

In the morgue the doctor won’t recognize,

For big hearts not in measure!

 

=====

 

With the spring no malt, no grain,

Not rye, not other sack.

Also naked is your volunteering:

What is spring or are we – denuded?

 

With the spring – hide, like goblin!

Nothing but the gesture up!

Also volunteering pedestrian:

What the spring or did we fight?

 

To return to spring – like in Army

To return, in forest – like in battalion.

The percussion spring of good will,

This you started crackling with machine gun

 

On bushes, on shallows…

But, the child will shudder at night –

With nightingales like with machine gun

Thus you …… fire.

 

To return to spring – like in Army

To return: well done, platoon!

With good will the spring striking

Every year will return.

 

Volunteers of one Army

We: Drozdev’s, Vendean, Greek –

With goodwill the percussive spring

Returns every century!

 

On first magnet –

Till vein flashes!

Birches: on them

Injuries’ patches.

 

Speck of birches:

Resin with chalk, in two paints –

Not a grove, but headquarters

In Novocherkassk.

 

Black on white – there is no brightness!

White on black – brighter than tears!

Loud voice: Well done, the Markov’s!

(On the whole row of birches…)


 

New Year’s

 

Happy New Year’s – light – land – shelter!

Happy to you the new letter

Misunderstanding, that grain’s –

(Grain’s – ruminant) loud and sonorous place

Like empty tower of Aeolus.

Your first letter with yesterday’s,

On which I will wear out without you and yours,

Homelands, now – from one of

Stars… Withdrawal’s and retreat’s law,

On which beloved – with love

Former and unprecedented.

To say how about yours I have learnt?

Not earthquake, not avalanche.

Man came – another – (loved –

You.) Most sorrowful of news.

In News and Days. Will you give the article?

Where? In mountains. (Window in branches of fir.

Sheet.) Do you not see the newspapers?

Thus article! No. But… I ask to spare.

Out loud: hard. Inside: not Christ-seller.

In sanatorium. (In hired heaven.)

Day? Yesterday, day before yesterday, I don’t remember.

Will be in Alkazar? Won’t.

Family. Inside: Except Judas, all.

 

Happy coming! (Tomorrow was born!)

To tell, what about having learned…?

Tss… Misspoke. By habit.

Life and death for quotes I am taking,

Like obviously-empty gossip.

I did nothing, but something

Was done, without shade and echo

Doing!

Now – how did you ride?

How tore and was torn –

Heart? Like on eagle trot,

From eagles, said, not falling behind,

Took the breath – or more hard?

Sweeter? For him not the height,

Not downhill he flew on Russian eagle wings –

Who. We have with that light the bond of blood:

Was in Russia – that on this light

Ripe. Established defection!

Life and death I pronounce with a grin,

Will touch yours – hidden!

Life and death I pronounce with a footnote,

With the star (the one I feel, night:

Instead of the brain’s hemisphere –

One of the stars!)

Not to forget, my friend,

The following: that if the Russian

Letters went to replace the German –

Not because now, say,

Will not happen, that dead (beggar) all will eat –

Will not blink! – And because, that this light,

In Novodevichy, ours – thirteen,

I understood: not without – and all-pagan.

 

Here I ask not without woe:

Did not ask, like in Russian

Nest? Alone, and the rhyme

Covers all nests: stars.

 

I answer? Not such a thing

Will be found – get distracted from ye.

Each thought, Du Lieber, any,

Syllable leads into you – of whatever

Be the thought (may Russian be dearer than German

To me, dearer than all angels!) – there’s none

Of place, where you’re not, but grave it is.

All like had not been and all like had been.

Indeed is there nothing about me?

Surroundings, Rainer, well-being?

Strongly, by all means –

The first vision of the Cosmos

(Implied, the poet

In one) and final – planets,

Since given to you – in all.

Not poet with dust, with body soul,

(To isolate – to insult the two)

And I with you, and you with you,

To be Zeus’s does not mean the best –

Caster – you and with you – Pollux,

Marble – you with you, grass,

Not to depart and not to meet – and

Visual bet: both parting and meeting

First.

On his own hand

He had stared (on trail – inky – on it)

With her only (how many?) miles

Infinite or without start

Heights above the crystal level

Of Mediterranean – and other plates.

All that has not been and all that will be

Outskirts behind end with me.

All that has not been and all that is –

All written off for extra week –

And wherever you will stare,

Leaning on the lodge’s band,

From this – from this, not on that –

Like not on the long-suffering that.

I live in Bellevue. From branches and nests

The town. With guide having exchanged stares:

Bellevue. City with gorgeous look

On Paris – the home of chimera of Gaul –

On Paris – and further a bit…

Leaning upon the scarlet rim,

Like funny to you (to whom) “to be must,”

(To me) must be, without measures from height,

Our Bellevue and Beldevere!

I’m throwing myself. Privacy. Urgency.

New Year at the door. What for, will clink with whom

Over the table? With what? Without foam

Tuft of cotton wool. What for? They beat – and for what

Am I here? What should I do in New Year’s noise

With this internal rhyme: Rainer – dead.

If you, this eye – dark it went,

It means life is not life, death not death,

It means – we keep warm, in meeting understand!

Not life, not death – the third,

New. And after him (having with straw

Laid – twenty sixth’s departing –

With you what happiness

Ends, with you it begins!)

Across table, to eye invisible,

I will clink with you with quiet clink

Glass on glass? No – not the tavern ones:

I or you, merging the given rhyme:

Third.

Across table I look upon your cross:

How many places – suburban, and the places

Out of city! And to whom waves

Like on them – bust? Places – exactly our

And other draws! Whole leaf! Whole fir!

Your places with me (with you yours).

(What with you for the extras

To speak?) What – place! And crescents!

And weeks! And rainy suburbs

Without people! But mornings! But all instead

And not started by nightingales!

 

In a hole I see badly,

Being above, you see better:

Nothing came out with you and me.

For this, that cleanly and simply

Nothing, that on the shoulder and with height

For us – to enumerate we don’t need.

Nothing, except – don’t wait:

Leaving from row (wrong one from tact

Leaving!) – and in which, and how

From one that entered is the row?

The eternal refrain:

Nothing with something for something

Something – would have issued – though shade

Of shade! Nothing, but: that hour, that day,

That home – even to the convict in chains

Granted by the memory: mouth’s here!

Did in means they sort out?

From all that just one light

Of ours has been, like we are only a reflection

Of us – all the light – instead of the whole world.

 

From the underdeveloped lands –

With new place, Rainer, with light, Rainer!

With the extreme provability’s cape –

With new eye, Rainer, with hearing, Rainer.

 

To you all was obstacle,

Was: passion and friend.

Happy new hearing, Echo!

Happy new echo, Sound!

 

How much on school tabouret:

What are these mountains? What rivers?

Are good landscapes without tourists?

Did not forget, Rainer, heaven is mountainous,

Thunderstorm? Not of two claims –

Not to view one heaven, another over him

Heaven? Terraces? I judge by Tatras –

Heaven cannot be not an amphitheatre.

(And the curtains lowered over someone…)

Did not err, Rainer, is God

A growing baobab? Not the Louis Gold –

Not one is God? After all over another

God?

How is it written in a place that’s new?

However, there’s you – there’s poem: myself and you –

Poem! How’s written with good life

Without table and elbow, forehead for the brush

(Of handful)?

News, with habitual font!

Rainer, do you rejoice in new rhymes?

Correctly pushing word

Of rhyme – what – like not – the full row

Of new rhymes – Death?

Nowhere: studied is tongue.

Whole row of meanings and accords

New ones.

Farewell! For connections!

We’ll see – I don’t know, but – we’ll sing!

With me – with unknown land –

With whole world, Rainer, with my aim!

 

Won’t disperse – scribble anew.

Rainer, with sound drawing new!

 

In sky – staircase, with Gifts thereon…

Rainer, with new ordination!

 

That they won’t pour I hold hand. -

Above Rhone and above Rarogn,

Above obvious and massive farewell

To Rainer – Maria – Rilke – in hand.


 

Singer

 

 

1

 

Chamomile, burdock

House – thus little domestic!

With that special look

The souls’ – heavy weight.

 

Home, that to city – with behind

Stood, and ahead – to the wood.

Genial like bear,

Horned like deer.

From which the spirits

Into all eyes are peering –

 

All near window! From pediment –

Like till ingrown in sediment –

What window – is icon,

What face – is ruin

And arena… Behind the former

I have life and shelter

With chestnut replaced –

My window it is.

 

And shirts! Like waves

Of arms – over life broken!

O, shirts! Gaps!

Only murals of wars!

 

War for sur-vi-val.

Thus night and day

With sleeves of shirts

The home wars with death.

 

Not scattered while sitting,

Not smelling with rich ones.

For which it’s not embarrassed

Before the evil and the homeless:

 

Birds aren’t ashamed

Of the towers – night overslept.

House, of which there’s no fear

Reprisal in people’s hour!

 

In this home, flown

To …… from hands,

In this ghost of home –

Are grandma and grandson.

 

 


 

2

 

 

And thus speech – about Russians,

Simple will be story.

Certainly was loader grandson,

And grandma – “a hundred years –

 

I will await – I’ll finish sowing…”

(Do not tell me to be living!)

For her to the happiness

Stands baby elephant, the eyes –

 

Fresh and alive, hands – wait

A demand, all to her – good!

At that old woman – braids

Is like silver living!

 

And cheeks – from the frost

Such I won’t profit!

Grandson came on a cart.

Grandma planted the rose –

In the garden – and on canvas.

 

But still – we won’t be more plain,

Than life – ghost to the propertied.

Grandson was the carrier,

Thus it is unclear,

 

Being them, above the might

Labouring for a bread crumb –

That himself was labourer –

Beautiful just like a day!

 

With spine – thus the poplar stands,

With eyeball – like light – radiant,

With handkerchief – like dandy – neat,

With face – like crescent – clean,

 

But, simply – it’s nicer to exist,

Having met at the gate.

And still it is unclear:

How does the swan this case

Carry?

 

 


 

3

 

 

As a pair we sat,

Said nonsense the cat.

We sat, waited –

Pair, and teapot awaited

 

Its time. Ended almost

The day. Who said, thus was guest.

Suddenly – the ceiling would open

And gushed with cell – the rain

 

Of notes! After coat! After jacket!

Thus crushed, thus grasped,

That once he had drowned

Both the spirit lamp and the spirit!

 

Upon the angel sounds –

What had the pair done?

The grandma folded arms,

Opened the mouth the grandson…

 

And in that hole, in the posthumous

Apartment – from river bottom –

Erected four

Hands in a prayer –

 

Like with palms. In foreknowledge

Of inescapable torments,

With Easter eyes

I saw: grandma, grandson –

 

While the face and forehead

Were not swallowed by shade.

Thus the top tenant

Moving into the home on that

Day…

 

And like in church it became with us

In holiday, in river flood.

Old woman started running to the top,

To grandson – having uttered no word.

 

I won’t bore and I won’t break,

Only press Your hand!

Sing, sing! Caress the soul

Of my poor grandson.

 

In our life – altogether wild –

You – spring to him, magnet.

Thus will come to cart – the face

Not having washed – in ceiling stares!

 

Yes, your great deed!

For your la of the highest –

With old body they bend legs:

Was young – so did sing,

And – myself I young have been!

 

 


 

4

 

 

On the rickety stairs

Where it’s gray from smoke and smells with the near –

Upon the wings of his voice

The top went down – to lower ones.

 

In this mixing of the wasteland

With storehouse, with crawl – flames,

Soaring in circle cloud,

Like fairies in that time.

 

With that difference, that with fairies – from hands

Diamonds, tempting to the eyes. –

My beloved grandson, and this – friend

Delightful: our diamond sound!

 

I know: reader waits for sight.

Reader, forgive for dare!

Having agreed that the nose and mouth

All, all was had by her –

 

“All” this not worse than our

We will swipe, like from the pillow hair.

What for is our singer’s face,

Since she all – is only voice:

 

Invisibility! Since we see most clear

The sky – with hail through the tears!

From this all until what –

But will not lift the sight

 

From – and in drunk cup – the grandson

Yesterday’s, eternal groom.

Like girl in mirror, in tea circle

Stares, like in ominous pond

 

Stares the swan, and in him the thunder

Reads.

(It’s easier sometimes for some – eyes

Lifting to guest – rather than hand!)

 

And easier to many, of course – case

Oaken!)

The dry or the wet –

But did not raise eyes, did not raise

Did not demonstrate diamond stars.

 

 


 

5

 

 

Branches quieter, birds quieter,

Than the snow bush quieter.

Thus they know, that will not hear

He, to whom you knock (here!).

 

From the roof falling drops

Fear – to be heard.

Thus they knock, that won’t be heard

In this knock – knocking of heart.

 

Doctor – in collarbone,

Starling – grain,

Fear – knocks,

Passion – knocks…

 

Knocking, more careful than breath.

At home? – At home. – I may?

You may.

 

Torso, less movable than visions.

This – I: your neighbour beneath.

To you from grandmother.

Nails

Burn – like raising the beacon:

But, you have darkness! – Enter.

There are no lights, all – candle.

I will go first. You – behind.

 

And with following, the grandfather

Stretched out by corridor,

With insanity, with wood,

With ford, exactly – of the kind

With vaulted blood conduit,

Undoubtedly, with his

Gulp, without turning back,

Without return, darkness – with agate

And basalt – and granite…

In the mouth – money

Having taken – after entrance underground –

Pay – with underground souls’ water

Slave after the leader.

 

And, further? Thus he had pulled

After shawl dreadlocks the nail,

That simply with corridor

Walk has appeared the grotto –

With word – stood:

He – poured

From steel, she – except

Shawls, after Lezgi’s waist…

 

Rose late – overslept!

Nothing have we caught!

 

(If, later, his daughter

Was called with his name –

Thus in memory of the hour

Full. (Thus remembers the bank –

 

With roses.) No meat

Swarthy – or white!

Lips – drier than chalk. With ripe

Pear – singing poured.

Sang – listened. Heard

Body – soul – and obeyed.

 

Thus became custom from these times:

What the night – from external dark:

At home? – At home. – May I? – Must be.

 

May I? – May you. (Tenderly, tenderly…)

 


 

Alleyways

 

 

And you didn’t see, young one – we know not what,

And you didn’t hear, young one – we know not what,

In loud white-crunched dresses

In these Ignatiev’s alleys.

 

Light burns on the light,

Must be, the required it creates,

Burns incense to sacrifice of the Lord,

From the oak it demands.

 

And from-where the ringing? – Wrist!

And from-where the rumbling? – Curse!

Let young child try the happiness

Upon Ignatiev’s alleyways.

 

Stump. Two potholes.

Collapsed the wattle fence.

Into darkness without trace,

Seven windows.

 

You think while you sit at home,

And follow as you pass the sixth:

Young fisher girl on the shore

Mows in half an eye: did not peck?

 

Will blow – will burn the bonfire,

Will spit – will give the dollar,

One smart and one beautiful –

Further – the tongue does not will!

 

In half an eye and from this

Sloping from tough shoulder above.

We’re not wasting empty words

In alleys of Ignatiev.

 

And how to enter? – With exit.

And how are speeches? – They twist.

And why should I get baptized?

Where are the Christs? – Coming out.

 

On the spider web – henge

To cross without hesitation!

Think, the child, say,

Here is you shrine.

 

Curtain-my-curtain!

My cut of Murzametz!

Part-ripple-blindness-stinging!

Not curtain for my face!

 

Hotshot, will have time, guess!

What, not marvel under canopies!

On the princess the black pigeons

In half-barrel before love are cooing:

 

About the white shoulders,

Of which there is no dare,

About the sweet blend –

After this there’s no regret…

 

About love, about flattery,

The green leaves,

About viands – not the nets,

Not to bite – the nuts.

 

And still, hotshot, not to get blunt!

Or come to – communion – cup?

The eyes look ahead – not to get stuck

In these alleyways of Ignatiev!

 

And tightly – on top thereof

Had smelled the handkerchiefs!

With apples, with rubies

With chess, flatters.

 

(From my hot lips –

Go the fevers!

From my hot lips –

Veins in body are buzzing!)

 

With chess, with rubies…

My sugar lips,

With mother’s

Milk you reek!

 

(Messy is my

Chill – foggy!

My fever is

Feverish!)

 

-----

 

A – I – heaven!

A – I – wow! E – lect!

Don’t – be – shy!

 

Apples – ruby,

Apples – gold.

Who will wilt –

It is known about it.

 

Apples – flattery,

Apples – flirting.

Do not put the hand

Behind the chest.

 

To keen-eyed – blindness,

To sensitive – deafness.

We cannot hear

The above pigeons.

 

To shy – whip,

Sweetness - to daring ones.

Do not thieve

The apple’s eye!

 

Like for the right hand

Whip and splash!

Instead of white hand

Lizard’s tail!

 

Whiplash – catch

The left hand!

In left eye of

Viper gone mad!

 

With belt over shoulder

Wants – squat:

As a heavenly river

Silk has gone.

 

A – u – heaven,

A – u – soar,

Con – si – der,

Of – the – snow.

 

Garlic – to apple

Uneven.

Ayu-paradises

Of heaven.

 

River – mist,

River – ripples,

With hand – little fish

Not catching…

 

Not onto the curve,

Not onto the side,

The boat

With rainbow iridescent.

 

River – sob,

Fish – splash.

From all little fish –

Just the tail.

 

And the foreigners –

Love for eyes!

Shemekhan’s

Sails for us!

 

(What the foolishness-thus-jerkiness

With blond head hides in the skirts?)

 

With heavenly saliva

Among other rivers

I’ll pass – to youngsters

No, they say, sweeter.

 

(Whispers-my-laughs,

Sweet-stringed, sweet saliva!)

 

Like after those whispers –

With kicking-howl the soul,

Like after those whispers –

The head with bull’s horn!

 

On the stern the black pigeons

In half-goiter of love are cooing:

 

About ribs, about gums,

The spring of hunger,

About linen – not brushed,

Not sent – the bow.

 

And what for us is linen,

The head of green?

Your bow to earth beneath –

Into the broad silks:

 

Bow,

Bow!

 

Under the comb

Put the linen,

That the son

Won’t say questioning:

 

To mommy,

To mommy!

 

Jets the hand

The width of rainbow.

You see – mom

Stands on the meadow:

 

Bow,

Bow!

 

Still bows

To the east – feather grass.

Wish,

Expensive was –

 

From memory!

From memory!

 

Oh! – Lightning!

Oh! – Burns!

But – lightning

The horse – neighs!

 

Once – on feet,

Two – for the braids,

Three – glory sing.

An –

 

Not braids – not rune,

Not rivers – not canoes,

Two reins,

Horseman, burn!

 

Beautiful is the stallion,

Like in an icon.

I am the horse,

I am the chase.

 

In-chest

Jumping!

Fire’s hot!

Burn!

 

In both reins!

Hey, my red ones!

In the chest lies

Seven, seven times

And still –

Seven.

Horseman,

Burn into darkness!

 

Darkness – into behind!

Not to stomp out!

My cheeks’ ash,

Collapse of my veins!

 

Glow in forehead – growl,

Rud-dy rein!

 

One is sweet-ness!

Twelve tor-ments!

Drop the reins!

Open wide the hands!

 

Here! – For century-days

The kingdom’s bak-eries!

 

Flax,

Flax,

Black

Tar kettles!

 

Don’t lie: resin,

But green are linens.

 

Bow,

Heel,

With flaxen eyelashes.

Lie under whistle

The hot arrows.

Ah, flaxes!

 

Ah, flaxes flaxen,

Flaxes of queen!

Streams from the land

Brought in the mention:

 

With eyelashes we went,

With eye sockets we went,

With earth we went –

Salons!

 

With salt shakers – eye sockets

At the earth of rye.

Why have you, famous guests,

Stayed for little time?

 

To salt shaker – land,

How much you want – of salt!

Why did you, blushing flesh,

Live just a bit?

 

A lot or a bit –

The drugs are given!

Walk through with me

The fiery torment!

 

Oh – lightning!

Oh – thunder!

Not – lighting:

Horse – in house!

 

Once – walking,

Two – jumping,

Three – sparks in forehead!

AH:

 

Not fire-not kettle,

Not horse-not saddle,

Two wings,

And in

A-zure!

 

Azure, azure,

Steep mountain!

Azure, azure,

Second earth!

 

Aim – of Lazarus,

Blueness – of Ladan,

Azure – azure,

My cold!

A-zure!

 

In remaining time once

Draw down, freeze!

Upon the last wind

With rye land:

 

Humps, beards, and furrows

Till green.

Spirit of manure, fenced –

My land!

 

Kettle without bottom!

Palm-depth!

Azure, azure,

Blue-of the lake:

A-zure!

 

In the final remaining

Through the-blue-all:

Not for early dinner

To hotshot – recall…

 

In smithy – they forge the fame,

To the lips – they bring the bowl,

They sing glory to the friend

In a-zure.

 

Azure, azure!

Stirrups are gold!

Azure, azure,

Where did you lead?

 

Height-of Falcon,

Mist-of Rainbow,

Depth-of Ruby:

Azure!

 

Louder, belfries-sleeplessness,

In all-the-ringing!

Here do not bow the heads:

Thus we will ascend!

 

Bluer, chimneys-censers,

In that-smoke-all!

Eleven on my chest and

With just one still!

 

Amen,

Has passed,

Sea waves,

Blue-Savanov’s,

A –

 

The whole world,

With mirage – days!

Without news – world,

Without news – us.

 

Blue-you-waves,

Be gone-shore!

Blueness of stars –

Position of ours.

 

But through whole -

See – gloom!

With the stair –

Robes of mine!

 

Jacket is hollow:

Won’t reach earth,

Shout of stones

Falls – and drops.

 

I preferred,

I went mad:

Blueness – in boots,

Blueness – in heads…

 

To fall – not to fall,

To swim – to end not to swim.

To satisfy the soul

With the gifts!

 

To squander, sweet!

With load won’t accept!

As if to admit –

I have to reject!

 

The first bloom,

The suburb only!

And of these lands –

There are thirty!

 

But stare through

The whole loss!

With my handfuls

Of the earth!

 

Don’t be lazy, dear:

It is not needed:

And do not lie:

And not a husband

 

Here, not a wife.

Do not burn wounds,

Harvests without arms,

Vows without lips.

 

Not having kept,

Give all away! –

Like a lark

The wound of mine

 

 

In la –

 

Azure, azure,

Shoulders are tight!

Azure, azure,

Where have you led?

 

There-lead,

Here-lead,

Poured in the ends,

Confused the trace

 

In la –

 

In azure – in disparity

From aim – to aim

Not on the leash

Weep, one cursed:

Dull is the sight,

Steep is the forehead,

The horn is gold.

 

-----

 

Goat trace at the gates,

Turn from the gates.


 

Attempt of the Room

 

Walls of inertia are numbered

For me. But – jump? Accident?

Three walls I remembered.

For the fourth I do not bet.

 

Who then knows, back to back?

Maybe, but may not be as well.

 

To be. And was not. Muzzle. But

Not the wall behind spine – thus?

All that is not wanted. Message “Bottom,”

Tsar recanted. Not only from the post

 

News. Urgent wires

From all times and from everywhere.

 

Played the grand piano? Passes through.

Blows. Goes with the sail. With cotton wool –

Fingers. Sonata leaf did lift.

(That you are the tenth, don’t forget.)

 

For that wall unseen

I know the name: the wall of the spine

 

At piano. Still – with writing table,

And still – with instrument of shaving

(This reception at this wall

In mirror is to be done in the hall.

 

I survived – I did stare.

Emptiness bearing chair).

 

Chair for all, who cannot enter –

Porch sensitive to feet – door!

The wall, from which you had

Grown – hurried with the past –

 

Between us is whole paragraph.

You will grow like Danzas –

Behind.

And with Danzas – her,

Called, chosen, with weight, with hour,

(The wall of the spine: I know the name!)

Not as Dantes enters the room.

Turn of head. – Are you ready?

Thus you through ten verses,

 

Lines.

In the back, attack of eyes.

But, having left the backpack behind,

Reliably the ceiling – has been.

I persist: As in living room,

 

Maybe I a little did slash –

(Bayonet attack in the back –

Strengths.)

And now cerebellum I squeeze.

Like a lump the spine takes a seat.

Thus the sheer wall of the Pin,

That – the dawn’s, that – of shootings

 

Light: clearer, than on shades

Of gestures – in back due to back.

 

Execution: what I won’t understand.

But, having left the discharge veiled,

Ceiling was reliably whole

(Still ahead – he to us wherefore).

 

To the fourth wall I’ll return:

There, where, coward, retreating

Stumbles.

“Well, and floor –

Was? Needing which wherefore?”

Was. – Not to all. – On swing, trunk on,

Not horse, not rope, not coven, -

 

Higher!

In “that world” to all of us

With emptiness the burdensome heal

Splice.

 

For feet – the floor.

How implemented is man, how interspersed!

Ceiling – so it would not drop.

Recall, how old execution – in hour by drop?

 

Grass would not grow in home –

Floor, earth would not have fit in home –

 

To all – those – to whom the stake

Is not hindrance in night of May!

Two walls, ceiling and the floor.

All, as was? Again – appear!

 

Will with shutter notify?

Room is furnished hastily,

On the grey white –

Sketched in the rough draft.

 

Not plasterer, not roofer –

Dream. On ways without wire

Guard. In abysses under eyelids

Someone has found somebody.

 

Not provider, not furniture maker –

Dream, than Reval more naked

They swept. Under all glitter.

Room? Plain – simply.

 

Landing stage is more friendly!

Nothing from geometry,

Abysses in tome of cardboard,

Late, but fully, understood.

 

And the brake of phaetons –

Table? Table with elbow

Subsists. Get loose by inclination,

Desktop – will be the table.

 

Thus, like storks – the children:

Will be need – will appear

Thing. No roast for three versts!

Table will grow with the guest.

 

All will grow,

Don’t get along, don’t build.

Under the sign

To say – which?

 

Reciprocity’s

Dense wood

Hotel

Soul’s rendezvous.

 

Home of meeting. All – parting –

Those, southerners for the south!

Do serve – the hands?

No, that is quieter than the hands,

 

And lighter than hands, and cleaner than hands.

Refurbished trash

With accommodation?

Remains there starvation!

 

Yes, here we are touchy,

And in right. Messengers - hands,

Hands – thoughts, hands – results,

Hands – the very ends…

 

Without spasmodic “Where art thou?”

I wait. In kinship with silence,

The gestures – wait upon,

In the palace of Psyche.

 

Only wind is dearer to the poet!

In whom certain – in hallways.

Passage – the military base.

Must go long, so that at once

 

Midst the room, with sight of God –

Lyre-holder…

Poem’s road!

 

Wind, wind, above forehead – the flag

Raised by our step!

“And so on” restored  –

Gave domesticity the corridors.

 

With starling’s profile of the infidels

With quiet modesty the distance

 

On the measure of children’s feet,

In coins dear rhymes: shoe – lead –

 

Tile… in peacock train

There’s the tower, Eiffel called by name.

 

Pebble - like to kid river,

Far off – slice, distance – afar,

 

In child’s memory, bottom, stringed,

Distance with hand baggage, nurse’s distance.

 

Not blurted out to us (distance in modes)

That on carts is dragging along…

 

Driven till the pencil-box…

Corridors: canals of homes.

 

Weddings, fortunes, events, times –

Corridors: tributaries of homes.

 

Five in the morning, with letter anonymous,

Not only the brooms walk in the corridors.

 

Of cumin and sod it smells.

Kind of lesson? Of-the-hall.

 

Thus demanding, that had ground –

Karmaniola – Corridors!

 

Who built corridors

(Dug), knew how to bend where,

That to give the time to blood

Against corner turn the heart –

 

And around this sharp corner –

Magnet of thunder!

That the heart’s island

Was washed off of all sides.

 

Was created this corridor

By men – and don’t ask clearer! –

That to give time to the brain

To notify in whole line –

 

From “landing there’s not”

To the nodular of heart:

“Goes! To rush up –

Squint! And not – down

 

With the rail!” Corridor’s made

By me (simply – not a poet!),

That to give time to the brain

Places to ascertain,

 

And rendezvous – terrain,

Painting – counting – drawing,

Words, not always opportune,

Gestures, entirely sinful.

 

That love be in order –

That, all that to you is beloved –

All, without final folds –

Lips or dresses? Foreheads.

 

Could strengthen the whole dress!

Corridors: houses’ tunnels.

 

Thus old man, driven by daughter –

Homes’ ravines – corridors.

 

Look, friend! Like in letter, like in dream –

Thus I am a lumen to thee!

 

In first dream, where you lower eyes –

Thus I’m on you with premonition of light.

 

In an extreme spot of time

This is me – light eye.

 

And after?

There’s dream: in tone.

Was – lifting,

Was – bow

 

Of forehead – and forehead.

Yours – ahead

Forehead. Rude

Is the rhyme: mouth.

 

Because there were no walls –

Ceiling reliably gave the roll.

 

Blooms the vocative case

In mouths. And floor – you authentically breach.

 

And through gap, green like the Nile …

Reliably the ceiling sailed.

 

Floor – why, beside “fall!”

Floor? What for us to floorboards

 

Weeds? Little chalk? – Woe!

On one blank holds the poet…

 

Of two bodies over nothing

Reliably the floor did sing –

With all angels.


 

Poem of the Air

 

 

Well, here is the first

Couplet.

The first nail.

Door has gone quiet,

Like door, like another guest.

Standing – like fir tree

At the entrance –

Was calm, ask the widows

Like bone, after which is master’s

Call, master’s

Wakefulness. We will say thus:

Patient it was,

Like guest, after which the sign

Of hostess – all darkness’s sign! –

The lightning above servants!

Live or a ghost –

Like guest, after whom the knocking

Solid, not on anyone’s

Means – we die from this –

The heart of the mistress:

Birches under the axe.

(Split apart case

Pandorin, worries’ casket!)

Of entering – without count,

But who without knocking – waits?

In hearing assuredness

And in time. Leaning on the wall,

Assuredness in the ear

Reciprocal.

(Yours – in me.)

Knowingness of entry.

The sweet one (games in fear!)

Of the especial kind

Stay – with key in hands.

Contempt of feelings,

Over the world of wives and husbands –

That Opt’s desert,

Who gave – even ringing.

Soul without layers of feeling.

Like a fellah, nude.

The door made a stand.

Not about the ears?

Like faun’s horns did appear.

Like regi-ment… Fire!

If still a little –

From the noose would descend simply

From the strength of presence behind.

In the passion’s time

Thus shake the veins,

Pulled above all possibility.

There did not follow the knocking.

Floor – did swim.

Door threw itself in the hand.

Darkness – a little stepped back.

 

Complete naturalness.

Property. Stasis.

Staircase, like stairs,

Hour, like (night-time) hour.

Along the wall spreading.

Someone’s. With garden

Breathing, someone clearly

Yielded the step to me –

In full divinity of the night,

In the sky’s full height.

(Only the larches’

Noise, foams on the bridges…)

In full obscurity

Hours and countries.

Complete in invisibility

The shades even.

(The night is not black,

It is black – it is black!

Cinnabar of shell of rainbow,

Carbine – having seeped with the retina

The world on this and yours –

More I will not mess up the eyes –

With beauty.) Dream?

But syllable

In best case. – And in him? Under him?

It seems? Let me hear:

We, and a single step anew!

And harmonious, not pair,

That, the orphanhood of two.

Single – of every

Step – while not spirit:

My. (Not that, there’s holes in them –

To patch here – and shame!)

We need to straighten out something:

Or you will lower down to the span,

Upon all the ones who think –

The whole homeland!

Or – and had heard:

I sound no more.

 

Complete rhyme.

Rhythm, first of mine!

Like Columbus they greet

With the new land –

With air. Forget

The truths current!

With strong rebound

The ground

Like chest of a woman

Under wail-boot.

(Mothers

Under children’s stacks…)

Tight is the step.

Opinion against:

Not comfortable is the way.

With sphere’s resistance,

As through the Russian rye,

Through age – rice,

To you, China!

As if against the sea

(Against: read –

By heart) with plexus of the crowds. –

I fight like Heracles!

Earth radiation.

The first air – dense.

 

I dream of you or you dream of me,

Dryness, question of gray

Hair lector’s. Let, I feel:

We, and one sigh.

And not paired, twin,

That, of two suffocation –

Sigh of single chamber:

Has not yet swollen the Dnieper?

The Jew with citrus’s burst:

Have you gone deaf at last?

We need to straighten something:

Either you give u with a sigh,

On all omnipresent –

Fearful I request –

Or – and released:

I no longer breathe.

In a siege the time,

In Moscow typhus!

Finished. The suffered

In light sack

Of stone! Explore

The slime! Taken are the air’s gates.

Broken line of settlements.

 

Mom! Look forward to, no wonder:

The complete intake of air!

But complete aero –

Self – device what for?

Firmament, creep underneath

The volatile – fragile ship!

But – the light continuous –

Himself – wherefor the noose

Dead? Rinses…

Splashes… And here –

Do not pity pilot!

Here is the flight!

In the shrouds his bones

Do not row.

Course of aeronautics

Death, and nothing

New in it. (Of searches

Wildfowl? Screws? Wood chips?)

Air’s Achilleses –

All – although it be thee,

Do not breathe with the fame,

The air’s bottoms.

Course of aeronautics

Death, where all from basics,

Anew…

 

Glory to you, having left the gap:

I no longer weigh.

Glory to you, the roof having thrown:

I hear no more.

Solar communion, I no longer squint:

Spirit: I do not breathe!

Hard body is dead body:

I have gone heavy.

Than boats lighter, lighter

On the shore mica.

Oh, like the light air:

Rarer – rarer – rarer…

Past the mischievous fish –

Trout by the tip…

Oh, how liveable is the air,

LIVOK! LIVCHE than hound

Through axles, and slimy!

And – hair!

Those who started to crawl –

More liveable than a watering pot!

That I – more slippery than

Fresh bast and onion.

With pagoda-music

Bead and bamboo, -

With pagoda-curtain…

Splash! All would have gone and have gone…

What for to Hermes –

Wings? Would the fins –

Float? And the shower pours!

Irida! Iris!

Not with your rain

Shemahins

Or Kashimirs…

Dance –

Above! Thus is the way

From clinics: first does not pull the hand,

Then won’t accept the legs.

Harder than ice, and bottomless!

Law of all absences:

First does not hold the heavens,

Then does not let into the weight.

Fairy? Naiad?

Broad from the garden!

Old one having lost

Body through water

(Splash of water confusion.

Descent of sand…)

The land’s release.

Empty – the third air is.

 

Gray-haired, like through granddads’

Seine, like through the braids

Of grandma – is rare!

Rare, rarer than bread

In drought. (Will peel off

All, breadless tops.)

Oh, how air is harsh,

Harsh, harsher than brush

For dogs, for dogs’ curls.

Caught the happy ones

Rarely. Like through the first oversleep

(For us – a backfill!)

Delusional crossings’

Rare, to tie-impossibility.

Oh, how sharp is air,

Sharp, sharper than scissors.

No, cutter… Like with one that pities

Into pain – to decrease.

Rarely, like through fingers…

Heart, like through teeth

Of reason – on Credo

Of half-open lips.

Oh, like sipper of air,

Sipper, more sipperly than Goethe’s

Eye, than Rilke’s

Hearing… (God

Whispers, fearing his might…)

And on a strainer

Just the judgment

Hour…

In ache of crops –

Why do we give birth?

All relentless,

Tops of all bad harvests…

On these crevices –

Not plow not ox.

Earth excommunication:

The fifth air – sound.

 

Thunder of pigeons’ breasts –

By birth from thence!

Oh, how humming is the air,

Hum, more humming than new year!

Humming is the cut

Of the oaks to the root.

Oh, how humming is the air,

Hum, more humming than the new

Sorrow, the Tsar’s

Gratitude… Under

The hail of a tin-plate more loud

Than lumps – in the deed,

More than treasure humming –

In the song, in the big-mouthed

Remembrance of people.

Thunder of sips of nightingale –

By birth from here!

With buzzing, with copper,

With blizzard-God’s word humming –

Only with the singing chest –

With sky’s palate or with

A liro-turtle’s womb?

Humming, more humming than Don

In battle, more humming than blocks

In harvest… By the bends,

More ominous than mountain roads,

Sound, like on the clods

Of miraculous Thebes.

Seven – layers and swells!

Seven – heilige Sieben!

Seven at the lyre’s basis,

Seven at the basis of the world entire.

Since the basis of the lyre –

Seven, the basis of the world –

Lyric. Thus the clods

Of Thebes on the sound of the lyre…

Oh, still in the room with boiler

Of the body – “lighter than feather!”

Old is the loss

Of body through the ears.

For ear – to clean spirit to be.

Leave letter for century.

With the hearing clean

Or with the clean sound

We move? Advantage of sleep.

The prechill of bliss.

Humming, more humming than grotto

In storm of equinox.

Crowns – crestfallen,

Hungers – more humming than womb…

And not more humming

Only that coffin

In Easter…

And more humming than hum –

With pauses, with intervals

Of might, and more moving than engine –

With pauses, with respites

Of steam engine after torments…

With interchange of the best

From the God’s nods:

Air with – better-air!

And – won’t say, that with sweet pauses:

With transplants

From local to interdimensional –

With pauses, with stopovers

Of heart, when from the lung –

Oh! With half-stops of breath –

Of fish ordeal with pauses,

With interruptions

While, with steams on the vane

With pauses, with overcuts

Of pulse – indistinctly stated:

With pauses – lie, once with spasms

Of breath… The hole bottomless

Of the lung, affected

By eternity…

For all – thus.

Others – death.

Termination. Ended

Is air. Firmament.

 

The music overhead!

Breath, always in vain! The end!

Suffered in gaseous

Sack of air. Without compass

Above! Into fathers - children!

Hour, when the offspring

The-truth-tells.

Firmament! Tract of brakeless heads –

And to cut it off thus:

The complete detachment

Of shade from shoulders –

Dropped! Groundless –

Ground! One’s own – Hermes!

Full and exact

Feeling of head

With wings. Of two ways

None – one and straight.

Thus, sucked in by space,

Temple drops spire – to days.

Not in day, but step by step

God through wildness and wilderness

Of feelings. With shot from the bow –

High! Not into kingdom of souls –

In dominion complete

Of forehead. Limit? –

Force: in the hour,

When the Gothic temple overtakes the spire

One’s own – cohorts of numbers!

In the hour when the Gothic spire

Catches up with its own

Meaning…

 

Poem of the Staircase

 

 

Brief caress

On shaky staircase.

Brief paint

 

Of face under paste.

Brief is the tale:

Not to greet, not the next day.

 

A brief fight

On the staircase rickety,

On the staircase avid.

 

In home, where at night they don’t fall

Asleep, each staircase is waterfall –

 

Into hell… -

With cabbage leaves’ path!

Staircase is from all descents,

The more (what – to live! To live – to burn!)

Are there partings on it, rather than meetings.

 

Thus, to seize the pink lips –

We forget sometimes: to greet.

Leaving these lips’ end –

Who – sometime – forgot: farewell.

 

Joke is brief on

Staircase sensitive,

Staircase beeping.

 

From sinner to sinner

On the hasty stairs

Bread of today’s tenderness.

 

Do you know the gospel

Of those – places?

Who is working,

He – is eating.

 

Expensive in stores!

Thin – adventurous.

Tomorrow you can sleep,

Now I must eat.

 

Hour with

Gas explosion.

So. Who rejected,

Will give - That one.

 

Give!

(Now gas

Is toothful) or for us

Will give –

(He’s a tiger and a leopard),

 

…………………………

 

Weedy case,

They’ll say, you’ll say: trash.

And the black staircase

A carpet possesses.

 

(Of suits precast

Truth…) Garlic, cats –

And at black stairs

Coty is.

 

They like the sweets

Warms of tightness!

This – is a classic:

To attic – garlic.

 

Maybe, they are being treated…

And about me – thus vengeance:

To be eating

Black staircase’s blackness.

 

Poet, bomber, bandit, we

Have one enemy: mezzanine.

 

Brief collision

On staircase pinching,

On staircase loose –

 

Like nipple, like violin,

Like sweaty stack.

The furnace works!

 

The brief reprimand

On staircase spanking,

On staircase rickety.

We beat till sparks come from the eyes,

We beat – down we lie.

What from us to exact?

Beaten – you beat.

 

Mistress in truss –

On rideable staircase,

On flimsy staircase –

 

The folder hurries,

The hat hurries,

The violin hurries.

 

Oh, would you sleep and would you sleep!

Ground, rotted, chewed to bits!

Hurry coattails,

Hurry coattails,

The floors hurry.

 

Sir! Hustle and bustle!

Running! Reward!

They themselves muddle:

Above? Below?

 

Cough of the floor:

In direct contact.

And there are bottoms

Of our staircase,

 

Who till tears, who with root,

Who, heee, heee, thus -

There are the tops

Of the black staircase.

 

To tap out you!

With pick in chest – already!

Gamma of paroxysms

From the basement –

 

To the roof – they bang!

With patches of majority –

Marx’s sermon

On fret of Stravinsky.

 

Brief rehearsal

On spitting staircase:

Bottom of voices.

 

Not rehearsal, but spit:

On the staircase light

Not entire – deft:

 

Hurrying pecking.

And rage – in clucking!

They work – and how!

 

What you won’t throw –

All – to go.

Who does not eat till satiety –

Devours.

 

Table – at home:

Ate – they put down.

And at our staircase –

Map of plates.

 

Diet of all sorts!

The boiling vat –

And at this Staircase – Frantsenbrad.

 

The Jacob’s dream!

Lucky into antiquity!

Gamma of odours

From cellar –


 Till roof – they will cook!

Re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti –

Gamma of smells!

Plug the nose!

 

Like in hell the strand,

Red-hot – iron

 

Of the screw’s filings.

Which stack of legs –

With firewood staircase?

 

Final drying,

Final burner,

Final washing.

 

Final coupling

Of two – bone and rag –

From unsteady staircase

Final folder,

Final hat,

Final violin.

 

Quiet. Even the cough

Exhausted, shook.

And for our

Staircase is the hour

 

Of silence…

 

The final run

On staircase by the path.

The final cat.

 

Darkness has erased

Both dirt and us.

And at the black stairs

Is their own hour

 

Of cleanness…

 

Wherefrom – understand! –

Where is the final gang –

Rhein, pouring from the Alps –

Water against asphalt –

 

Of the yard…

 

Patterned – over yard:

There is bunch, here is cross…

And on the black staircase –

Map of the stars.

 

-----------------

 

Night – how to pronounce?

Night – sermon of things.

For sincerity night asks,

Wants to tell all things!

 

All! All humiliated –

Entirely, up to the unmoving.

Loftiness’s attack:

The thing wants to straighten up.

 

Screw of black staircase –

You think – the wall it molds?

Night: the prayers’ hour:

Screw desires to be pulled out.

 

Height – the thing declensional.

In thing – honour is laid.

I see the broken lie

With the straight line.

 

Yard – handful of dents,

Yard – not raked out for year!

With flowers, with berries –

Yard in the country is raving.

 

Thing, politeness throwing:

It is chalk! It is iron!

For us not to be with crosses!

Jew, prostrate with the forelocks.

 

Nail, tile, or filings –

Bosom feels the thing.

With the parodies craft –

In argument – ancestral might.

 

Glass, from expensive shells:

There is sand! To pieces!

Slap of the elements!

In the sand dust - glass!

 

Away, brokenness and lie!

Mattress: There is hay!

Mattress: there is waterweed!

All, all: Nature it is!

 

What smells of bomb.

Rope: was linen!

Fire, in bunch of coals:

Was God and he will be!

 

What happened to the cranes?

Fell – will be got to them!

What to pronounce once:

Wants the thing to get well.

 

-------------------

 

We, with handicrafts, we, with plants,

What did we do with heaven,

Given to us? First knife and first waste,

What did we do with the first day?

 

Thing like a woman us believed!

Apparently, not enough for us was the tree,

And iron – beat, weigh!

We wanted the boards, the nails,

 

Splinters! Digestible little things!

What did we do, having made the first

Step? To planet, where all about Him –

On the talentless breaking of things?

 

We – with crafts, we – with arts!

Having pulled on Prokustova bed

The thing… Closed and waits for the end

The thing – on the hellish machine’s bed.

 

By rivers was carried the fame,

The cliff the glory did claim.

In the – animated nowhere? – world

What had the man brought?

 

Must be, that he, his apparent

Spirit, aching god – inanimate

Object he did invent!

Of slanders the falsest!

 

You with objects, you with understanding,

You with iron (cheaper than platinum),

You with diamond (nobler than flint),

(With soap-maker, that I need!)

 

You with “real estate,” you with “firmness,”

On the stair, of which there’s none lower,

In this cramped space and in this mould

Established song and thought –

 

(For this reason we always explode!)

What with first equality of things we did –

Everywhere, in all environs –

To yourself you are equal.

 

Tree, credulous to the sound

Of cheeky axes and saws whining,

With the apple pulled the hand.

Chopped the man.

 

Mountain, having found the oars

Hidden (subsequently “metal”),

Hardly established: Wonder!

The man blew up.

 

Enlightened with this reception,

Thing with rubbish responds to rubbish.

Table always asserted, like trunk.

Chair broke? No, it let down the cunts.

 

In our lacquer squares

Noises – thought – of ancestors?

Simply, seeing stars in the window,

The nut stretched in the groove.

 

You awake – how in valley!

Case dried up? No, nature is said of the thing.

The domestic yard’s ball!

Gas exploded? No, he played the demon!

 

Just in time will rot the handrails.

No – “shot myself accidentally.”

The gunshot will be watching.

Is – intentionally has been murdered

 

With the thing, standing in indignation.

Into emptiness does not fly from construction

The stone – such are the strengths:

The stone demands the head!

 

Revenge of the cliff. From woods – vengeance of wood!

Situationality of this play!

Furnished with what? Damask or oak?

Insurance of these foreheads!

 

All insured – up to the tin Sitki.

This – the thinking cane?

The cue of the billiard!

Insurance from the rain!

 

From Hephaestus – with all, that’s in home

And the yacht – from Poseidon.

Appreciate gesture and thought:

Insurance from the gods!

 

From Hephaestus? And spire on the roof –

From Hephaestus? Carry above!

But it’s quiet! From all with one:

By Zeus they insure the home.

 

You still whine: without help!

Fools – is asked – the gods,

Since after each – tongue won’t take! –

Rejection - with ever house.

 

Bays, yachts, deals, blouses –

Did not drive in one insurance:

From possessions only this:

Flame, secure from things.

 

-------------------------

 

Things of the poor. Is the mat – the thing?

Or thing – is the board?

Things of the poor – bones and skin,

Altogether – meat, only the sorrow.

 

Where did we take us? Sight – from far,

From deep. Eyes do not try hard!

Things of the poor – only from side:

From the chest he did not cut!

 

Shelf? Happening. Hanger? Happening.

Happening also – with this phantom

Armchairs. Things? Spines and branches,

Whole in October forest!

 

Timid furniture of poverty!

All – what? – quarter and third.

Thing – long ago, in heaven clear!

Onto you – it’s painful to peer.

 

From you the sinful eyesight,

Like from ulcers, it’s hard to distract.

Viennese chair – there, where of Vienna –

Who? When? – the scary thing!

 

Better than all – here – dishonored,

Had been – home? Small! – attic of yours.

Just here has become the thing –

Thing. Yours – brow, going up in sign

 

? – this. On torn things boring, widows’ –

What? – brow above. (What for brow –

Eyeglasses!) Much to ask with the brow

The eye. Object – is eye sometimes.

 

Thus sometimes it is dry and empty –

The woman’s marvellous, big eye –

What – you compare – seems the spirit –

Basin, with the blue soul - the tub.

 

Equally with basin and with sieve

Yes – to tsar! Yes – in court!

This eye about himself knows

Each, having been called a poet!

 

The timid gear of poverty!

Each knife familiar individually.

You like a beast, morning awaiting,

With something – here, with all – behind window –

 

Him, empty, him – within the suburbs –

They – did read chronic of the thefts?

The clearness’s of things and honor’s

Sign: will not accept the baggage.

 

Because she is weak in the grooves,

Disintegrates before the eyes,

Because upon the hundred carts

But to bring together…

In tears –

 

Because not table but a husband,

Son. Not the case, and

Our case.

Because from the souls and hearts

The baggage they do not give.

 

Of poor things – worse and drier:

Worse than a bast, the snag more dry.

Things of the poor – simply – spirit.

For this they cleanly are afire.

 

-----------

 

The light smoke,

Above, above!

Clean, clean

Is lacquer from elbow!

 

Where is slag?

All – with the ash

Lacquer, lacquer

From elbows!

 

Ahead, ahead

Is smoke from lands.

Labour – Ham,

But not Cain.

 

Cuff –

Along the table.

But lacquer

Is the resin.

 

Table – naked – on things.

Table – with elbow is waxed,

Wax is clean, elbow is sharp.

Chilled is wax – sweat.

 

To them, to them – your bedrooms

(Prophetic, but not Jerusalem!)

To them, to them, like white

Floors – till the time!

 

----------------

 

Things of the poor – the pair strange

Of words. The marriage – threatens with a bang!

Thing and poverty – clear fight.

And will not rot the tongue!

 

Sexton – what for him is word?

Thing and poor. Connect? No, discord.

Nakedness seeks the cover,

From this often burn the cellars –

 

Frequent and slow –

Our hour is in red coat!

Tightness seeks the space

(Author himself in claw of crayfish).

 

Ceiling, crumbling – by the growth

Became – had sneaked, the hump amassed.

Rightness the scaffold seeks:

To tell all! Like from the flames!

 

And still – bunks is the place:

Not a ray. Archery stench.

Blindness seeks the tan.

Of all this – remembers the flame.

 

----------------------

 

Connection, couple sound:

Black – on fire.

 

On salary by fire

Life lives with fires.

 

At eternal skirt assembled –

Do not scare, housemaid!

 

Not stuffed with beauty, with

What do they play? With matches.

 

Mother, having to neighbour gone,

The box of matches forgot…

 

How licked is the floor,

Lighter than mirror!

 

Instead of lifelong death –

Life posthumous!

 

Dirt clearly is burned!

Home – elderberry red!

 

Saved is the kingly honor!

Red bush is the home!

 

Your slavery and your domineering

Look, look, how they are crumbling!

 

Whole heaven – for moment of choking!

Look, look how they are toppling!

 

Stove of the pattern that lasts!

Will burn the fortress!

 

Took apart all the clouds!

The linen will be drying!

 

Ashes at night? No – loan!

To save us? We’re being saved from you!

 

Do not stomp the golden pastures?

Us? Do they save – ones saved?

 

Wondering on pretty morning,

Ashes of bitch he is spawning!

 

With ripe rye – the slice that is final!

Linen rope – blooming with linen!

 

And on the staircase – with hotly sleeping –

Ascending – descending –

Rainbows…

 

----------------

 

Morning

Mixed up feathers.

Birds? Mine? We don’t know.

The first morning – the first door

Slams…

Sleeps the poem.


 

Poem of Tsar’s Family

 

 

Fragments

 

1

 

Blackberry,

Braids, wattle fence.

Near cradles – stare –

Second shade:

Red chest, rich fur:

Scary, bearded nurse.

 

Follows with the boot.

Into the cradle – with

The beard the child peers.

 

In a roll curl up,

Plug with plug!

An so, mother!

And so, one bloody!

 

And so, ……!

And so, cutie!

Pour, blood,

Home – in lodgings.

 

Thus to self in word –

Cross and key.

(And still won’t calm down –

Still call out!)

 

A-zure,

Bullfinch.

 


 

2

 

And again – with a hundred-pood millstone

Half – of which black one?

In blue ponds of satin –

Of the hour – of the tsar – amid the redness!

The real Red Sea!

From the red Khodynsky Field

Till the happy and pretty

Bleeding Alexei

Generous to the last drop!

Half – long ago or first? –

Glittered and of spring –

Hour – of the tsar I – last

In Russia…

Alive, do not fear…

Weakened – worn out – tired

To wait, despairing – for hours!

Sleeps the Heir of Russia.

 


 

3

 

Anya with round shoulders,

Anya with plump cheeks

The sweet milky rolls,

Of ceiling

Angels.

Brows in an arch,

Blush till buttons.

Between them –

Another one and their friend.

 


 

4

 

Here – two. In mighty rivers – caravan.

They walk by, they bow. And – I bow to them.

Russia! Not ruined by them – these

Big, holy, innocent kids,

Deceived with capital’s chatterboxes.

Which open glorious faces

Domestic. Eyes – of our Anya!

I don’t cry. I fear to wet embroidery –

Green branches. Pansies –

I labour for local Mother Abalach –

To have mercy… With greeting and bread

I hide for long, and with the trace

I bow…

(And tears on fingers, and tears on fingers,

And tears on rings!..) Oh, how much, holy father!

How long – and how much! Oh, take pity, holy father,

On little ones! Forgive the thief…

 

To sister Seraphim – Fedor’s sister.

 


 

5

 

Abode on the mountain.

Prayer on the crust.

 

The birch tree did not know,

The road on the edge,

That in the fierce frost

The beauty of itself

 

Siberian “cinnamon” –

She whitened and she saved –

That the Russian queen

Wrote on her epistle

 

To all the thanks I give –

To the Heavenly King.

 

Did not know the road

With birch on the end

Why cut bark with knife

The gray-bearded old man.

 

That in the tight cell,

With a homely hand,

The German princess –

To the Slavic prayer

 

Scribbled on the rag

Of Siberian birch bark.

 

What had she requested,

On the edge, ditches…

For Russia prayers:

For homeland – for yours –

 

Mine… From Siberian mosses

Till Crimea’s cypresses:

Spiteful after each one –

And still the beloved…

 

To him who’s on the mountain top –

Prayer on the bark…

 

The birch had stood –

Russia on the edge,

For tears, for prison, for fence –

I am grateful for all.

 

And if there’s little – prison,

And if there’s much – fence…

Yourself call price to me…

And if you’ll say:

 

Warps bark that is my son’s

Under the end of pen…

 

Stood the Russia –

Upon the edge of cliff.

And if you’ll say – Son’s… -

I’m grateful for all this,

 

===============

 

Burns, burns the birch bark…

Flies, flies the prayer…

Remains the birch bark

For centuries – truer than granite.


 

From the Sea

 

With Southern-Northern

Impossible, I know!

Possible – thus needed!

In something of road,

 

With air twisting,

With wood chips rushing!

Sleep lasts three minutes

I hurry.

 

With whom – and I don’t glance! –

You sleep. Three minutes.

What from the ocean –

Long - into Moscow!

 

Fulminant

Way – to reserve:

From your sleep

Jumped into yours.

 

You dream of me. Clearly?

Smoothly? Cleaner,

After Shetempelny lattice?

With letters –

 

I stand? I stand

With mail – pretty?

I am honest word,

Not a letter!

 

Free pause’s nature.

Jumping from barge!

What without edit –

Even without mark!

 

All having cheated,

Cursive of sleep!

Here from the sea –

Instead of epistle!

 

In place of dispatches.

Weight? Pardon!

I am not weighing

All – even with lyre

 

All, in heart of Chechnya

All, with whole there.

Sleep, is less

Than ten grams.

 

To each for three –

Six (mutual dream).

While you look, you’ll see:

Not anonymous

 

Nose, firm

Forehead, letter of letters –

“I”, “I” without surrender

In lips’ signature.

 

I – without typo,

I – without blots.

The handful of Alpian

Roses,

 

And hut on the sea, and so

Kind are the waves.

Here from the Ocean,

Handful of game.

 

Little – take little, like assembled.

Sea played. To play – to be kind.

Sea played, and I was taking,

Sea played, and I put behind

 

The gates, the cheeks – harshly, nautical!

Mouth is better than suitcase, if in handful

They’re busy. To shaft, sound, praise!

Wave took, lost the muse.

 

Crab’s corrals, read: eggshells.

Sea played, to play – is to be a fool.

To think – the grey hairs!

To smart ones. Let us play!

 

With shells. Temp un petit navir a

This – with heart, that – with lyre,

 

This, review of piles three,

Is the childhood’s treble key.

 

Picked up from the fishing boat

This – nibbles of hungry sorrow:

 

Stone – you I spare,

I better at wave stare,

 

Like Satan on desert descent.

This? – some love’s bites:

 

To re-establish I do not try:

Shallow thus is the bite.

 

Thus lies the one not put in lists.

Not from the love – the stubs – this:

 

Of conscience.

The tear to pour – I gnaw it,

 

Not remorseful not to many.

This – our game’s fragments

 

Tomorrow. Not to see.

Let us share. Not pity.

 

Not what I like, but what I take out.

(To us to bed from your son

Third – not into game?)

First – I take.

 

Only between fingers, liveable, is the sand.

Stand: like with stanzas’ fragments:

“The underground temple of fame.”

All right. You will write yourself.

 

Only between fingers, flat, is the sand.

Stand: the behaviour of rattlesnake:

Jealousy: refreshing

Is called the pride by the name.

 

And crawled itself with a full right.

For writers – to stand over eaten

Crab. Not a crab:

The glory’s brick carp.

 

The humble fad:

The stone. Pemza.

Hollow like a critic.

Gray like a censor

 

Over revelation.

Sleep the censors!

Our poem’s

Censor is dawn.

 

(The dawn’s – still the sharper:

With which Kastalsky

In friendship. The feathers’

Damage – through the fingers…

 

“Verses, my dear?

And is black!”

And did not stare:

Decided!)

 

Mill and mill, the circuit of the sea!

Mammoth, butterfly – all grinded the sea.

About him – the pinch

Of ashes – not to mill!

 

Thus I will speak out – and silent.

Sea! Beautiful miller lady,

Place, where on the sweep

Is trifle – us they dared!

 

Teaches! Chatterboxes!

Continents, that against the sweep

Of the sea. Born (goal –

Multiply!) on shoal to sit.

 

Favourable, with mulch, with oil.

Shallow immortality –

Life. Proud ones are out of place!

Life? Shortage of the waters

 

Of the ocean.

I’m sorry in advance:

I brought you so much dirt,

So many overseas wonders:

All, that the tide had born.

 

But leaves behind, won’t ask the brother.

Strange that – the tide carries,

Gives the decrease and the hand,

Will not recognize the notes,

 

Not to remaining ones in two, in three

In hour, when God brought them – had poured,

Departed… Harper… Orpheus…

Shallow – our leaf of notes!

 

Only not the minute’s fees –

I bore to you a lot of nonsense:

Like a two tongue has ground down –

The whole sea’s hem!

 

Like at fisherwoman’s, my neighbour.

How has finally you in store

Gift, on which in store:

Sea related to Moscow,

 

Soviet Russia with ocean

With arm of rebel – to Republican

The Ocean-Grand

With helmet. Dress the head.

 

And report to ears of corn,

That on your headdress is prettier worn

The red – not true: enmity

Of classes – the star of the seas!

 

To masters and to the ones strange:

While left behind Bethlehem,

The sixth wedge grabbing,

The ones of the sea – condemned:

 

Great hero, primitive.

(Spreading, but not the long sea –

To the sea layers.)

Thus report to the powers

 

Did not ask the name –

Thus on the Russian ship’s stern

The whole ship’s ruin:

The thing of the five ends.

 

Sheer cliffs, the ribs elephantine…

Sea became, was kind – to be.

Wave with the oar, eternity!

Attract us. Let us sleep.

 

Up to, but not closely.

Fire, and not smoky.

Not the sleep cooperative

But reciprocal:

 

In God, one in one.

Nose, thought? Cape!

Brows? Not, arcs,

Exits from –

 

Visibility.


 

Siberia

 

Tatar, Cossack,

Blood with mares’ milk

Of the steppes… Tobolsk, “City-king

Of Siberia” – forgot, what had been?

 

Landing! The horse!

So? – high is hat!

And under hat, smartness!

With delivery of the tax.

 

How – “prettier than nannies’ tales

Country: What in Perm – in heaven…”

The lured wives the Cossacks

Lost in grain.

 

Like unplowed ground

On the Tura river

Monks and nuns

In one monastery

 

Were saved. Not a chicken –

For foxes, girl did wait

The monk. Pokrovsko-Tushinsky

Monastery stands.

 

(With bony servant

Push: Where do you stare?

Rasputin Grisha went

With cup in that monastery).

 

Cossacks to hold

In strictness? Lambs they have found!

All governors build,

All in row - construction sites.

 

They burn! Burn, burn, Siberia –

New! Blind Moscow –

Old! With jumps of lynxes,

Foxes – to Pokrov –

 

With tails – that won’t go cold,

With free people, food:

To Ivan Vasilyevich

End, to Stroganoffs

 

Like given in hand.

Slice about black – about day

Like for water young women –

For food – young men.

 

In one – “pull off skin”

Detour – “your own!”

Ermak went to the bottom

With the very first millstone.

 

Farewell, housekeeping!

Farewell, beard!

Farewell, warriors!

The nests of Peter

 

Of colorful down,

Of the sharp nails

In the tripe German –

Matthew Gagarin.

 

Eagle-governor!

That same eagle

From the town in three

Versts Tobol

 

Diverted and higher

The college of the birds

Hanging for bribery

Peter Yustic –

Against boards.

 

Leaky Armenian.

Look – for death asks.

Who? Teddy-Barnak.

 

On the straw I lie,

I don’t reprove the tsars.

Not you Soimonov,

Having saved the tsar’s life?

 

(With the nostril torn?)

To prove, so?

And exiled Anne

Boils the salt

 

In Okhotsk.

Into the carriage!

Guilt is forgiven.

Nostril – though not this

But increased.

 

And each ravine

Sang about this song:

Like Teddy-Barnak

Became governor

Of Tobol.

 

The progeny’s light.

Yasen-Fenist!

Siberian sun –

Checherin Dennis.

 

Ignorant in borders.

Like sun and like rain

Giving for weakness,

Giving for strength.

 

Russian speech “here” –

With the word introduced,

In open gown,

With open face,

 

With open handful –

In frosty salt –

With Prince of Obdor

And Vali-Khan.

 

But so firmly

You had been loved

By the one of the steppe,

Steppe-Baraba,

 

Which – with the versts

Of obstinate mares!

You, with the handful

Of salt – had settled.

 

Sow, uncle, the rye!

Weave, girl, canvas!

Cannot crawl

In church – in grass

 

In the bushes, in the forests

Goat cannot crawl through –

To Denis Ivanovich

Eternal honor.

 

Thus, the highway

Equated with each hut,

Siberian Potemkin

Went with Taurides

In step.

 

Don’t stumble

While stepping

On ancient state pole,

I mean dishonor

Of Menshikov-Lightest

In paints – till death!

Corpse, icy mummy

Of tundra – frozen bones

Of Menshikov in Berezov.

 

(Without Saardam carpenter

Given, taken away in schadenfreude

Sword – did not stich in sieve! –

Only and all –

Tundra, cloudberry is frozen…

Thus not despite, loving

The mirage distance,

The first sovereign

Friend…)

 

Where snowstorm runs around,

Who will caress me,

Gray-haired? Toblosk, city of the tsar

Siberia, what has been – what became!

 

How in life to count,

Besides the dead,

Your twenty three thousand souls,

With twenty three churches –

 

Where it is stolen,

Thus prayed, Cossack!

With large yards,

Barking to the crack

 

Of leading carriage

In mud furrow.

With only candy –

Without sign – in home…

 

Don’t draw out in error:

“My coffin, coffin of pine!”

With boardwalk sheathing

Of walls, and bridges’ boards

 

And pavements… And all sleeps

Might… Boards – coat – snowdune

Tobolsk, Tobolsk, boardwalk city!

Tobolsk, boardwalk coffin!


 

Wizard

 

He was our angel, he was our demon,

Our governor – our wizard,

Our prince and knight. – He to us all had been

Among men!

 

In him was so much abundance,

That I don’t know what I’ll be starting!

We loved him fiercely –

Just the spring.

 

Just one his ring in the hallway –

And ague embraced us,

And burned till insanity

Forehead and eyes.

 

And how had moved the roots of hair –

Oh, this is shivering and terror!

And hallway was more spacious,

And still – chest.

 

And suddenly had chilled the hands,

And we did not feel our feet.

Seven times

Is this ringing during the week!

 

He’s here. Our first and the last!

And all belonging to us!

He leaves the anterior!

He’s here, he’s here!

 

He flies to us like a bird,

And flies into our net!

And wants to whirl at once,

To sing and shout.

 

Jumping across three steps

We run up on steep staircase

In our golden mezzanine –

And of the spring.

 

Where is impossible mess –

Where only broke out thunders

On this pile of notebooks

And with a feather.

 

Over this hand-organs’ horde,

Of dolls and beasts of cardboard,

The half-gnawed bagels,

Calendars,

 

Indescribable boxes,

With things not on any taste,

Empty vials without corks,

Beads of glass,

 

Whose dazzling bunches

Clinquantes, eclantes grappes –

Ringing entangle the bunches

For our hats.

 

We sit – we look – we know – we love,

And we feel, not letting down eyes,

That we would kill ourselves for him,

And he – for us.

 

Two horses in fire and in soap –

That’s us! Catch, while there’s no sloth!

We speak of how we lived

The day before.

 

Of how, on hall we ran

This night in the moon,

And what we had stated

In dream later.

 

And how – we were in ecstasy!

For our invincible souls

Management of our two schools

Chases us both.

 

We never will wed,

Thus all three will remain!

O, we never will wed,

We’ll sooner be dead!

 

Like life has been for us –

Gambling cloth – vivat!

Behind John – in heaven,

To hell – behind him Don Juan.

 

Muzzle of speaking Aetna –

Still speaking mouth.

Return tornado and swirl,

Return whirlpool.

 

Here both hosannah and curse,

Here all of it burns.

Of all untold in the world

He speaks.

 

To us – we seemed – wound to death

With daggers of the green eyes,

On couch soaring like a snake!

Oh how many times

 

With maddened cobra’s hisses

He cursed us and universe –

And once again became kind…

Almost in hour.

 

Ventriloquism – mottoes

Ornates – oh, king of rogues!

But they relate from beneath,

That the tea is ready.

 

Among five-pood women

He hangs in sight as a pood:

Thus light, harsh, precise, trim,

Thus scarily thin.

 

But no – he weighs nothing!

He’s angel-like – ethereally – young!

His face, like crescent young,

Midst full moons.

 

Leaning on arm with the chin –

Of this, how quiet are evenings,

He reads. – How can we read

The poems to aunts?

 

Oh, how he’s dear, and how did start

Exaggerated-polite!

How, smiling, hides the sting

And how, crossing

 

His magical arms,

He can – neighbour, beware!

To boredom can give

Empty speech.

 

But suddenly – at once and impetuously! –

With a mutiny he flashes,

For the most harmless phrase

With a knife threatens.

 

For a half-second sedate,

Trigger at foamy mouth carried.

Farewell, comfort, and birthday

Farewell, pie!

 

Tea’s finished. Shades have grown longer,

And purred the samovar.

Sooner not fresh, not in the spring

Tversk boulevard!

 

Of Bodler it’s enough to us!

Let wind blow into our face!

In Gogol’s language sing the doors,

Screeches the porch. –

 

In the big hats wide-rimmed

We, it seems to me, are still more dear…

And this smell, this smell

Of poplars.

 

Boulevard shines. Upon the way

Are the long and slanting rays.

The hoops run, legs behind,

Balls fly,

 

Others remain in nets.

And boy in the “Varangian” hat

Dress in Scottish cells

The step directs.

 

Shining are curls, cheeks, eyes,

Howler has puffed up and gone hoarse.

Carriages screech with wheels,

Lingering creak.

 

Thus mother watches sharp-eyed

After the girl, like copper, with braid.

In one hand – pail,

In another – bear.

 

Some boy is asking for porridge.

Oh, how he, poor one, did not grow

Till the school cap

And cigarettes!

 

And curl, the curls, and curl, the bands!

Alas, there is no coming back!

Students walk along in pairs

Among the kids.

 

The sun upon the alleys plays…

How life is simple and beautiful!

We are about thirty years:

His summer.

 

Oh, how you’ll now retell –

Fourteen – sixteen years!

We walk, our knight in the middle,

Poet – of ours.

 

We on the sides, like two pendants,

And each one sees us:

Fracture of cheek, dry and harsh,

The green eye,

 

Sharp edge of a beard,

Like evil edge of a dagger,

Chiselled nose and precise outline

Of the collar.

 

(Who with our wandering knight

Will now take in ray of gold?..)

Over the red-hot, ghoul,

Heavy mouth –

 

Moustache, flying high,

Arrogant half-ring…

And the side into his face

All looking.

 

And there, in the boundless fields,

Servant of the Heavenly King,

Pig-iron great-grandson of Abraham

Lit fire to dawn.

 

On all shines the scarlet sunset,

Blaze cupolas somewhere,

Blaze our halls’ windows

And mirrors.

 

From the piano’s black depths

Bloom scarlet brushes of roses.

“I’m night of the Grail and the Rose,

With me is Christ,

 

But went with me on all roads

He, who here is present.

Between Devil and the Lord

I’m torn apart.

 

Two truths – two ways – two powers –

Two chasms: Dante and Baudelaire!”

He, like in French, dear,

Burred “Er.”

 

But you will not leave Dante, dear,

And with him, darling, Baudelaire!”

Quietly we press the keys,

And another after him –

 

And sounds – with swarm of bees from the hive –

Buzz and wind – who is right?

Our Knight of Rose through the chairs

Headlong flies.

 

Oh, not the universe older –

Boy from head to heels!

On the first march’s chord

He is soldier – all!

 

Chu! – Pipe’s ringing! – Chu! – Horses stomping!

Crackling of the drum! – Hat!

And, to hell smarts and experience!

Hurrah! Hurrah!

 

He is He, in whose white fingers

Are pressed hearts and fates, pressed is world.

Over him is crumpled and green

Simple coat.

 

He is One, who near Kremlin towers

Stood into his whole height small,

Painted in whose freestyle flowers

Is the bridge of Arkol.

 

Maybe our faces had been pale,

The chest tears up the knocking of heart.

There is no time to stand still,

There is no strength to sigh.

 

With magic power of the arms

Upon the keys – already flies!

Thunder the effervescent sounds,

Like waterfall.

 

Circus, red-hot, like Sahara

Host of the red-haired kings.

Two prides of the earth’s sphere:

The lion and the kid.

 

Under the dome – like tsar in palace

Shows off the British flag.

The checkered legs spreading,

The fool fell…

 

In coat of multi-coloured sequins,

Under the speech of the strained strings,

Upon the square flew the teen,

Young just like the morning!

 

Hello, Ladies and Lords!

Shakes the rope tight

Under this little and hard

His foot.

 

In his multi-starred slake

Wherefrom – to change – the sound.

The music case is playing,

The ancient friend,

 

All time to hoarseness, to moan,

Playing three of these plays:

The march of dolls – Auf der Blauen Donau –

And ecossaise.

 

In world of tapestries and voices

Opens the secret path:

Oh, heaven of gold-haired garlands!

Oh, in three step waltz!

 

Under waltz innocent, waltz ancient,

Our three springs dance –

With living room’ cold mirror –

Are reflected.

 

Thus, having thrice the hall circled, -

The triple cane as it did yearn –

We swim into white statues of kingdom

And of the books of yore.

 

On tower of case, gray and dusty,

Having seen the better years,

The owl sits sadly

With the cat’s face.

 

With stuffed owl in vicinity

Sleeps Zeus, granddad inexplicable,

With whom they frightened us in childhood,

That – he is cannibal.

 

Like the crowded honeycomb –

Row of bookshelves. Touched the light

The parchment bindings

Of books ancient.

 

Light of Greece and Rome’s glory –

Innumerable tomes!

Here – how much sun we did not bear,

The winter is always.

 

Pinker with a final sun,

Plato lies thrown open…

Bust of Apollo – plan of Museum –

And still – like a dream.

 

Already on the home of shutters

Knocking, they slam.

In living room – the late fire is where?

Not a ray is there.

 

Littler than all and than light littler,

The knocks all nearer and nearer…

The half of the study

Has become blind suddenly.

 

Still with one sturdy eye

Left window has gone white.

But shutters knocked – and at once

It has become completely dark.

 

Self-forgetfulness – nirvana –

Why, Phoenixes, you got caught in net?

Upon far rollers of the couch

I will not sit!

 

In the corner had sighed something,

And something wavered a bit.

Quietly the gates are screeching:

To someone in the way.

 

And someone the return way holds -

Our hands have become ice –

In irrevocable, spellbound,

Our old house.

 

Mother underground, father in Cairo…

Still some spot!

In the world nothing funny

Is funny for us.

 

We understood without a word,

That white at the case – is coffin.

And heart, horseshoe having lost,

Flies in a gallop.

 

“There’s night in the world. It is starless.

In world there’s spirit, it is all deceit.

There is the world. Its name – is abyss

And the sea.

 

Who had swam in this ocean –

To whom there’s no ways in return!

I died in it. Devil, return!

Do not touch the children!

 

And you, unrestrained children,

With mind, like ice piercing –

With thousand-year madness,

You, in whom sings,

 

And complains, and languishes –

All the untold earth!

You, roses, you, streams, you, birds,

You, poplars –

 

You, dead Lazaruses from coffin

Pushing in the greenness of lindens,

You, without which long ago

Had become our world

 

Deceased – till blurry ghostliness

On three rotten whales –

Oh, golden fish! The violins

In my hands –

 

In the short grotesque skirt

Worlds carrying to gods,

How to me snuggled up blindly

Like two sisters,

 

You, whose father is in Cairo,

Whose mother he chilled and tracked –

Know, to you two in the world

There is no salvation yet!

 

You want – I will tear the patch?

I will open for you new way?”

“No, better tell me about

Anything the fairy tale…”

 

Oh Ellis! Beauty, youth, freshness,

Innocent and magic nonsense!

Angel’s weeping! Teeth screeching!

The holy one at dance,

 

Without thought of urgent bread

Living – whom and how – God is!

I don’t know, if in heaven is God! –

But, if He is –

 

Now already, in this world,

All sin till the last

Are left for you after these

My poems.

 

Oh Ellis! Knight without treason!

Son of bluest of homelands!

Walls with you moved apart

In another life…

 

Where closed up our eyelids

In the empty desert lands –

You- our and we – yours. In centuries

Of the centuries. Amen.