The Collected Poems (23 page)

only box-hedge and birds
speak of eternity
O Maria
—Mr Cogito thinks

Maria distant chatelaine
with plump red hands

No one's Laura

 

When he gave his great speech the prosecutor
punctured me with his yellow indicator finger
I have reason to believe I looked in bad shape
involuntarily I wore a mask of fear and infamy
like a rat caught in a trap an agent a fratricide
the members of the press danced a war dance
while I burned slowly on a pyre of magnesium

all this took place in a stuffy little courtroom
the floor creaked plaster fell from the ceiling
I counted knots in wood holes in the wall faces
the faces which were alike almost all the same
policemen the tribunal the witnesses the public
they belonged to a party of those devoid of pity
and even my defending counsel smiling gently
was an honorary member of the execution squad

in the front row a fat old woman was sitting
dressed as my mother with a theatrical gesture
she raised a hankie to her eyes but didn't cry
it lasted a long time I don't know how long
sunset's ruddy blood swelled in judges' togas

the real trial was being carried on in my cells
they must have known the verdict in advance
after a brief revolt they capitulated and died
one after another
I looked in astonishment at my waxy fingers

I pronounced no last word though so many
years I had been composing a final speech
to God the world's tribunal and conscience
one aimed at the dead rather then the living
dragged to my feet by the security guards
I just managed to blink and at that moment

the courtroom burst out in hearty laughter
my adopted mother herself was laughing
the judge's hammer spoke that was the end

but what then—death by rope or a sentence
commuted perhaps to a dungeon's mercy
I fear that there is a third dark possibility
beyond boundaries of time senses reason

so when I wake up I do not open my eyes
I clench my hands and don't raise my head
I take light breaths because I don't know
how many minutes of air I may have left

 

She was not beautiful a nose slightly ducklike
the rest of her mortal shell experts value highly
one must take their word but no one will ever
rediscover her dance or resurrect Isadora
she will remain a riddle wrapped in a mystery
like the Mayas' script like the Gioconda's smile

To what then did she owe her towering fame
perhaps it was in bad taste like Nero's poems
the stagey shrieks of the divine Sarah the moo
of Halliday the Zeitgeist holds a lethal power
i.e. the demon of fashion demon of transience
the epoch's clock stands still—gods go under

She knew the Greeks as well as was possible
for an average girl from the state of Ohio
possessed by a vision of an imaginary Hellas
Bourdelle sculptured her in a bacchante's pose

Lightheartedly she betrayed bedroom secrets
in a reprehensible book with the title
My Life

Hence we know exactly how Beregy the actor
opened to her the world of the senses how she
drove Gordon Craig Konstantin Stanislavsky
crazy and hordes of musicians nabobs writers
as well as how Paris Singer cast at her feet
everything he had in the world—his empire
of dependable sewing machines and so forth

Ah if Euripides had been alive at that time
he would surely have loved her or hated her
and given her a role in an eternal tragedy

The more her talent faded the more ardently
she believed only dance can save the world
from misery and anguish this mystical faith
drove her onto speaker's platforms she agitated
fluids came off her as if from a great furnace
and misery and anguish stood fast as a pillar
it seems she forgot that art doesn't save
hélas
may Apollo Musagetes forgive her the error

She is still dancing she's over a hundred
a white-haired lady pale almost invisible
dances between greatness and silliness
not as ecstatic as so many years before
with an abbess's poise mature reflection
she steps out barefoot over the abyss

 

The messenger awaited a despairingly long time
the longed-for harbinger of victory or annihilation
was late turning up—the tragedy was bottomless

Inside a chorus chanted dark prophesies and oaths
the king—dynastic fish—thrashed in an obscure net
the other necessary character—fate—was lacking

eagle oak wind sea wave must have known the epilogue
spectators on the heels of death breathed lightly as stones
The gods were sleeping A calm night without lightning

At last the runner came with a mask of blood mud laments
he let out incomprehensible screams gestured to the east
it was worse than death for there was neither pity nor fear
and in the final moment everybody longs for a catharsis

 

My defenseless country will welcome you invader
and a path Hansel and Gretel trampled to school
will not open up into an abyss

Our rivers are lazy and not prone to flooding
our knights asleep in the mountains will sleep on
so you will enter without trouble uninvited guest

My defenseless country will welcome you invader
give you a fathom of earth by a willow—peace
so that those who come after us learn once again
that most difficult skill—the forgiving of sin

 

Mr Cogito
is disturbed
by a problem in the field of applied mathematics

the difficulties we stumble on
when performing simple arithmetical calculations

it's easy for children
just to add apple to apple
subtract grain from grain
the sum adds up
the world's kindergarten
pulses with safe warmth

particles of matter are measured
the heavenly bodies are weighed
and only in human affairs
a criminal neglect runs rampant
a deficit of precise data

a specter is haunting
the map of history
the specter of indeterminacy

how many Greeks perished at Troy
—we don't know

how to give the exact losses
on both sides
in the battle of Gaugamela
Agincourt
Leipzig
Kutno

and also the number of victims
of the white terror
the red
the brown
—ah colors innocent colors—

Mr Cogito
rejects
the sensible explanation
that it was a long time ago
wind mixed up the ashes
the blood ran into the sea

sensible explanations
deepen Mr Cogito's
disturbance

for even what
happens before our noses
eludes figures
loses its human dimension

it must be a flaw somewhere
a fatal defect of instruments
or a failure of memory

a couple of simple examples
from the sacrificial register

the exact number of dead
in an airplane catastrophe
is easy to determine

it's important to the heirs
the insurance companies
plunged into mourning

we take the list of the crew
and passengers
after each name
we draw a cross

a little harder
in the event of
a rail accident

you must reassemble
the bodies torn apart
so that not one head
remains ownerless

at the time of a natural
disaster
counting
becomes
complicated

we count the survivors
and an unknown remainder
neither known to be alive
nor definitively deceased
are given the bizarre name
of the lost

they still have a chance
to return to us
from fire
water
the center of the earth

if they come back—good
and if they don't—too bad

now Mr Cogito
reaches
the highest swaying
rung of indeterminacy

how hard to establish the names
of all those who were lost
battling against inhuman power

the official data
diminish their number
once again mercilessly
decimating the fallen

and their bodies vanish
in abysslike basements
great police compounds

eyewitnesses
blinded by gas
deafened by gun salvos
by fear and despair
are inclined to exaggerate

observers from the sidelines
give dubious figures
equipped with the disgraceful
little word—“approximately”

but in these matters
accuracy is necessary
one can't get it wrong
even in a single case
in spite of everything
we are our brothers' keepers

ignorance about those who are lost
undermines the reality of the world

casts us in the hell of appearance
the diabolical net of the dialectic
which says there is no difference
between substance and a specter

we must therefore know
draw up exact accounts
summon them by name
ready them for the road

in a clay bowl
millet poppyseed
an ivory comb
arrowheads
a ring of fidelity

amulets

 

It did not take any great character
our refusal dissent and persistence
we had a scrap of necessary courage
but essentially it was a matter of taste
   Yes taste
which has fibers of soul and the gristle of conscience

Who knows if we'd been better more prettily tempted
sent women pink and flat as wafers
or fantastic creatures out of Hieronymous Bosch
but what did hell look like in those days
a mud pit a cutthroat's alley a barracks
called a Palace of Justice
a moonshine Mephisto in a Lenin jacket
sent Aurora's grandchildren into the field
boys with potato-eaters' faces
very ugly girls with red hands

Truly their rhetoric was just too shoddy
(Marcus Tullius turned in his grave)
chains of tautologies a few flailing concepts
torturers' dialectics reasoning without grace
syntax devoid of the beauty of the subjunctive

So in fact aesthetics can be an aid in life
one shouldn't neglect the study of beauty

Before we assent we must examine closely
architectural forms rhythms of drum and fife
official colors the homely rituals of burial

 

we lay side by side
in the pit of a temple of absurdity
we anointed with suffering
wrapped in damp shrouds of terror

like fruits
fallen
from the tree of life
rotting separately
each in his own way
only in this a remainder
of humanity slumbered

cast from the throne of primates
by an incomprehensible decree
resembling coelenterates
protozoans
worms

deprived
of the ambition
to exist

we lay side by side
down below
enchanted

and he
soared
over us

no one saw
his face

sealed off
in an inaccessible place
called
debir

in the very
heart of the treasure house
under guard of cruel priests
under guard of cruel angels

their name for him was Adam
which means taken from earth
at ten in the evening
when they put out the lights
Adam began his concert

to the ears of the profane
it sounded
like a chained man's howl

to us
an epiphany

he was
anointed
a sacrificial animal
a psalmist

he extolled
the fathomless desert
the call from the abyss
the noose in the heights

Adam's cry
was composed
of two or three vowels
stretched like the ridges of horizons

then
a sudden
pause

a rending of space

and again
like a near thunderburst

those same two or three
vowels

an avalanche of stones
voice of many waters
trumpets of judgment

in this there was
no plaintiveness
or entreaty
no shade of
doloroso

it grew
it strengthened
it was dizzying