The Collected Poems (8 page)

thus one can use in poetry
names of Greek shepherds
one can attempt to catch the color of morning sky
write of love
and also
once again
in dead earnest
offer to the betrayed world
a rose

 

He wrote his first poem on a rose
and bathed his fake in a teary rain
gymnasium
Class II A

he swore on his one and only heart
that he would always defend the beautiful
that he would never go in fear of violence
that never ever
always always

under his school desk
that boy now lies
clasping to his breast
a helpless confession

on the desk his name
the formula for a cone's volume
the declension of
puer bonus
and the word Jadzia

the caretaker ran out with the big bell
opened his mouth
and sounded the fire alarm
pictures quickly turned away

the white building turned red
then trees entered the picture
trees that stood by the school

into the schoolyard
where boys were playing
armed men came running
and a game of catch began
those who were able
to run into the wood
went on playing
cops and robbers

that one from II A—
but in fact that boy
was quite different

trading currencies
beaten on the face
taken for execution
lying on concrete
stubbornly crawling
to the bowl filled
with hunger for life
stripped to the bone
and yet still alive

when he was freed
he wept for shame
for the second time

justice should be rendered to him
he wasn't easily reconciled to life

the rapid stream of events quickened
he stood in a wilderness and howled

he searched the ruins for mementos
prayed with the names of the dead

poetry is the sister of memory
guards bodies in the wilderness

poems' murmurs are worth no more
than the breath of others they carry

he sits by himself at a little table
drums his fingers summons a void

a well-meaning fellow comes up
sits down and says
I can't bear to see how you suffer

and your writing is getting worse
you're being sucked dry
by the greedy mouths of the dead

on your one string
you play a mosquito's complaint
you will be cast off
by the greedy arms of the living

I know
it's hard to be reconciled
not everything is exactly
the way it ought to be

but please turn around
and step into the future
leave memories behind
enter the land of hope

you tried to outyell time
addressing the dead
now try to outyell time
addressing the unborn

no one wants you
to betray yourself
stick to your subject
write on what is not

at night the poet reads
economics pamphlets
at night the poet builds
a paradise for his dead

it is a white rectangle
like a block of cheese
where each has a hole
oily quiet and warm

paradise will be finished
when the class struggle ends
and when from one hectare
we will get a given amount

then a billion lightbulbs
will light up
and loudspeakers sing out

again the poet is writing
summoning the unborn
to the future's paradise

over a rocky precipice
he spans a straw bridge
he runs across it
lighthearted as hope

they rebuilt the poet
his table downtown

they rebuilt the café
a fish tank for artists

he's no longer alone
sitting with him are
a young musician
a certain sculptor
a red-maned critic
and two girl models

how great to march with the people
—the poet thinks—
and shuffles his feet under the table

sometimes they discuss whether
the dictatorship of the proletariat
may exclude art in the true sense

then they look at each other
with a burst of laughter
at not having kicked the habit
of rhetorical questions

 

Five fingers straying over strings
and curling like iron in a flame
to a pomegranate dead embrace

ten fingers page boys of caresses
kneeling and tearing tender silk
they will die the death of leaves

a myriad fingers blooms of palms
weigh an open friendship a grain
and spin the cocoon of long days

then comes a great ruler threads
turn opaque friendship ensnares
empty words rattle in poppy-heads

then clotted blood in the banners
and the knot of fingers overhead
the same knot in the brain a fist

 

Teach us too to fold our fingers
to brace a door on the other side
of rooms of a love already lost

may what dreamed of happiness
and shielded a slender flame
when the need arises form a fist

and after the struggle is ended
allow us to straighten our fingers
even if it leaves us only a void

taking defeat in an open hand
holding a skull in soft fingers
at that moment you start again

the great cause of open hands
a playful traveling over strings
the ultimate grain of salvation

 

Praised be the ornament makers
the masons and the decorators
the creators of flitting angels

also the makers of ribbons
and on them hearty inscriptions
(fluttered by a great river-wind)

flutists and fiddlers who ensure
that every note played is pure
guarding Bach's
Air on the G-string

and poets it goes without saying
the defenders of children playing
giving voice to smiles hands and eyes

they're right it is not art's business
to seek out the truth is for science
masons guard the heart's warmth

so that there be a mosaic over the gate
a dove a branch or a sun amid daisies
(past the gate symbols' strings are pulled)

we already have words colors rhymes
that laugh and cry as if alive
the masons will preserve these words

that by this dark mills are powered
we masons frankly can't be bothered
we are the party of life and delight

 

Pastoral flutes are departed
the gold of Sunday trumpets
the vernal echoes the horns
and the strings are departed—

at last all mankind is going
at last all are fallen into step
the calfskin and two sticks
razed steeples and solitude
and silence was trampled too
death en masse is not so bad

dust mounts above the march
the acquiescent sea will part
we will go down to the depths
to empty hell and up on high
make sure no heaven exists
then freed from its trepidation
all the march will turn to sand
carried by the mocking wind
so the ultimate echo will fade
of earth's disobedient mold
leaving only a drum a drum
the dictator of gutted music

 

O tree spreading like the tree of Genesis
intended for us birds to be a green house
under the revolving spheres' bated breath
amid sand and clay amid clay and sand
in the midst of deserts which kindly winds
bring nothing but a waterless rain of ash

where to live but in the one and only tree
where you hear thick drops of falling bees
and the rustling of a pitcher full of leaves

I a little bird know I know my place
bound to a branch I'd like to be a leaf
that most diminutive quivering leaf

I a little bird know my worth I do
I'm not like that cricket under a stone
free and easy he who has just a husk
soon to be left as an empty monument
but we have history and ruins of nests
and houses lined ingeniously with fluff
and a school of singing which we trust
to outlast mute and tone-deaf swarms of stars
—a bird's death leaves a hole in the sky
strewing gray dust on the green of earth—

• • •

the sacrifice of wings hurts at first
but song may be made of the hurt
later you come to like not moving
and fear dictates words to the song

fending off the verdict with a song
governed by an instinct of survival
deep down we hide a rebel spark
while praising the sweet use of force

 

It was in the year twenty
or perhaps twenty-one
the Russian émigrés
came to us

tall blond people
with visionary eyes
and women like a dream

when they crossed the market-place
we used to say—migratory birds

they used to attend the
soirees
of the gentry
everyone would whisper—look what pearls

but when the lights of the ball were extinguished
helpless people remained

the gray newspapers were continuously silent
only solitaire showed pity

the guitars beyond the windows would cease playing
and even dark eyes faded

in the evening a samovar with a whistle
would carry them back to their family railway-stations

after a couple of years
only three of them were spoken about
the one who went mad
the one who hanged himself
she to whom men used to come

the rest lived out of the way
slowly turning into dust
This parable is told by Nicholas
who understands historical necessities
in order to terrify me i.e. to convince me

 

I was playing out in the street
no one was minding me much
I was busy making sand pies
absently muttering Rimbaud

once an older guy heard me
why you are a poet my boy
we're just now putting together
a grassroots literary movement

petting my dirty little head
he gave me a big lollipop
he even bought me clothes
in youth's camouflage colors

I hadn't had clothes as nice
since my first communion
short trousers and a shirt
with a great sailor collar

black patent leather shoes
buckles and white socks
the old guy took my hand
and led me off to the ball

there were other boys too
in short trousers like me
their faces clean-shaven
shuffling with their feet

have a good time of it lads
why stand off to the side
—the older men asked—
why not form a mill wheel

but we didn't want to play
at tag or blindman's bluff
we had enough of geezers
we were nearly starving

so quickly they sat us down
around a magnificent table
and gave us sweet lemonade
and to each a piece of cake

now boys got to their feet
changed into adult clothes
praising us in deep voices
rapping us on the knuckles

we couldn't hear a thing
we couldn't feel a thing
staring with eyes wide
at those pieces of cake
which were melting fast
in our feverish hands
and life's first sweetness
was lost in a dark sleeve

 

Not heads snuffed by the sharp shadow of pennants
nor the mangled torsos left behind on a mowed field
nor the hands holding a cold scepter and royal apple
nor the heart of a bell
nor a cathedral's base
contain everything

those pushing carts in badly-paved outskirts
escaping from a fire with a kettle of borscht
and returning to ruins not to call the dead
but to find the pipe of the iron stove
those who starving—love life
beaten on the face—love life
whom it's hard to call flowers
but who are of flesh
living plasma that is
two arms to brace the head
two legs hasty in an escape
able to come by food
able to breathe
able to pass life under a prison wall

they perish
who love fine words more than oily smells
but happily there are not too many of them

the people endure
and returning from escape routes with full sacks
raise a triumphal arch
for the beautiful dead

 

It will be a night of deep snow
thick enough to muffle steps
deep shadow changing bodies
into two puddles of darkness
we're lying holding our breath
even thought's lowest whisper

if wolves don't track us down
or a man in a fur coat cradling
fast-shooting death on his chest
we'll have to jump up and run
amid a din of short dry salvos
to that longed-for other shore

everywhere earth is the same
it teaches wisdom everywhere
a man is weeping white tears
mothers are cradling children
the moon is beginning to rise
and building us a white house