The Collected Poems (24 page)

a dark column
which jostled
the stars

after a few concerts
it fell silent

the voice's illumination
lasted only a brief time

it did not redeem
followers

Adam was taken away
or he himself withdrew
into eternity

rebellion's
wellspring
dried up

 

Too old to carry arms and fight like the others—

I was mercifully given the supporting role of a chronicler
I write down—not knowing for whom—a siege's history

I have to be precise but I don't know when the siege began
two centuries ago in December September dawn yesterday
we here are all suffering from the loss of a sense of time

we were left only the place and an attachment to the place
we govern ruins of temples ghosts of gardens and houses
if we lose our ruins we will be left with nothing

I write as best I can in the rhythm of these endless weeks
Monday: stores are empty a rat is now the unit of currency
Tuesday: the mayor has been killed by unknown assassins
Wednesday: cease-fire talks the enemy interned our envoys

we don't know where they are that is where they were shot
Thursday: after a stormy meeting a majority of votes rejected
the motion of the local merchants for unconditional surrender
Friday: plague broke out Saturday: N.N. a staunch defender
committed suicide Sunday: no water we resisted an assault
at the eastern gate the one called the Gate of the Covenant

I know it's all monotonous it won't move anyone to tears

I avoid comment emotion keep a tight rein write on facts
it appears only facts have value on the foreign markets
but with a kind of pride I long to bring news to the world
of the new breed of children we raised owing to the war
our children don't like fairy tales they have their fun killing
waking and sleeping they dream of soup of bread and bone
just like dogs and cats

in the evening I like to wander along the edges of the City
skirting the borders of our uncertain liberty
I watch from above an ant procession of troops their lights
I listen to the noise of drums and the barbarians shrieking
it is truly beyond me why the City is still defending itself

the siege is taking a long time our enemies have to take turns
nothing unites them apart from the desire for our destruction
Goths Tartars Swedes Caesar's men ranks of the Transfiguration
who can count them
the banners change their colors like a forest against the horizon
a delicate bird yellow in spring through green to winter's black

then in the evening freed from the facts I can meditate
on ancient questions remote ones for instance about our
allies across the sea I know they feel sincere compassion
they send flour sacks encouragement lard and good advice
they don't even know it was their fathers who betrayed us
they were our allies from the time of the second Apocalypse
the sons are blameless deserve gratitude so we are grateful

they have not lived through a siege long as an eternity
they who are touched by misfortune are always alone
defenders of the Dalai Lama the Kurds and the Afghans

now as I write these words those who favor appeasement
have acquired an advantage over the party of the staunch
an ordinary mood swing the stakes are still being weighed

cemeteries are growing the number of defenders shrinking
but the defense continues and it will continue to the end

and if the City falls and one man survives
he will carry the City inside him on the paths of exile
he will be the City

we look into hunger's face the face of fire face of death
the worst of all—the face of betrayal

and only our dreams have not been humiliated

1982

 

In a forest on a dune three luscious oaks
to whom I appeal for succor and counsel
now choruses are mute and prophets gone
there is no one on earth more deserving
of respect therefore it is to you—oaks—
that I direct my dark questions awaiting
the decree of fate just as once at Dodona

But I have to confess that I am disturbed
by your ritual of conception—wise ones—
when spring wanes and summer begins
in the shade of your boughs it is teeming
with your little children and newborns
homes for leaves orphanages of sprouts
pale oh so pale
weaker than grass
on an ocean of sand
they struggle alone all alone
why don't you defend your children over whom
the first frost will raise a sword of annihilation

What does it mean—oaks—this mad crusade
this massacre of innocents this grim selection
this Nietzschean spirit on a hushed sand dune
capable of soothing Keats's nightingale woes
here where everything shows an inclination
toward caresses confessions reconciliation

How am I to understand your murky parable
baroque of rosy angels mirth of white flutes
a tribunal at dawn an execution in the night
a life lived blindly and mixed up with death
death minus the baroque which I can't stand
but who rules

a watery-eyed god with an accountant's face
a demiurge of contemptible statistics
playing with dice always fixed in his favor
is necessity no more than a kind of accident
meaning a weakling's longing a fancy of fools

   So many questions—O oaks—
so many leaves and under each leaf
despair

 

How did my grandfather and his father understand Livy
for they surely read him at their classical gymnasium
in the somewhat unpropitious time of year
when a chestnut tree stands at the window—ardent candelabras of
   blossoms—
and all my grandfather's and great-grandfather's thoughts ran panting to
   Mizia
singing in the garden showing her décolleté and goddess-like legs to the
   knee
or Gabi from the Vienna Opera with her cherub's locks
Gabi with her snub nose and Mozart in her throat
or finally to good old Józia a refuge for the forlorn
she without beauty talent or extravagant demands
and so they read Livy—O season of budding flowers—
in the smell of chalk boredom naphthalene floor wash
under a portrait of the emperor
for there was an emperor then
and the empire like all empires
seemed eternal

Reading the City's history they succumbed to the delusion
that they were the Romans or the decendants of Romans
those sons of the vanquished themselves under the yoke
it's likely the Latin teacher had a part in it
with his position of counselor to the court
a collection of ancient virtues under a scruffy frock coat
following Livy he instilled in his pupils scorn for the mob
so popular revolt—
res tam foeda
—aroused their loathing
while on the other hand all the conquests seemed just
showing simply the victory of the superior stronger
they were pained by the defeat at Lake Trasimeno
while Scipio's ascendancy filled them with pride
they took Hannibal's death with unfeigned relief
easily far too easily they let themselves be led
through entrenchments of dependent clauses

convoluted constructions ruled by the gerund
swollen rivers of elocution
syntactical booby traps
—into battle
for a cause not theirs

Not until my father and I after him did anyone
read Livy against Livy
studying closely what lies under the fresco
that's why Scaevola's theatrical gesture did not reverberate in us
nor did centurions' cries or triumphal marches
and we tended to feel moved by the ruination
of the Samnites Gauls or Etruscans

we counted the many names of peoples the Romans trampled to dust
those buried without praise those who for Livy
were not worth even a ripple of style
those Hirpins Apuleans Lucanians Osunans
and residents of Tarentum Metapontis Locri

My father knew well and I know too
that one day on the farthest outskirts
without any signs from the heavens
in Pannonia Sarajevo or Trebizond
in a city on the cold sea
or in the valley of Panshir
a local fire will break out

and the empire will fall

 

Was Jean-Jacques the Tender aware of the pitcher plant
—he must have been the plant was described by Linnaeus—
then why did he pass over in silence this scandal of Nature

one of many scandals and it may well have been
beyond the capacity of his heart and tear glands—
he who sought consolation in the natural world

and we live in peace and harmony with the pitcher plant
among gulags and concentration camps we do not care
to know that in the world of plants there is no innocence

 

Despite the worst prophecies of the diviners of the weather
—a thick wedge of polar wind driven into air up to the base—
despite the life instinct the sacred strategies of survival
—other plants intrepidly gather their forces for the plunge
and hoard buds on the black front lines before the charge—
before Prospero has raised his hand
the blackthorn opens its solo recital
in the cold and empty concert hall

this roadside shrub betrays
a conspiracy of the timid
and is
like handsome young volunteers
who perish on the first day of war in brand-new uniforms
the soles of their boots barely marked by sand
like stars of poetry prematurely extinguished
like a school outing crushed by an avalanche
like those who see clearly in the darkness
like insurgents who despite history's clocks
despite the worst predictions
start off in spite of it all

O madness of innocent white flowers
blind snowstorm
crest of a wave
aubade with a short stubborn ostinato
headless aureole

yes blackthorn
a few measures
in an empty hall
and then the notes lie scattered
amid puddles and ruddy weeds
so no one will remember them

but someone has to dare
someone has to start off

yes blackthorn
a few pure measures
that's quite a lot
that's all

 

If this is to be an offering for my imprisoned
it can best be made in an inappropriate place

without any marble music
or gold censer white cloth

best near a clay pit under a slovenly willow
when rain mingles with snow

in an abandoned mine
a burned sawmill
or a hunger shop
where
salt
vinegar
watch from the flaking walls
instead of Angels of Judgment

if it is to be an offering
we must be reconciled
with our brothers who are in the hands of iniquity
and fight on the edges

I see
their bright shadows
moving slowly
as if on an ocean bed

I see
idle hands
helpless elbows and knees
cheeks in which shadows have nestled
mouths open as they sleep
defenseless backs

I watch you talk to the cup
tie and untie the knot
scatter and gather crumbs

and I listen in
as gray numen
flies
rustles
over my head

and so we endure
we conspirators

amid prophetic cries
and trivial responses

amid worthy silence
and an intransigent jangling of keys

 

the bullet I fired
during the great war
went around the globe
and hit me in the back

at the least suitable moment
when I was already sure
I had forgotten it all—
his transgressions and mine

after all I like anyone else
wanted to erase the memory
of countenances of hatred

history consoled me
—I was battling violence
but the Book told me
—I was battling Cain

so many patient years
so many years in vain
I washed soot blood
hurt in mercy's stream
so that noble beauty
the glory of existence
perhaps even the good
might have a home in me

after all I like anyone else
had a longing to return
to the bay of childhood
the country of innocence

the bullet I fired
from a low-caliber gun

despite laws of gravity
went around the globe
and hit me in the back
as if it wished to tell me
—nobody gets anything
for free

so now I sit in solitude
on a sawed-off tree trunk
in the exact center point
of the forgotten battle
gray spider I spin
bitter meditations

on memory too large
and a heart too small

 

Father of the gods and you my patron Hermes
I forgot to ask you—and now it is already late—
for a sublime gift
modest as prayer
for smooth skin luxuriant hair almond eyelids

may it come to pass
that my whole life
fits without remainder
in Countess Popescu's
casket of keepsakes
on which a shepherd
at an oak wood's edge
blows from his pipe
pearly wisps of air