The Collected Poems (26 page)

after him come hunters
in dense line formation

with great bounds
his beard blowing
his face inspired
with anger's fires
Leo takes flight
to a forest on the horizon
following after him
Lord have mercy

a rabid hunt
is on
a hunt is on
for Leo

at the front
Zofia Andreyevna
soaked to the bone
after her daily suicide
calls exhorts
—Lyovochka—
in a voice that could
make rocks crumble

following her
sons daughters
manor flunkies
gendarmes priests
bluestockings
moderate anarchists
Christians illiterates
Tolstoyans
Cossacks
and every kind of riffraff

women shriek
fellows bellow

it's hell

the finale
at the small station Ostapovo
a little wooden cage
on the iron railroad

the Good Railwayman
has laid Leo on the bed

he is safe now

over the small station
the lights of history flared up

Leo has closed his eyes
indifferent to the world
only cocky
priest Pimen
who has vowed

to lug Leo's soul
to heaven
bends over him
and shouting over
his hoarse breathing
and gruesome chest noises
he asks slyly
—What now then—
—I must flee—
says Leo
and he repeats
—I must flee—
—where to—says Pimen
—where O Christian soul—

Leo has fallen silent
hidden himself in the shadow of eternity
in eternal silence

no one understood the prophecy
as if no one knew scripture

“Nation shall rise against nation,
and kingdom against kingdom
and they shall fall by the edge of the sword
and shall be led away captive
into all nations
for these be the days of vengeance,
that all things which are written
may be fulfilled”

now the time is nigh
of abandoned homes
trampling in jungles
frenzied seafarings

erring in the darkness
crawling in the dust

the time of the hunted

the time of the Great Beast

 

For lack of a nail the kingdom fell
—our nannies' wisdom teaches us—but in our kingdom
there haven't been nails for a long time nor will there be
neither those handy little ones used for hanging pictures
on a wall nor the big ones with which coffins are sealed

but in spite of this and perhaps precisely because of it
the kingdom endures and even gains others' admiration
how is it possible to live without nails paper and string
bricks oxygen freedom and whatever else you like
evidently it is possible because it endures and endures

people in this country live in houses not in caves
factories smoke in the steppe trains cross the tundra
and on the cold ocean a ship blows its bleating horn
there is an army and police a seal an anthem a flag
on the surface it's just like the rest of the world

it is only on the surface because this kingdom of ours
is not a creation of nature or a creation of humanity
seemingly enduring built on the bones of mammoths
in reality it is weak as if suspended between
the act and the thought existence and nonexistence

 

Truly my infidelity is great and hard to forgive
for I do not even remember the day or the hour
at which I abandoned you my childhood friends

first I address you humbly
pen with a wooden holder
painted or finely laquered

in a Jewish shop
—creaking steps a bell over the glass door—
I picked you out
in the shade of indolence
and before long you bore
on your body
my pensive teethmarks
traces of school's angst

O silver nib
outlet of the critical mind
courier of consoling knowledge
—of the fact the earth is round
—of straight and parallel lines
in the shopkeeper's box
you were a fish waiting for me
amid a school of other fish
—I was amazed there were so many
objects ownerless and completely
mute—
then
forever mine
I put you piously in my mouth
and felt on my tongue
the long taste

of sorrel
and the moon

O ink
honorable Sir Encaustum
of a distinguished lineage
highborn
as the evening sky
slow to dry
deliberate
and very patient
we turned you
into a Sargasso Sea
drowning blotting paper
hairs flies and curses
in your wise depths
to mask the odor
of a gentle volcano
the call of the abyss

who remembers you now
my fond fellows
you disappeared quietly
behind time's last cataract
who remembers you gratefully
in an era of harebrain ballpoints
of arrogant objects
without grace
name
or past

if I speak of you
I'd like to speak
as if I were hanging an ex voto
on a shattered altar

Light of my childhood
blessed lamp

sometimes I come upon
your dishonored body
in a secondhand store

yet once you were
a shining allegory

spirit stubbornly battling
against gnostic demons
given over to the eye
open
transparently plain

at the bottom of your reservoir
kerosene—elixir of primeval forests
a wick's slippery snake
with a head of flames
slim maidenlike glass
and a silvery tin shield
like Selene at full moon

your princessy moods
O beautiful and cruel
hysterics of a prima donna
not sufficiently applauded

hark
a cheerful aria
summer's honey glow
above the glass mouth
a fair braid of sunlight

and suddenly
dark basses
ravens and crows alight
invective and swearing
prophecies of destruction
a fury of smoke bombs

like a great playwright you knew the tides of passion
and the swamps of melancholy black towers of pride
blazing glow of fires rainbows the unleashed oceans

effortlessly you summoned out of nothingness
landscapes cities gone wild mirrored in water
at a sign from you the crazy prince of the island
and the balcony in Verona appeared obediently

I was devoted to you
O luminous initiation
lever of knowledge
under night's hammers

and my other
flat head cast on the ceiling
looked down menacingly
as if from a box of angels
at the theater of the world
knotted
evil
cruel

I thought then
I should save
one
small
warm

true
thing
from the flood

yes so it might go on living
and we inside it as in a shell

I have never believed in the spirit of history
a puffed-up monster with a murderous eye
a dialectical beast kept on a torturer's leash

or in you—four horsemen of the Apocalypse
Huns of progress galloping across the steppes of heaven and earth
destroying on your way everything honorable old and defenseless

I wasted years learning history's simplistic workings
the monotonous procession and the unequal struggle
between the thugs at the head of addled crowds
and a handful of the righteous and reasonable

not much is left
not much at all

objects
and compassion

lightly we leave the gardens of childhood the gardens of things
scattering manuscripts oil lamps dignity and pens on our flight
such is our deluded journey along the cliff side of nothingness

 

What would have become of me had I not met you—Master Henryk
whom I address for the first time by your first name
With the reverence and respect due to—Tall Shades

I'd have been a silly boy to the end of my life
Searching
Stifled tacitum ashamed of my own existence

An unknowing boy

The times we lived in were truly a tale told by an idiot
Full of sound and cruelty
Your severe gentleness delicate strength
Taught me to weather the world like a thinking stone
Patient indifferent and tender all at once

You were surrounded by sophists and those who think with a hammer
Dialectical frauds parishioners of nothingness—you looked at them
Through spectacles slightly streaked with tears
With an eye that forgives and shouldn't forgive

Praise be to your forefathers
To those few who loved you

Praise be to your Books
Slender

Spacious
More lasting than bronze

Praise be to your cradle

 

This book is a gentle reminder it does not permit me
to run too rapidly in the rhythm of a coursing phrase
it bids me return to the beginning forever begin again

I've been up to my ears in Book One chapter three verse VII
half a century and a voice says: you'll never master the Book
I go over it letter by letter—but my ardor often expires

The book's patient voice instructs:
the worst thing in matters of the spirit is haste
and then consoles me: you have years ahead of you

It says: forget that there are many pages waiting for you
many volumes tears libraries read chapter three closely
it contains the key the abyss the beginning and the end

It says: don't spare your eyes candles ink copy assiduously
verse by verse and copy precisely as if reflecting
in a mirror unintelligible faded words with triple meanings

I think in despair—I'm neither sufficiently able nor patient
my brothers are more fluent in the art
I hear their mockeries overhead and see the sneering looks

at a late dawn in winter—when I am beginning again

 

He didn't manage his life very well a certain Eric Blair
on every picture his face is extraordinarily melancholy
A top student at Eton—Oxford—then colonial service
during which he cut the sum total of elephants by one.
He was witness to the hanging of some unruly Burmese
and described it in detail. War in Spain with the anarchs.
There's a picture: fighters in front of the Lenin barracks
in the background he stands too tall and entirely alone.

Sadly there's no photo of his period of poverty studies
in Paris and London. A gap allowing for speculation.

And then finally late fame—more than that—wealth:
we see him with dog and grandson. Two pretty wives
a country house in Banhil where he lies under a stone.

Not one holiday snapshot—tennis shoes a sunlit yacht
the courting of amusement. Good. Luckily no photo
of him in hospital. The bed. The white flag of a towel
held to a bleeding mouth. But he will never surrender.
And he goes off like a pendulum patient and suffering
to a certain encounter.

 

I was a quiet boy a little sleepy and—amazingly—
unlike my peers—who were fond of adventures—
I didn't expect much—didn't look out the window
At school more diligent than able—docile stable

Then a normal life at the level of a regular clerk
up early street tram office again tram home sleep

I truly don't know why I'm tired uneasy in torment
perpetually even now—when I have a right to rest

I know I never rose high—I have no achievements
I collected stamps medicinal herbs was OK at chess

I went abroad once—on a holiday to the Black Sea
in the photo a straw hat tanned face—almost happy

I read what came to hand: about scientific socialism
about flights into space and machines that can think
and the thing I liked most: books on the life of bees

Like others I wanted to know what I'd be after death
whether I'd get a new apartment if life had meaning

And above all how to tell the good from what's evil
to know for sure what is white and what's all black

Someone recommended a classic work—as he said
it changed his life and the lives of millions of others
I read it—I didn't change—and I'm ashamed to admit
for the life of me I don't remember the classic's name

Maybe I didn't live but endured—cast against my will
into something hard to govern and impossible to grasp
a shadow on a wall

so it was not a life
a life up to the hilt

How could I explain to my wife or to anyone else
that I summoned all my strength
so as not to commit stupidities cede to insinuation
not to fraternize with the strongest

It's true—I was always pale. Average. At school
in the army in the office at home and at parties

I wake at night in a sweat. Stare at the ceiling. Silence.
And again—one more time—with a bone-weary arm
I chase off the bad spirits and summon the good ones.

 

In the caves of night
on branches
fat as armored limbs
a fruit ripens
which will be pulped
by the sleep
of those sleeping quietly under trees
the sleep of the fair and defenseless

The fruit rocks and swells
sounding its metal alarm
turns blue as hatred's face

The fat branch will wither
and the ripe fruit will roll
onto the fair unripe heads