This - pigeons' olives -
The most free, the most far-out
Forehead - having branded for centuries
With the two-pieces gone low
Of the middle and the gold?
"Pushkin - toga, Pushkin - scheme,
Pushkin - measure, Pushkin - frame..."
Pushkin, Pushkin, Pushkin - like
Invective is noble name
Scream of parrots - of the square.
Pushkin? We're very full of fear!
2
PETER AND PUSHKIN
Not with fleet, not with sweat, not with back
In patches, not with Swede at the feet,
Not with growth - from any row,
Not - to all there is time - with the drift,
Not with lot, not with boat, not with German
Through smoke of the stoves beer,
And not even with Peter-wonder
His own (his own deed of Peter!)
And would there be little of big one
(God gave, not a burden is man!)
When he could not bear Hannibal-Arab
Onto the white Russian land.
This African into learning
Having taken, the noses of Russians
Having wiped and insisted - there's light
In Russia from Negro grandson!
The turning one he would not have
In the string! "Onto freedom? Instead!
He was such a chamber officer
As I'm king of masquerade!"
Having learned, not with foam, not with pumice
Of Africa - literary tsar
Would've decided: "From now of your African
Passions I am a censor."
And having hit him on curly
Neck (cut - not cut!) "Go, son,
Onto a short little visit
Into the wilds African!
Sail - and be sad of nothing!
There's someone into sails to blow!
If you'll get bored - come back to me,
If not - forget even the door!
Order: having abandoned
Icy fogs - inch, an inch behind
To trace the hot countries
And with a verse to describe."
And past the retinue placed there,
Left behind - at the warehouse, straight,
A giant, having left the poet,
Ran - on or over the land?
The tan-faced one not on Russian
Snow - the snow's Ismael!
He, now, with the archives
The foreign bird did not kill!
He, not on the fast Slavic blood,
He is a mestizo also!
You, now, on the homeland archives
Of him simply would not sour!
He would have made peace with you!
For the unforced bow
Complained by Nicholas,
By Peter would be granted so!
The gendarmes' search he would not cover
With "homeland of feelings"!
He would for you - a demon
Glance! - not freeze the lips.
He would not crumple Poltavan
Ends, would not blunt the pen.
For what as unworthy descendant -
As a creep - Peter's agaric - was sent
Into Romanian area
And with it - by him was granted -
He killed his shy son, having shyness
Of man so much hated.
"This chaff - I? Here
Now grow, having been born!"
His true son was the Negro,
As his true great-grandson
You'll remain. The pact of equals.
And having not asked for alms here
The great-grandson of giant's godson
Peter's spirit made its heir.
And step, and the lightest of the light
Glances, to which it's light now...
The final - posthumous - immortal
Peter's gift to Russia.
3
(MACHINE)
All his science is -
Might. It's light - and I look:
The hand of Pushkin
I press, do not lick.
Friend to great-grandfather:
In the same old shop!
Like with one's own hand
Each and every blot.
Under piles - to a free one?
To me, in wonders' cauldron
Weight that is exploring
Bracket open,
Minding written notes -
Meaning, than all more brief.
There's not greater search
Than relationship!
It was sung - is sung
And now - it is so.
We know how it's "given"!
Over you we know,
"Trifle" - how it sweated!
Out of you, O stroke,
How I wanted forest -
Ball - and sleigh - I know...
And how - sleep I wanted!
How above love's flower -
I know, how it creaked
With teeth of Negro!
Feathers on alert -
I know how he fixed!
Fingers have not dried yet
From his ink!
And midst tallow candles,
Midst card games, I know
How it shook! From naked
Shoulders, from mirrors,
From the glasses beaten
On the floor -
How it ran on naked
Table I know!
Battle, without evil:
Of self with self, I knew!
Do not beat with Pushkin!
With him I'm beating you!
4
Conquest
Of inertness Russian -
Genius of Pushkin?
Pushkin's muscle
On the fate's carcass
Of the sperm whale -
Muscle of flight,
Running,
Struggle.
With morning languor
Vigorously having battled!
Of a long walk,
Of running equal -
Muscle. A muscle
Of flights the steppe over,
Of boat that bears
Through whirlwind to the shore.
Not burdened
With blood Russian -
O, not a camel's
Or ox's vein
(From under the belt
He did work hard!) -
Mine is the muscle
Of horse's heart.
Prettier than ever -
More ballast!
Muscle of acrobat
And gymnast,
That on the rope
Of one's own tendons
From casemate -
Flew as a falcon!
Pushkin - from guiding
Of monarch's hands
Beating, like beats
To the death
(Might - arrived,
Strength did grow)
With muscle of shaft
Muscle of oar.
Someone, having carried
On cart: "Of athlete
Musculature is this,
Not of poet!"
That was the strength
Of an angel:
Wing's muscle
Unbreakable.
(POET AND TSAR)
1(5)
With other-sided
Tsar's hall. -
And is this one not
Unbowed, of marble?
In ornaments' gold
So grandly framed. -
A pitiful gendarme
Of Pushkin's fame.
He ran down the author,
Cut text writ by hand.
A brutal butcher
Of Polish land.
Look more intensely!
And do remember:
Tsar Nicholas the First
Is the first-born's
Murderer.
2(6)
No, the drum beat before the dark brigade
When the chief we did inter:
The teeth of the tsar over the dead singer
Beat out the drill of honor.
Such is the honor, that for closest friends
There's no space. At the head, feet - arms,
To the sides - on the right, on the left -
Are chests and mugs of gendarmes.
Is this not a wonder - in quietest box
A supervised boy now to be?
Like something, like something, like something it is
His honor, honored - overly!
Look, now, the country, how in spite of the talk
Monarch dotes over the poet!
Honorably - honorably - honorably - arch-
Honorably - honorably - to hell yet!
Whom then this way - like a thief, shot to death
They bore over the land?
A traitor? No. Through the gatekeeper's yard -
The smartest of Russian men.
3(7)
The people's power, having overthrown the throne,
Not celebrated - friction:
To executioners not to allow burial
Of victims, the burial of Pushkin
To censors. In the unassigned time,
In prevention of strife.
Not to bear under the (great!) noise
Over the route of the thief -
Not to doom to the final dark,
The complete deaf-and-dumbness
Of the body, cropped as such
With scissors - in the poems.
With the flashlight turn the world
Under moon into a ball!
On the map or in the space there's
No such country, not at all.
Drank like from a saucer,
And the bottom shines.
Can one come back home
To a house that's gone?
In the newer country
Once again be born!
On the spine of horse
That threw you, return
Now at last! The bones
Are the whole - although?
To such a guest
Breadmaker - the broken
Slices, carpenter -
Will not sell the coffin!
He - for the uncounted
Miles, kingdoms of heaven,
Such, where on the coins
Is the youth of me,
There's no such a Russia -
There's no such a me.
1
In the century of giant,
Fateful speeds -
Glory to sturdy brotherhood
Of the walkers' feet!
Tightly, all-terrain,
Straight, without roads,
Mightily beating down
The nature's threshold,
Daringly violated by century.
(In time of dynamos and turbines
Only to live, as invalids!)
But to you avenging
Over the advertisement stamps
On the chest reared and fed.
No, the footless tribe,
Reach distance with your feet!
Glory to the thick soles,
With the nails, boots,
To walkers, speed-runners -
To in boots shod gods!
If there's ode in the world
To god of strength and peaks -
It's the look of the walker
At the motor that's stuck.
Grin in all fifteen inches,
Than the face it's wider:
Popping is look of walker
Upon the tire.
Look now at the torso
Shattered by arrogance!
Alcoholics of distance,
Parasites of wide space -
That through dusty cloud
Of arm-dancing mobs
Break apart. An occurrence?
Of one's foolishness post.
2
Here's he, sword of the dreamers,
Lash of loads on the spine!
Casting beauty, like rapist,
From its feet: to lie down!
He won't answer and lie down -
Like a bed - like a grave -
But he won't show the face
And the soul will not give
Back... He'll give you back nothing
Not July, not April -
O the eyeless, bespectacled,
Lacquered null!
Creator of trouble
Between South and North!
(Records of speed:
Emptiness) your Fords.
Your Rollses and Royces -
That old snake, flattery!
Son! Be fearful of God,
To trudge feet he told thee.
Precious dolls from Oper
And Madeleine, to you
In exchanged for the lacquered
Boat - quiet shoes
Of the dead. O,
The lie so cold
Of the mannikin blocks,
The unstepped-upon soles!
Glory to God in heaven -
God of strength, God of tsars -
For granite and crushed stone,
For the quartz and the spar,
Under silicon hoof
Change given in cash...
And for this that he made me
Walking marvel in flesh.
3
Growing cozy in sponging,
From a tire hurries grandson.
Walkers! Hold to your feet
Like great-grandfathers - arms.
Where there's boundary for rubber -
There for legs there is space.
Room for breath in the bosom
When there's not enough gas!
Like a flood Prague is thirsty,
Thus thirsts thrill of expense.
Do not dare teach the children
Anything but the steps!
By the streams, by the seashores,
Ahead - no! Ahead - stop!
That with feet the savannas
You knew, with knees the Alps.
For the openings of schools,
Friends, I'll kick my two bones
That from the first step
To the last - my grandson
Went! Muscle, putting
Hades to shame! My offshoot!
That in kingdom of mollusks -
On my own two feet!
Elderberry fills the whole garden!
Elderberry is green, green,
Greener, than mold on the vat!
Greener, than summer at the start!
Elderberry - till the end of days!
Elderberry greener than my eyes!
And after - through the night - with the fire
Of Rostov! - it is red in the eyes
From the trill of bubbly elderberry.
Redder than measles on one's own body
In all your times, azure,
Measles that scatters and pours
Of elderberry - till winter, till winter!
That in small berry sweeter
Than poison, what are dissolved paints!
Of red cotton, sealing wax and Hades
Mix, a shimmer of corral beads,
And a taste of baked blood.
Elderberry has been killed, has been killed!
Elderberry the whole hall filled
With blood of young and pure,
With blood of branches of fire -
With the blood most merry -
With blood of heart of you and me...
And later - grain's waterfall will be,
And later - black is elderberry:
With plum something, sticky something.
Over the gate, moaning with violin,
Near the house, which is empty,
Is lonely bush of elderberry.
Elderberry, without mind, without mind,
Of your beads, elderberry, am I!
Steppe - to Mongol, Caucasus - to Georgian will go,
To me - elderberry bush under window
Give. Instead of Arts Palace, only
Give this bush of elderberry.
Newcomers in my country -
From the berry - elderberry,
My ruddy childhood thirst,
From the tree and from the word:
Elderberry (till this day - at nights...),
Poison - sucked in by the eyes...
Elderberry is red, is red!
Elderberry - took the whole land
In its paws. In power, my childhood all.
Something like passion criminal,
Elderberry, between you and me
Century's disease - elderberry
I would call...
Despair for homeland! Long ago
Exposed torment! To me
It is completely all the same
Where completely lonely to be,
By which stones on the road home
With the bazaar knapsack to drag
Home, not knowing, that it's mine,
Like hospital or a barrack.
It's same to me, among which faces
Like an imprisoned lion to bristle,
And from among which people's midst
To be forced out - without fail -
Into oneself, into individual feelings.
As polar bear without ice floe
Where not to live - it's the same to me
(And I don't dare) - where to go low.
I won't be tempted by the milky
Call of my own native tongue.
It is the same to me on which
To be not sensed by meeting ones.
(To reader of newspaper tons,
To gulper, milker of rumors.) He
Is of the twentieth century,
And I - without a century!
Grown petrified just like a log
Remaining only of an alley,
They're all the same, it's all the same,
And maybe most the same - to me -
Dearer than everything that was.
All marks from me, all signs that were,
All dates - brushed off as if by hand:
Soul, that had once been born - somewhere.
Thus my land did not keep me there,
That the detective most keen
Along the soul, across it all!
The birthmark has not sought or seen!
Alien is home, temple - empty,
And all's the same and one to me.
But if along the road a bush
Rises, especially - ashberry...
The time did not think of a poet,
And I don't care to think of him.
God be with him, with noise and thunder,
He did not come within my time!
If time has not time for ancestors,
I've no time for grandsons as well.
My time's my bane, my time's my damage,
My time's my foe, my time is hell.
They cut
Ashberry
Keen.
Ashberry -
Is bitter
Fortune.
Ashberry -
With gray-haired
Descents+
Ashbery!
Fortune
Russian.
1
In the world bellowing:
Glory to the coming!
What whispers in me:
Glory to the gone be!
To you, passing,
That won't counted be,
Not bearing children,
Preceding me.
With brush, with key
They argued, with deed
Written - pure
Was their life, with honor.
White - than treasures
Of snow more fair! -
A novel - your
Conscience's - hair.
2
Generation with lilac
And on Easter in Kremlin,
My hello to generation
In the earth to the knee,
And with gray spots - in stars!
Than the reed louder,
To you, speaking: "so-ul"
Will tremble the air.
Only having saved the soul
From wealth of family
Without brotherhood or equals
To older contemporaries,
Arms of faith and of friendship,
Like Caucasian - an ewer
Full of grape! - to the foe
Stretching out - the two!
Not with Siren - with lilac
Locked in cave with a key,
Generation - with soaring!
With gravity
From the earth, over earth,
From the grain and the worm!
Generation - without soil,
But with such - to bottom,
With seen bottom's abyss.
That from orbits sunken
Looks as if one alive
Like a pleasant virgin.
Generation, where he looked
The best who suffered the most!
Continuation of mirrors.
Generation! I'm yours!
Yours - in physique and essence,
And respect for the mind,
And contempt for the flesh's
Dress dissolving with time!
You - to the child doomed
A poet to be,
Having persuaded to honor
All but ringing money:
All gods - all times - all tribes
Except the god Vaal!
My immortal bow
Generation with fall!
To you, that with one unheard of
Were able to - live,
To you, that among noisy ball
Were able to - love!
Having turned to the stars
Till the hour final -
Departing race,
Gratitudes to you all!
Not a warrior of two camps, but - if occasional guest -
Like a bone in throat - guest, like a nail in sole - guest.
I was given a head - on it knocked two hammers:
For some - profit and for others - meanness.
You from this head - to creator's wonder
My proletarian patience add -
You from this head - what did you demand? - lechery!
Wondering at the insistent answer: cut off the head.
You from this head, leveled - like rows
Of mountains, divine draft writ in heights,
You from this head - what did you demand? - Row.
Wondering at the answer (speechless): cut off the feet!
You from this head, tuned - like a lyre:
On the highest kind: lyrical... - No, stand!
Two builders: Homebuilder and Dnieperbuilder - for choosing!
Wondering at the insane answer: Lyres - build. And
From this head, from the forehead of gray granite,
You demanded: love us! Hate them all!
Is it not the same for her, from which side it's beaten,
To be muffled from which profile of the soul?
There are times, there are times, when the heads are not needed.
But to reduce the word to the beets used for feed -
More honest with Orpheus' head - serenades!
Herodias with John the Baptist's head!
You're a tsar: live alone... (But tsars have concubines'
Minute). God is one. He - in empty skies.
Not a warrior of two camps: judge - prophet - hostage -
Freedom fighter of two! Spirit - for freedom fights.
The underground snake crawls,
Crawls, carries people.
And each - with his own
Newspaper (with his own
Eczema!) Newspaper
Bone eater, chewing tick.
Readers of newspapers,
Chewers of mastics.
Who's the reader? Old man? Athlete?
Soldier? Not features, not years,
Not faces. Skeleton - since no
Face: sheet of newspaper!
Which - entire Paris
From navel to forehead wears!
Enough, girl! You'll give birth to -
Reader of newspaper.
Rock - "lives with sister" -
ing - "his father he killed!" -
Rocking - of vanity
Pumped themselves full.
What do such men care
If it is dusk or dawn?
Swallowers of voids,
Newspaper-reading ones!
Read newspapers: slander,
Read newspapers: waste.
A column - calumny,
A paragraph - disgust...
With what on Terrible court
In the light you'll appear!
Seizers of minutes, you
Readers of newspapers!
He went! Vanished! Got lost!
Old is the mother's fear.
Mom! Guttenberg's press than
Schwartz's dust is scarier.
Better on churchyard
Than in hospital of pus
To cast scratchers of scabs,
Readers of newspapers!
Who is it that rots our sons
In their prime of years?
Mixers of blood, they are,
Writers of newspapers!
Here, friends, - and where
Stronger than in these lines!
What do I think, where
With writing in my palms
I stand before the face -
There is no emptier space!
That means - not with face
Of editor of news -
Paper filth.
Baby walked along the road
Shivering and turning blue
An old woman walked that road
She took pity on the orphan...
1
Icy tiara of mountains -
Is a frame to sight transitory.
On the castle's granite today
I traced parting to ivy.
I have chased today on all roads
Towering figures of pines.
I have taken a tulip today
Like a child to the chin.
2
With surrounding of mountains I hug you,
With the granite crown of rocks.
(That you breathe easier and sleep tighter
I am busying you with talk.)
With the sides of a feudal castle,
With the ivy hands of down -
You know - in four hundred streams and rivers
Is the ivy, hugging the stone?
But I'm not woodbine - and not ivy!
Even you, dearer than my hand,
Are not flattened - and freely let out
Onto every side of my mind!
Round the flower-bed, round the well too,
Where to gray-haired ones stone will come,
With the round pledge of an orphan -
With the loneliness my round!
(Thus not one silver braid did weave
Into my light-brown braids!)
And with river, into two parting -
Island to create - and embrace.
With entire Savoy and Piedmont
And - cracking the ridge a bit -
I embrace you with blue horizon,
With two arms I embrace you yet.
3
(CAVE)
If I could - I would take you
Into the womb of a cave:
Into the cave of a dragon,
Into the panther's grove.
Into the panther's - paws -
If I could - I would take, so.
To bosom of nature, to bed of nature.
If I could - my own skin of panther
I'd take off... I would give in the grove - to study!
In bushy, in firry, in streamy, in ivy -
Where in darkness, in dusk, and in dreaming
Branches weave for eternal weddings!
Where in granite, in milk and in bast
For centuries intertwine arms -
Like branches - and rivers...
Into cave without light, without trace into thicket.
In leaves, in ivy, in ivy - like in coat...
Not white light, not black bread: in dew
In leaves, in leaves - like in relationship too...
That did not knock on the door,
That henceforth did not happen,
That did not shout in window,
That for century didn't end!
But not enough - cave,
And not enough - grove!
If I could - I would take you
Into the womb of a cave.
If I could -
I would take.
4
On the ice floe -
Loved one,
On the mine -
Loved one,
On the ice floe, in Guyana, in Gehennah - loved one.
In the scab - desired one,
From churchyard - desired one:
Be a desired guest! Only teeth and bone - desired one!
With the under-knees angst
Till ruined darkness
With the last seizure of smoke - pitied one.
And there's no such hole, and there's no such abyss:
Loved one! Wished one! Pitied one! Full of illness!
5
With rapid speech - with stream of water
Beating: - Loved one! Sick one! Dear!
With recitation - lingering blues:
Weak! Half-alive! Paper! See-through!
With lengthwise cut from stomach to pharynx:
Loved one! Wished one! Pitied one! Full of illness!
6
Finally I've encountered
One that I do need:
Somebody possesses
Deadly need of me.
What to eye is rainbow,
Ground to the grain,
To man - is being needed
By another man.
I need more than rainbow,
More than rain or hand,
Need of this my hand
By another man.
This - wider than Ladoga
Than mountain more true -
Is need of my hand
By another's wound.
And for that with ulcer
Palm had brought to me -
This my hand - immediately
In fire after thee!
<7>
In thoughts of another, otherwise,
Like a treasure chest not found,
Step by step, poppy by poppy -
Garden's I cut off the head.
Thus, sometime in a dry summer,
On the very edge of field,
Death my head will sever
With an absent-minded hand.
"It's time! I'm old for this fire!"
"Older than me is love-desire!"
"All fifty years has this hill!"
"Love's older than that hill still:
Old like a snake, old like a plant,
Older than ambers of Livan,
Older than all the ghostly boats,
Older than seas, older than stones...
But agony that's in the chest -
In years, love's less, in years, love's less.
"I dressed the table for the six"
I still convey the word and still
The first one verse I do repeat:
"I dressed the table for the six"...
But seventh one you did forget.
It is not merry for us six.
On faces are the streams of rain+
How could you over such a table
Forget the seventh - seventh one+
It is not merry for the guests,
Idle is pitcher of crystal,
Sad are they all, sad are you too,
But saddest is the one uncalled.
It is not merry and not light.
Ah! You don't drink and do not eat.
How could you have forgotten this?
How could you have erred in the count?
How could you, dared, not understand,
That six (two brothers, the third -
You, with wife, father and mother) there
Are seven - that I'm in this world?
You dressed the table for the six,
But with six the world did not die.
More than the scarecrow midst the live
I want to be a ghost - with (mine),
Yours... Shy just like a thief,
O - never touching but a soul! -
Behind the silverware unmade
I sit as seventh one, uncalled.
At once! I overthrew the glass!
An all that thirsted to be poured -
All salt from eyes, all blood from wounds -
From tablecloth - on the floorboards.
And - there's no coffin! No - parting!
Broken is spell, wakes up the home.
Like death - onto the wedding feast,
I'm - life, that to dinner have come.
And I still scold, for nobody -
Not brother, husband, son or friend:
"You, dressed the table for six souls,
Did not seat me upon the end."
The most free, the most far-out
Forehead - having branded for centuries
With the two-pieces gone low
Of the middle and the gold?
"Pushkin - toga, Pushkin - scheme,
Pushkin - measure, Pushkin - frame..."
Pushkin, Pushkin, Pushkin - like
Invective is noble name
Scream of parrots - of the square.
Pushkin? We're very full of fear!
2
PETER AND PUSHKIN
Not with fleet, not with sweat, not with back
In patches, not with Swede at the feet,
Not with growth - from any row,
Not - to all there is time - with the drift,
Not with lot, not with boat, not with German
Through smoke of the stoves beer,
And not even with Peter-wonder
His own (his own deed of Peter!)
And would there be little of big one
(God gave, not a burden is man!)
When he could not bear Hannibal-Arab
Onto the white Russian land.
This African into learning
Having taken, the noses of Russians
Having wiped and insisted - there's light
In Russia from Negro grandson!
The turning one he would not have
In the string! "Onto freedom? Instead!
He was such a chamber officer
As I'm king of masquerade!"
Having learned, not with foam, not with pumice
Of Africa - literary tsar
Would've decided: "From now of your African
Passions I am a censor."
And having hit him on curly
Neck (cut - not cut!) "Go, son,
Onto a short little visit
Into the wilds African!
Sail - and be sad of nothing!
There's someone into sails to blow!
If you'll get bored - come back to me,
If not - forget even the door!
Order: having abandoned
Icy fogs - inch, an inch behind
To trace the hot countries
And with a verse to describe."
And past the retinue placed there,
Left behind - at the warehouse, straight,
A giant, having left the poet,
Ran - on or over the land?
The tan-faced one not on Russian
Snow - the snow's Ismael!
He, now, with the archives
The foreign bird did not kill!
He, not on the fast Slavic blood,
He is a mestizo also!
You, now, on the homeland archives
Of him simply would not sour!
He would have made peace with you!
For the unforced bow
Complained by Nicholas,
By Peter would be granted so!
The gendarmes' search he would not cover
With "homeland of feelings"!
He would for you - a demon
Glance! - not freeze the lips.
He would not crumple Poltavan
Ends, would not blunt the pen.
For what as unworthy descendant -
As a creep - Peter's agaric - was sent
Into Romanian area
And with it - by him was granted -
He killed his shy son, having shyness
Of man so much hated.
"This chaff - I? Here
Now grow, having been born!"
His true son was the Negro,
As his true great-grandson
You'll remain. The pact of equals.
And having not asked for alms here
The great-grandson of giant's godson
Peter's spirit made its heir.
And step, and the lightest of the light
Glances, to which it's light now...
The final - posthumous - immortal
Peter's gift to Russia.
3
(MACHINE)
All his science is -
Might. It's light - and I look:
The hand of Pushkin
I press, do not lick.
Friend to great-grandfather:
In the same old shop!
Like with one's own hand
Each and every blot.
Under piles - to a free one?
To me, in wonders' cauldron
Weight that is exploring
Bracket open,
Minding written notes -
Meaning, than all more brief.
There's not greater search
Than relationship!
It was sung - is sung
And now - it is so.
We know how it's "given"!
Over you we know,
"Trifle" - how it sweated!
Out of you, O stroke,
How I wanted forest -
Ball - and sleigh - I know...
And how - sleep I wanted!
How above love's flower -
I know, how it creaked
With teeth of Negro!
Feathers on alert -
I know how he fixed!
Fingers have not dried yet
From his ink!
And midst tallow candles,
Midst card games, I know
How it shook! From naked
Shoulders, from mirrors,
From the glasses beaten
On the floor -
How it ran on naked
Table I know!
Battle, without evil:
Of self with self, I knew!
Do not beat with Pushkin!
With him I'm beating you!
4
Conquest
Of inertness Russian -
Genius of Pushkin?
Pushkin's muscle
On the fate's carcass
Of the sperm whale -
Muscle of flight,
Running,
Struggle.
With morning languor
Vigorously having battled!
Of a long walk,
Of running equal -
Muscle. A muscle
Of flights the steppe over,
Of boat that bears
Through whirlwind to the shore.
Not burdened
With blood Russian -
O, not a camel's
Or ox's vein
(From under the belt
He did work hard!) -
Mine is the muscle
Of horse's heart.
Prettier than ever -
More ballast!
Muscle of acrobat
And gymnast,
That on the rope
Of one's own tendons
From casemate -
Flew as a falcon!
Pushkin - from guiding
Of monarch's hands
Beating, like beats
To the death
(Might - arrived,
Strength did grow)
With muscle of shaft
Muscle of oar.
Someone, having carried
On cart: "Of athlete
Musculature is this,
Not of poet!"
That was the strength
Of an angel:
Wing's muscle
Unbreakable.
(POET AND TSAR)
1(5)
With other-sided
Tsar's hall. -
And is this one not
Unbowed, of marble?
In ornaments' gold
So grandly framed. -
A pitiful gendarme
Of Pushkin's fame.
He ran down the author,
Cut text writ by hand.
A brutal butcher
Of Polish land.
Look more intensely!
And do remember:
Tsar Nicholas the First
Is the first-born's
Murderer.
2(6)
No, the drum beat before the dark brigade
When the chief we did inter:
The teeth of the tsar over the dead singer
Beat out the drill of honor.
Such is the honor, that for closest friends
There's no space. At the head, feet - arms,
To the sides - on the right, on the left -
Are chests and mugs of gendarmes.
Is this not a wonder - in quietest box
A supervised boy now to be?
Like something, like something, like something it is
His honor, honored - overly!
Look, now, the country, how in spite of the talk
Monarch dotes over the poet!
Honorably - honorably - honorably - arch-
Honorably - honorably - to hell yet!
Whom then this way - like a thief, shot to death
They bore over the land?
A traitor? No. Through the gatekeeper's yard -
The smartest of Russian men.
3(7)
The people's power, having overthrown the throne,
Not celebrated - friction:
To executioners not to allow burial
Of victims, the burial of Pushkin
To censors. In the unassigned time,
In prevention of strife.
Not to bear under the (great!) noise
Over the route of the thief -
Not to doom to the final dark,
The complete deaf-and-dumbness
Of the body, cropped as such
With scissors - in the poems.
Country
With the flashlight turn the world
Under moon into a ball!
On the map or in the space there's
No such country, not at all.
Drank like from a saucer,
And the bottom shines.
Can one come back home
To a house that's gone?
In the newer country
Once again be born!
On the spine of horse
That threw you, return
Now at last! The bones
Are the whole - although?
To such a guest
Breadmaker - the broken
Slices, carpenter -
Will not sell the coffin!
He - for the uncounted
Miles, kingdoms of heaven,
Such, where on the coins
Is the youth of me,
There's no such a Russia -
There's no such a me.
Ode to Walking
1
In the century of giant,
Fateful speeds -
Glory to sturdy brotherhood
Of the walkers' feet!
Tightly, all-terrain,
Straight, without roads,
Mightily beating down
The nature's threshold,
Daringly violated by century.
(In time of dynamos and turbines
Only to live, as invalids!)
But to you avenging
Over the advertisement stamps
On the chest reared and fed.
No, the footless tribe,
Reach distance with your feet!
Glory to the thick soles,
With the nails, boots,
To walkers, speed-runners -
To in boots shod gods!
If there's ode in the world
To god of strength and peaks -
It's the look of the walker
At the motor that's stuck.
Grin in all fifteen inches,
Than the face it's wider:
Popping is look of walker
Upon the tire.
Look now at the torso
Shattered by arrogance!
Alcoholics of distance,
Parasites of wide space -
That through dusty cloud
Of arm-dancing mobs
Break apart. An occurrence?
Of one's foolishness post.
2
Here's he, sword of the dreamers,
Lash of loads on the spine!
Casting beauty, like rapist,
From its feet: to lie down!
He won't answer and lie down -
Like a bed - like a grave -
But he won't show the face
And the soul will not give
Back... He'll give you back nothing
Not July, not April -
O the eyeless, bespectacled,
Lacquered null!
Creator of trouble
Between South and North!
(Records of speed:
Emptiness) your Fords.
Your Rollses and Royces -
That old snake, flattery!
Son! Be fearful of God,
To trudge feet he told thee.
Precious dolls from Oper
And Madeleine, to you
In exchanged for the lacquered
Boat - quiet shoes
Of the dead. O,
The lie so cold
Of the mannikin blocks,
The unstepped-upon soles!
Glory to God in heaven -
God of strength, God of tsars -
For granite and crushed stone,
For the quartz and the spar,
Under silicon hoof
Change given in cash...
And for this that he made me
Walking marvel in flesh.
3
Growing cozy in sponging,
From a tire hurries grandson.
Walkers! Hold to your feet
Like great-grandfathers - arms.
Where there's boundary for rubber -
There for legs there is space.
Room for breath in the bosom
When there's not enough gas!
Like a flood Prague is thirsty,
Thus thirsts thrill of expense.
Do not dare teach the children
Anything but the steps!
By the streams, by the seashores,
Ahead - no! Ahead - stop!
That with feet the savannas
You knew, with knees the Alps.
For the openings of schools,
Friends, I'll kick my two bones
That from the first step
To the last - my grandson
Went! Muscle, putting
Hades to shame! My offshoot!
That in kingdom of mollusks -
On my own two feet!
Elderberry
Elderberry fills the whole garden!
Elderberry is green, green,
Greener, than mold on the vat!
Greener, than summer at the start!
Elderberry - till the end of days!
Elderberry greener than my eyes!
And after - through the night - with the fire
Of Rostov! - it is red in the eyes
From the trill of bubbly elderberry.
Redder than measles on one's own body
In all your times, azure,
Measles that scatters and pours
Of elderberry - till winter, till winter!
That in small berry sweeter
Than poison, what are dissolved paints!
Of red cotton, sealing wax and Hades
Mix, a shimmer of corral beads,
And a taste of baked blood.
Elderberry has been killed, has been killed!
Elderberry the whole hall filled
With blood of young and pure,
With blood of branches of fire -
With the blood most merry -
With blood of heart of you and me...
And later - grain's waterfall will be,
And later - black is elderberry:
With plum something, sticky something.
Over the gate, moaning with violin,
Near the house, which is empty,
Is lonely bush of elderberry.
Elderberry, without mind, without mind,
Of your beads, elderberry, am I!
Steppe - to Mongol, Caucasus - to Georgian will go,
To me - elderberry bush under window
Give. Instead of Arts Palace, only
Give this bush of elderberry.
Newcomers in my country -
From the berry - elderberry,
My ruddy childhood thirst,
From the tree and from the word:
Elderberry (till this day - at nights...),
Poison - sucked in by the eyes...
Elderberry is red, is red!
Elderberry - took the whole land
In its paws. In power, my childhood all.
Something like passion criminal,
Elderberry, between you and me
Century's disease - elderberry
I would call...
x x x
Despair for homeland! Long ago
Exposed torment! To me
It is completely all the same
Where completely lonely to be,
By which stones on the road home
With the bazaar knapsack to drag
Home, not knowing, that it's mine,
Like hospital or a barrack.
It's same to me, among which faces
Like an imprisoned lion to bristle,
And from among which people's midst
To be forced out - without fail -
Into oneself, into individual feelings.
As polar bear without ice floe
Where not to live - it's the same to me
(And I don't dare) - where to go low.
I won't be tempted by the milky
Call of my own native tongue.
It is the same to me on which
To be not sensed by meeting ones.
(To reader of newspaper tons,
To gulper, milker of rumors.) He
Is of the twentieth century,
And I - without a century!
Grown petrified just like a log
Remaining only of an alley,
They're all the same, it's all the same,
And maybe most the same - to me -
Dearer than everything that was.
All marks from me, all signs that were,
All dates - brushed off as if by hand:
Soul, that had once been born - somewhere.
Thus my land did not keep me there,
That the detective most keen
Along the soul, across it all!
The birthmark has not sought or seen!
Alien is home, temple - empty,
And all's the same and one to me.
But if along the road a bush
Rises, especially - ashberry...
x x x
The time did not think of a poet,
And I don't care to think of him.
God be with him, with noise and thunder,
He did not come within my time!
If time has not time for ancestors,
I've no time for grandsons as well.
My time's my bane, my time's my damage,
My time's my foe, my time is hell.
x x x
They cut
Ashberry
Keen.
Ashberry -
Is bitter
Fortune.
Ashberry -
With gray-haired
Descents+
Ashbery!
Fortune
Russian.
To Fathers
1
In the world bellowing:
Glory to the coming!
What whispers in me:
Glory to the gone be!
To you, passing,
That won't counted be,
Not bearing children,
Preceding me.
With brush, with key
They argued, with deed
Written - pure
Was their life, with honor.
White - than treasures
Of snow more fair! -
A novel - your
Conscience's - hair.
2
Generation with lilac
And on Easter in Kremlin,
My hello to generation
In the earth to the knee,
And with gray spots - in stars!
Than the reed louder,
To you, speaking: "so-ul"
Will tremble the air.
Only having saved the soul
From wealth of family
Without brotherhood or equals
To older contemporaries,
Arms of faith and of friendship,
Like Caucasian - an ewer
Full of grape! - to the foe
Stretching out - the two!
Not with Siren - with lilac
Locked in cave with a key,
Generation - with soaring!
With gravity
From the earth, over earth,
From the grain and the worm!
Generation - without soil,
But with such - to bottom,
With seen bottom's abyss.
That from orbits sunken
Looks as if one alive
Like a pleasant virgin.
Generation, where he looked
The best who suffered the most!
Continuation of mirrors.
Generation! I'm yours!
Yours - in physique and essence,
And respect for the mind,
And contempt for the flesh's
Dress dissolving with time!
You - to the child doomed
A poet to be,
Having persuaded to honor
All but ringing money:
All gods - all times - all tribes
Except the god Vaal!
My immortal bow
Generation with fall!
To you, that with one unheard of
Were able to - live,
To you, that among noisy ball
Were able to - love!
Having turned to the stars
Till the hour final -
Departing race,
Gratitudes to you all!
x x x
Not a warrior of two camps, but - if occasional guest -
Like a bone in throat - guest, like a nail in sole - guest.
I was given a head - on it knocked two hammers:
For some - profit and for others - meanness.
You from this head - to creator's wonder
My proletarian patience add -
You from this head - what did you demand? - lechery!
Wondering at the insistent answer: cut off the head.
You from this head, leveled - like rows
Of mountains, divine draft writ in heights,
You from this head - what did you demand? - Row.
Wondering at the answer (speechless): cut off the feet!
You from this head, tuned - like a lyre:
On the highest kind: lyrical... - No, stand!
Two builders: Homebuilder and Dnieperbuilder - for choosing!
Wondering at the insane answer: Lyres - build. And
From this head, from the forehead of gray granite,
You demanded: love us! Hate them all!
Is it not the same for her, from which side it's beaten,
To be muffled from which profile of the soul?
There are times, there are times, when the heads are not needed.
But to reduce the word to the beets used for feed -
More honest with Orpheus' head - serenades!
Herodias with John the Baptist's head!
You're a tsar: live alone... (But tsars have concubines'
Minute). God is one. He - in empty skies.
Not a warrior of two camps: judge - prophet - hostage -
Freedom fighter of two! Spirit - for freedom fights.
Readers of Newspapers
The underground snake crawls,
Crawls, carries people.
And each - with his own
Newspaper (with his own
Eczema!) Newspaper
Bone eater, chewing tick.
Readers of newspapers,
Chewers of mastics.
Who's the reader? Old man? Athlete?
Soldier? Not features, not years,
Not faces. Skeleton - since no
Face: sheet of newspaper!
Which - entire Paris
From navel to forehead wears!
Enough, girl! You'll give birth to -
Reader of newspaper.
Rock - "lives with sister" -
ing - "his father he killed!" -
Rocking - of vanity
Pumped themselves full.
What do such men care
If it is dusk or dawn?
Swallowers of voids,
Newspaper-reading ones!
Read newspapers: slander,
Read newspapers: waste.
A column - calumny,
A paragraph - disgust...
With what on Terrible court
In the light you'll appear!
Seizers of minutes, you
Readers of newspapers!
He went! Vanished! Got lost!
Old is the mother's fear.
Mom! Guttenberg's press than
Schwartz's dust is scarier.
Better on churchyard
Than in hospital of pus
To cast scratchers of scabs,
Readers of newspapers!
Who is it that rots our sons
In their prime of years?
Mixers of blood, they are,
Writers of newspapers!
Here, friends, - and where
Stronger than in these lines!
What do I think, where
With writing in my palms
I stand before the face -
There is no emptier space!
That means - not with face
Of editor of news -
Paper filth.
Poems to Orphans
Baby walked along the road
Shivering and turning blue
An old woman walked that road
She took pity on the orphan...
1
Icy tiara of mountains -
Is a frame to sight transitory.
On the castle's granite today
I traced parting to ivy.
I have chased today on all roads
Towering figures of pines.
I have taken a tulip today
Like a child to the chin.
2
With surrounding of mountains I hug you,
With the granite crown of rocks.
(That you breathe easier and sleep tighter
I am busying you with talk.)
With the sides of a feudal castle,
With the ivy hands of down -
You know - in four hundred streams and rivers
Is the ivy, hugging the stone?
But I'm not woodbine - and not ivy!
Even you, dearer than my hand,
Are not flattened - and freely let out
Onto every side of my mind!
Round the flower-bed, round the well too,
Where to gray-haired ones stone will come,
With the round pledge of an orphan -
With the loneliness my round!
(Thus not one silver braid did weave
Into my light-brown braids!)
And with river, into two parting -
Island to create - and embrace.
With entire Savoy and Piedmont
And - cracking the ridge a bit -
I embrace you with blue horizon,
With two arms I embrace you yet.
3
(CAVE)
If I could - I would take you
Into the womb of a cave:
Into the cave of a dragon,
Into the panther's grove.
Into the panther's - paws -
If I could - I would take, so.
To bosom of nature, to bed of nature.
If I could - my own skin of panther
I'd take off... I would give in the grove - to study!
In bushy, in firry, in streamy, in ivy -
Where in darkness, in dusk, and in dreaming
Branches weave for eternal weddings!
Where in granite, in milk and in bast
For centuries intertwine arms -
Like branches - and rivers...
Into cave without light, without trace into thicket.
In leaves, in ivy, in ivy - like in coat...
Not white light, not black bread: in dew
In leaves, in leaves - like in relationship too...
That did not knock on the door,
That henceforth did not happen,
That did not shout in window,
That for century didn't end!
But not enough - cave,
And not enough - grove!
If I could - I would take you
Into the womb of a cave.
If I could -
I would take.
4
On the ice floe -
Loved one,
On the mine -
Loved one,
On the ice floe, in Guyana, in Gehennah - loved one.
In the scab - desired one,
From churchyard - desired one:
Be a desired guest! Only teeth and bone - desired one!
With the under-knees angst
Till ruined darkness
With the last seizure of smoke - pitied one.
And there's no such hole, and there's no such abyss:
Loved one! Wished one! Pitied one! Full of illness!
5
With rapid speech - with stream of water
Beating: - Loved one! Sick one! Dear!
With recitation - lingering blues:
Weak! Half-alive! Paper! See-through!
With lengthwise cut from stomach to pharynx:
Loved one! Wished one! Pitied one! Full of illness!
6
Finally I've encountered
One that I do need:
Somebody possesses
Deadly need of me.
What to eye is rainbow,
Ground to the grain,
To man - is being needed
By another man.
I need more than rainbow,
More than rain or hand,
Need of this my hand
By another man.
This - wider than Ladoga
Than mountain more true -
Is need of my hand
By another's wound.
And for that with ulcer
Palm had brought to me -
This my hand - immediately
In fire after thee!
<7>
In thoughts of another, otherwise,
Like a treasure chest not found,
Step by step, poppy by poppy -
Garden's I cut off the head.
Thus, sometime in a dry summer,
On the very edge of field,
Death my head will sever
With an absent-minded hand.
x x x
"It's time! I'm old for this fire!"
"Older than me is love-desire!"
"All fifty years has this hill!"
"Love's older than that hill still:
Old like a snake, old like a plant,
Older than ambers of Livan,
Older than all the ghostly boats,
Older than seas, older than stones...
But agony that's in the chest -
In years, love's less, in years, love's less.
x x x
"I dressed the table for the six"
I still convey the word and still
The first one verse I do repeat:
"I dressed the table for the six"...
But seventh one you did forget.
It is not merry for us six.
On faces are the streams of rain+
How could you over such a table
Forget the seventh - seventh one+
It is not merry for the guests,
Idle is pitcher of crystal,
Sad are they all, sad are you too,
But saddest is the one uncalled.
It is not merry and not light.
Ah! You don't drink and do not eat.
How could you have forgotten this?
How could you have erred in the count?
How could you, dared, not understand,
That six (two brothers, the third -
You, with wife, father and mother) there
Are seven - that I'm in this world?
You dressed the table for the six,
But with six the world did not die.
More than the scarecrow midst the live
I want to be a ghost - with (mine),
Yours... Shy just like a thief,
O - never touching but a soul! -
Behind the silverware unmade
I sit as seventh one, uncalled.
At once! I overthrew the glass!
An all that thirsted to be poured -
All salt from eyes, all blood from wounds -
From tablecloth - on the floorboards.
And - there's no coffin! No - parting!
Broken is spell, wakes up the home.
Like death - onto the wedding feast,
I'm - life, that to dinner have come.
And I still scold, for nobody -
Not brother, husband, son or friend:
"You, dressed the table for six souls,
Did not seat me upon the end."