A politic in that land lived to see
A politic in that land lived to see,
The reward he’d earned in that
Country, with whom he’d warred
And which he’d defeated.
Fatherland, incarnating into the majority,
Into a reckoning, cunning class,
A visionary banished the one,
Who’d led him in a frightening hour.
The regent, attains esteem
On continents of tsars,
He sighs senility: - All effuses,
All is vanity, Panta Rhe.
In Europe twilight. On the shore of
Amicable indigenous waters
He watches from the side of the enemy,
Drinking in luxurious sunset.
But an hour earlier he’d ascended on board
And ere long over him flies
One who was also an ardent patriot
And an ardent cosmopolite.
(Here is the point, where we shed a tear
On the barbaric line:
A one-hundred-oared sailing vessel is there, below,
And a Boeing here, above.)
No leader, no martyr, no hero,
Finno-Ugrian, anchorite,
- In sublunary, - this second sighs -
There are no major changes.
Capricious Mediterranean fate,
Cloying companion,
Has paved our roads in such a way,
That Mobias – is disgraced…
He sees with gathered height,
Pressing his forehead against the glass,
The maple copper of The Cyclades,
Earthenware strata in blue.
February 7, 1988
You can’t write to people of
You can’t write to people of:
the clandestine state – people are earthbound,
encountering letters, but behind them – no sound,
seeing a petition
or information –
nothing is superfluous!
The opaque state –
people winding serpentine,
in the recesses of the mind there is no space to fit, or to conceive that
nothing is superfluous! –
it won’t stick.
At a glance Basilisk licks it up,
the charisma of the state.
Poets are understood posthumously,
as they commemorate:
“we are grateful to you, Progeny.
Greetings!”
But no one dare to love the living.
“Rabble,” “masses”
outdated and antidemocratic.
Oh, what’s the use of these classics! –
they were just too cantankerous –
all for nothing!
no contempt! not damned! –
of this to people you can’t
write.
The state hypnotizes,
the state is supreme – like a serpent above the chicks.
What can you write to them,
they won’t be torn away,
the state is sweet –
people cling to it.
I won’t hang myself – I write,
into the air, without an address, nameless –
Perhaps, tomorrow? –
I await, but do not seek...
Are you dashing out there somewhere, genius darlings?...
The Living Dead
The bells resound,
The bells clamor,
Clouds enshroud
the bells,
Copper flowed, to a flame
wrought, a canon -
A poem
ablaze from the ringing of the bells.
A symphony! Sophocles!
As an epos, an imperious concord!
The bells resound,
Window glass quivers.
The masses below – along the streets,
Along the gastronomes – the rituals,
Along the puddles, go about their edible affairs…
The bells look on,
The bells clamor,
Together in flight on a wire
the bells.
Once the masses flocked to them,
Once they were rung in reverence …
The bells fly,
The bells howl,
the bells,
Complain to the stars
And weep with the rains as they fall,
waning fury lolls,
And the first to go quiet are the yes-men.
The bells bellow,
The bells are silent…
One – hoary, blind –
still boomed,
There is still Homer!...
And was there anybody –
unfurling their umbrella at the door,
Who purred to themselves:
“Vesper bells…”
Leningrad, 1963
Temptation
The city is reaching for the straits
with shadows, as wire –
an assassination attempt.
From the lowlands to the hills – as if Eve is
reaching for the tree …
A net is cast to snare –
the commuter trains sense and feel it:
-- I want to go beyond The Lakes,
beyond The Lakes…
Like a largo wish,
the power of the unattainable!...
Sparkling in delirium the heather…
the boulder-mirages…
The night looks on. Souls take flight,
like a hand along nylon – rising ever higher…
All homeless aloft the pines –
beneath the branches nothing will quiver but the lake,
white breasts through lace…
Nonliving quiet.
The city reaching, the city filling with mist,
o, powerless grandeur! – no seduction and no infusion.
O, languish of that not found!...
It is as it should be -
to forever dream of the fringes,
resting one’s homes on mist.
Leningrad, 1967