|
FROM THE SAHARA TO AMERICA Who wants to think of us as five? Five keen-nosed grey-maned black- armed students clearly visible each hung by the ears they hear a great bristling by mistake we are whispering. While we strode along the skyscrapers we flew lightly from first to last if you believe you won't mind about the silver chuck it & we the altar all went deeper beyond the machines curls scatter I beat with a little axe the distant waves precious chalices thrown in shaving mugs and who know them ... really? heads of five or six hunched beggar dogs in the corners of the caves the simple ones can't keep down what they're drinking the quiet evening twi- light looks coldly into the darkness. We're not here we are thrown away, and can see the edge of the world over the cliff, we go to church to gossip When the curs leave their claws stay thin wool shivering on the floor Neither fish nor mountain can crack these signs The dogs snarl at the trees, birds drop into their mouths The dogs act ferocious around the trees clouds fly to the side the dogs gape at us in silence they don't condemn us are not condemned but bullets hail like fog they sting then fall off but we expect you to clothe the bullets to blow them up to do it for the belly Bliny won't fit lively ones No one knows how deceived he would be by identical handwriting & I spit into the disgusting vessel and she got up and blushed while I stood before her my head drooping like a damp mushroom and to my ear her veils seemed to boldly draw something in the air and the herring hung on my shoulders, while in the middle of her brow a young old woman spoke & when the five of us sit on a rock and stare at the planets visible between the former leaves the abyss appears we seem to be falling there without our clothes our keen ears can sense |
||
|
that the planet is creaking along the cast iron that the blackworm is eating away the days that we perceive the nonsense of their friction & consider their ordering we close our eyes & awaken when dust flies out of holes into the cave a cere- monious queen came to visit the burned-out maidens a tub of lard on her shoulders hands crossed a decorous heron the red-extended fish are calling the glorious hawks The queen's motion was changing another was already beginning but was dropped both erect & ashes covered the road like grey dust & the cremated bones rustle signs the dogs pick up pearls of her eyes preserve her arms conceal the stone. The black stone outline of the queen against which many winds crash. We stand aside Bitterness of our oats The horse-eyes of the queen of the virgin don't love us but how many burned a sacrifice if we stand not near her but close to home twisted, inconspicuously shriveling as if broken the horns begin to whistle the logs to sparkle we've got to kill we burst out laughing the knife fell cut our legs only the cuts aren't sneezing an innocent E E Zey The cups move bones grow together strengthen? the body like a fence ribs sticking up like a nail grass on the pier we quieted down it leaned sucks the juice of bone we are all parched lots of stones dug up the forest trees too hard to point out the borders ends when we are small the bigger it seems smaller sicker topaz can't be burned the tormented fish appears cries save Rome again it'll drown the names on the bark rubbed off we sprout like grass on a pier all her wealth is ours we didn't get richer & her pearl will not warm the thinning bodies and hands will not whiten |
||
|
the curs won't find us even though they trace the grass on their paunches they wriggle the bones took shape more bitter than a bath the curs aren't laughing they whirl on their legs petrified tree trunks when I ran to climb the sheer isle of bilberry it accepted me the cuts don't hear us aren't whining again they stretch out their necks plaintively then throwing that aside they'll sniff along the ground bite with their heads that school of fish begins to drizzle hard to tell topaz from diamond snake brains are medicinal our heads rotted when we were old a stout frame shrunk in fluff mammoth bone under borax and bast if it will not heal and we pressed our lips to the bone palm to the bone and eyes we stiffened the forest was made out of knives the handkerchiefs were hung and our curs lost their noses to the wind grating covered everything the people took off their beards dressed in moustaches that jut out like a shaft a tired fellow lay under the slobbering beard of a cur thunder in the distance a horde of joyous huntresses I came all this way to my own dog the houses have sharp stakes so it is asking for a fight in the kennel fleas keep biting a cloud of dust I'm happy with little everything in oblivion though I hear the motion of the Armaments ... of heavy wheels ... I clasped its muzzle- you're a demon not a dog.. |
||
|
warmth along with a black one I chew the skin needs salt to soften your neck I remember how I was beaten for my friendship with you but the waves rushed back above us a steep house beetles tick like a sentry I shuddered like before sensing the quakes my legs reached the planks the song vibrates behind it there's a lot of idle yearning but I don't find it crowded at all all our dishes an empty cup doesn't press with weight a scrap of blue paper and a friend one rolled up into a circle hard to breathe a problem just to turn over there's a neck next to me my teeth are tireless the skin is strong the dog scratches with his teeth crushes a bug on a plank ... there's a fork suspended in the corner I need to gnaw around you when there's a bald spot we go below what dreams I had I will recover soon then I'll start to race rabbits no beard for a pacifier and I shall be renewed by salt and cured in tar but I'll taste the dreams blown with the dust. Translation from the Russian by Bruce McClelland |