* * *

Aren't we gone lazy again,
lying like this – like fish on a shallow dish,
pressed down by the red plate of the moon,
forgetting, fuming, obscuring.

Hours pass. Who knows –
perhaps our blood coagulates – who knows
if the stones in the river are alive.

Old men driving from the market
had a piglet in the cart,
the sack burst as they passed a crossing,
oh dear, oh dear, that piglet...

Who knows – it may be safe and sound,
who knows – it may have run into the woods
or it may have gone back
and grunts in the yellow market place.

And we – we lie silent,
we do not want to go gathering hops
or catching grasshoppers or that silly piglet,
aren't we gone lazy again?

"Don't, darling, don't,
I want to look out the window
at the star, the branch, the sky
and thus fall asleep – don't, darling."

Is the clock still ticking? who knows,
perhaps our blood coagulates, who knows
if the stones are alive in the river.

Translated by S.Roy


* * *

I am listening to you,
you midnight saxophone gone astray...
   Fog in Europe, in the cities and mountains.
   Water explodes. Foam and darkness.

   Everyone's returned home.
   Gone to sleep and switched off.
   One lonely ship
   haloos in the dark.
Are you afraid, are you sad,
you midnight saxophone gone astray...
   The ship's compass is broken
   and the bright star is fallen
   which has always showed the way,
   the ship's screws broke into pieces
   the white fire of heaven.

How can I quiet you,
you midnight saxophone gone astray...

   Lights are flaring in my home port,
   long cars and legs scurry about.
   In all the fuss and gaiety the port doesn't see
   that one creaking ship is
   missing.

midnight saxophone gone astray...
midnight saxophone gone astray...

One thing left in the old ship –
its old siren.

Translated by S.Roy


PARTING

1.

We fly very quiet and lonely
Straight apart at dizzy heights.
A deceitful city below
Kindles quietly tiny lights.

We knew it was just a game,
We knew from the very start.
Why not, without guilt and blame,
Touch wings and fly apart?

2.

Do not come back to this city,
This anthill possessed by the devil,
This bottomless pit without pity
Where I climbed and crashed so heavy.

Take care that the gorges don't wound you.
Let them gently rock you to sleep.
Do not look for the streets where I wooed you –
My face is spilt in the sleet.

Don't breathe that ghastly grey air
That left me dazed and bemused.
Those splinters of me – I don't care
Whom they wound, if it isn't you.

Translated by S.Roy


A DRAWING LESSON

Today we'll draw lightning,
lightning over trees,
towers of big cities,
or hives with tiny bees.

What colour shall we point them?
Yellow or blue-green,
or simply leave them white
like a Negro's grin.

What'll the zigzags look like?
Anything you please –
waving arms, roots, nerves,
or better, branches of trees.

Work on it, children,
and then we shall all
see blazing spring lightning
neatly nailed to the wall.

Have you ever seen
anything so disquieting,
so innocent and sad
as drawings of lightning?

Translated by S.Roy

Born in Mažeikiai, from 1960 to 1964 Algimantas Mikuta studied mechanics at Kaunas University and from 1965 to 1971 history and philology at Vilnius University. Since 1972 he has been a literary consultant at the Kaunas branch of the official Union of Lithuanian Writers. His verse was first published in 1959. Mikuta's poetry follows the tradition of "concrete" lyricism. His collections Land of Birds (1968), Sharp Facets (1970), A Drawing Lesson (1973), and Pendulum (1978), deal with the danger of nuclear annihilation and are marked by fine expression of deep feeling, unexpected juxtapositions and grotesque symbols. He has written a long poem, Fish in Deep Waters (1966), imbuded with tragic irony.