(born 1960)
ALIEN HOME
in the shapes of night I see
your gaze, obscure as a waning moon,
from the sunset, from the rising continent
your beauty summoned: a shynix's hour,
and word's hang over the ravine,
soft dampness, death keeps getting tangled
in the uncombed hair, an answer
keeps coming in a mad lava like snow,
between the seductive shores
a ship with lowered sails is saved,
white fins of a swordfish,
shadows of fir trees, an alien home so near,
while I live in you, between your shut eyelashes,
an inspired blind man, a dreamer,
I have no home, only brackets of love
in the desperate silence of dictionaries
Translated by H. L. Hix
* * *
when your warmth
spreads
over holms and rocks
of the riverbed, I rise,
keeping in my palm
the instant of death,
ruddy leaf
rocking
at the top of memory,
and the icy gust
shows me
the way to you:
in the distance where I find
neither the reflection nor the voice
a darkness exhales you
Translated by H. L. Hix
* * *
dawn breaks: across your forehead
is stretched the river of midnight,
what timeless one
will bend over us, what spacing
wind will burst
the glow,
sickle of eyebrows wanes:
here is a vision,
and there
only a view of the day
Translated by H. L. Hix
* * *
who arose in our bodies,
with birds on wires the light
lingers, one station,
but no one meets trains,
times parallel, lines of a poem,
every kilometer is only
a chord of night,
when fingers
run through frozen forests
where we sleep, dreaming ourselves
Translated by H. L. Hix
DREAM PROSERPINE
here the dam of the dream
here the raised arms
here fingers touch
secret
doors of consciousness
the drowsy city
like an old ship
thrown into emptiness
from the crest of a wave
you come nearer
but the tide
is only autumn in reverse
leaves
float up
from yards
and I admire you
faded dream proserpine
Translated by H. L. Hix
Ą VOTRE SANTÉ
to those who under collapsing cultures
learn not to be, between a rock
and a rock, mary and magdalene,
between tao and dada
but all that ends in me,
when the eye shrinks into the virgin lead,
without alloy of time
ą votre santé, to vanished continents,
to gratuitous creations
of the imagination in empty halls
during the apotheosis of the feast, during the very
lifting of hearts
Translated by H. L. Hix
CRYSTALLOGRAPHY
I
sight strikes the mote,
language climbs down the cornice,
vowels of fog
and sharp consonants,
clear hours partitioning the night,
everyone – like an ice floe flushed out
by voices, but silver nets
catch them too,
the cloth is quartered
and numb fingers grope
for a loose thread,
farther and farther,
where only destination is left
but not death, where the cloth
of stars is too bright,
for an open wound,
the square piazza taps
out steps all night,
ever clearer the winter,
ever higher the white chiton of noah
II
shadows shattered
into sharp flashes catch in cloth,
only the blade of frost
strips the aura: the target of the sky
the trajectory of language
stretches over the longest nights –
myth
of ourselves falling to earth
III
by lips of frost
I create your image:
in the hollow of vowels
air trembles,
limitless
blue January,
starless moonlight night
but feeling in the light
like burnished copper,
along the outline of the body
the clock's hand
stencils
the monogram of being
Translated by H. L. Hix
CRUSADE
With a gust of the autumn feast
the moon hangs over empty clearings
white as if washed all november
in gutters of rain
the god of war is pale
lovers point to the one who will sacrifice
their child for the crusade
to the graveyards of palestine
the child still in the womb listening
to the father's radiating despair and whisper:
what white what white
no wind and birds not scattering
over heads reflecting on love
descend slowly into the field of silence
hidden carefully from an alien plow
the ancient capital of the kingdom: what white
but feet tingle on hard-frozen earth
and like a flame stretched between palms
a Saracen soldier leaps in the moonlight
Translated by H. L. Hix
DIALOGUE IN A CELLAR
the river's mouth swells and floods cellars,
gravel, herbs smelling of iodine –
the bed of the sleeping traveller
wrapped in his sunny dream,
who cares about him, who cares about an amphora
recovered from the holds of a foundered ship
near dardanelles strait,
a closed form in itself, not taking root
in the squares of rooms and the frames
of pictures? there are many aesthetics,
says the professor, and the strangest one
is under care of powers
that abhor us,
I accept your challenge, replies the poet,
I am not handsome, my voice
is monotonous and colourless,
I am no troubadour
with a codpiece, a sword at my side,
but nevertheless I am loved,
other times, the traveller says, taking leave,
we descend deep into underground vaults,
we write on damp walls words
we don't want to see
let's drink again and godspeed
Translated by H. L. Hix
FROM THE CASE OF BONES
for six hundred years the bones ached in the middle ages they were stretched
according to the Gothic canons of beauty during the Renaissance soldiers
whipped them on pillars with lashes of ox-leather in the era of Classicism
the architects put into practice the rule of the golden section for some reason
called the bed of Procrustes in Soviet times during the First World War dogs
dragged them from one line of the front to another during the Second World
War soap was rendered from them in postwar times each small bone was stripped
there where it was even diffrcult to piss in the cold as well as here at Cathedral
Square buzzing with flies in the century's last decade one could see mechanisms
crushing bones but more often arthritis and radiculitis bent them but as pseudo-
eugenijus writes in the year two-thousand bones will disappear and the earth
will ascend into the new eon of a new boneless god
Translated by Kerry Shawn Keys
THE RATS
threadbare sky thrusting a finger through it the light cracks
even bones there are rarefied barely holding history
barely an upright carriage the rain through july
through all ages the same karma to watch the sky
with a rat's eyes this generation of grey corpuscles
stale air in the city's archives while they would gnaw out
the tunnel to the next life rats' eyes overgrown the women
dried up no game one-way traffic to the end
of winter until the snow on crosses on hinges
on the grey corpuscle non-euclidic time the kitchens
the lamp of soviet times the non-cartesian mind a few
crumbs left dumb it used to jump with its grey tail
over the forests of the belmont hills of rokantiskes cemetery
not touching the dead as much as i remember nothing
as much as i forget it was under the kitchen under the applewine
under ashes of prima rats and only rats gnawing the dictionary only that
Translated by Kerry Shawn Keys
ESSAY ON LITHUANIAN LITERATURE
less and less am I able to answer the question why I write
sometimes it seems: in order to write
sometimes I see the light
less and less the interest in poetry (not to mention prose)
sometimes it seems: I read in order to forget
sometimes it seems: I am behind this involuntary play of words
more and more I force myself to be with lithuanian poets
sometimes the poets are hearty and tortuous like in russian poetry
sometimes drunken and aggressive like in rap
sometimes barely there like me
more modestly I think about lithuanian poetry
sometimes I remember only a few names: vytautas alfonsas sigitas
sometimes I say: poetry can teach art not life
sometimes I ask: does life care for poetry like celan
sometimes I am silent: this ignorance will bring trouble upon me
Translated by Kerry Shawn Keys
FROM THE HISTORY OF THE TRAIN
1.
in the words of josé saramango the portuguese have experience conquering new lands
We have conquered the world before we even get out of
bed, but when we awake that world is unknowable. We rise
and it is gone.
Fernando Pessoa
good morning fernando this morning seems like all the rest
beneath billowing curtains lie naked hotel room walls
pipes gurgle with mountain water brought
down by aqueducts
we are both silent about the same thing
the beginning of our age and the end of mine
on the edge of europe boco do inferno where
the railroad line ends and the poem's line breaks
there is not much of me here
only the critical mass of tourist brochures
enough to burst one poem into existence
i can drink spring wine from a barrel smoke as long
as fate allows je ne suis personne
and that makes me glad i take photographs
retouching the negatives of the city in my memory
the descendant of barbarians with his long hair
blowing in the wind is ready to conquer europe
i follow wafts of smoke with my eyes
as though they marked my way
2.
in the middle of the afternoon i sat with my friend don quixote in a café and sampled sherry
the capitals of empires all smell of spices: bay leaves, black pepper, bergamot
in the middle of the square crystal water pours forth from the lions' jaws
in the architecture one can decipher
the palimpsest of proud loneliness and ennui
the heat of the siesta and the sherry awaken my imagination:
i see the first signs of desire in a girl's face
i already know how it will all end
i will metamorphose into a bull and
i will carry her away to the curonian lagoon
the daughter of toreadors and the mother of my poems
she will bear nation upon nation and my blood will flow
in the veins of the vysla and the nemunas
a lot will happen in my lifetime –
there will be wars and there will be famine
i will betray others and will be betrayed
i will stroll through cities in undarned socks
i will visit my sons-in-law all over europe
mayors heads of state street girls
a lot will happen but i know it will end well
as all journeys do in the land of morpheus
- - -
The curonian lagoon is located in the coastal region of Lithuania
3.
marché de la poésie
i'd sell my poem with all its spare parts
slightly worn in europe's oldest language
the poet's jacket is from a second-hand shop
his pockets are filled with bits of tobacco
i'd sell it cheap even for a bottle of red
from the bordeaux region then i could hook my legs
over the edge of the seine and together with the fishermen
stare into the rippling water –
water is water all over europe
somewhat murky you can't see your reflection on the bottom
just wrinkled wavelets when a steamboat
bubbling with the joy of life motors past
i don't know what price i'd ask
maybe i should add some of my own money to the deal
the same way i would give it to a woman from san demi
for the lushness of their imaginations
in the market square i barter for every word
pigeons brazenly dive between the stands
carrying off palm leaves
one of mine
i do everything so that
i will not have to write
i feed the pigeons i
ride the train
everyday i do better
i'd sell my last poem with all its spare parts
and head back for the woods
4.
seeing is believing
i really should write a letter or at the very least a postcard
with an image of one of europe's most beautiful squares:
a horde of drunk soccer fans trample a mosaic of flowers through the night
in the morning shards of glass and
bloody traces break off by
dionysus's favorite pub
and i would like to be like that
break the body of christ
accept the communion of insanity dance and shout
it doesn't work therefore i photograph architectural details
stained-glass windows columns
a small bronze boy peeing thinking
someday this might be useful
someday i'll arrange europe's solitaire
so that not even one card will be left
otherwise it is quiet here in the very center of the cyclone
the belgians are calm as belgians
the museums are open until late at night i should visit one
i should buy a souvenir – something –
i can't stand it anymore i spit and i say
to myself forget all this nonsense
eugenijus, as it is you have nowhere to put
all your histories – dreams – souvenirs get up and go
you european untouchable from one city to the next
go and see how death with an ever prettier face
nurses the joy of life
someday it might be useful
5.
it is well known that as mass transit grows more efficient there are more incidents of death
that's just what you deserved eugenijus – an anonym –
i think as i die the night of the feast of saint john
somewhere on the other side of the cordon
in the sheraton cemetery in a six star coffin
i am awakened by the steam whistle of the engine
the vertebrae of cabins are wracked by an uncontrollable stretch
followed by a gentle memory massage
i start to think with my body
turning over onto the other side of my life
a gray hair a wrinkled cheek
a spontaneous erection i think why
don't they like rhyme in europe
my grandmother having finished only three grades wrote letters to america
why am i writing letters to lithuania
i toss and turn beneath an anonymous blanket
with all the anonymous women of europe
i think that's what you deserve
now you'll know where the sound of wheels on tracks comes from
the squeaking of crosstie sparks and the gnashing of teeth –
a six star poet
6.
braingame
Before the future was better
Karl Valentin (from a display at the Hanover Fair 2000)
it is getting harder and harder to win i've got to relax
sit like li-bo with my legs bent under me
not think anything not kill anything not love anything
victory comes naturally the ball rolls slowly
into the gates of heaven i open my eyes gradually my future
is here already botticelli i am jealous your venera
won the miss greece contest and became monroe's great grandmother
i'm jealous of you too immanuel kant
the formulas of your pure mind are as perfect
as madonna's breasts i am jealous of you as well einstein
winning happiness as you lose loving in hatred
and you adorno having earned yourself a future after the holocaust
and you father for having slept soundly in your youth
with your hair frozen in the blizzards of kola
my future is here already in the poem's hologram
in the evening june landscape
my body moves rhythmically as though making love
as though riding the train slowing down then speeding up
do not think anything victory is near
7.
it's no secret that i have good friends in latvia sometimes i write
them letters but i always forget to mail them like this time
Latvia's time
whichever one it was
and however long it took
and aren't you tired of it
Uldis Berzinis
i am writing to you to you peter man of the forest
just as i pass the edge of riga
we rattled by for quite a while and the junctions
hammered with small hammers through the fontanelle
we stopped precisely on latvian time
from the black balsam to the other side
with my head twisted around i tumbled down vecriga's cobblestone
no more boulders no more
the latvians wore down their own time the cobblestone is transparent
on the other side you can see how the schnaps brook bubbles
we'll get together there in a thousand years
oh how we'll sit and not get enough of beer chasers
i saw everyone – uldis and knut and leon
only i didn't see you but for all that i saw your church
was still standing and the rooster with the red comb
was bristling its feathers against the wind from the dauguva
i've been knocking around all of europe just
so that i could visit you
i wanted to introduce you to my friends
to ales jacek tomek
bums like you
only they don't speak lithuanian
so much for that another time
maybe we'll sit down some evening beside the schnaps river
in latvian time or european time
and then i would think we'd be on the same time
8.
hell hunt
i love you jesus christ
a little old russian lady says to me
in the nave of the alexander nevski church
and extends her hand to me clearly she has mistaken me for someone else
i love you too and i bless you only
i don't have too much of that sort of power
in my pocket i don't have estonian kronas
what would you do with pesetas
zloty or Tits i've been traveling for a long time
i've grown a beard and long hair they greet me
in the train stations with bouquets and marching bands
miracles from twentieth century life
i should say something only i don't have anything to say
therefore i usually bumble poems under my breath
with my hand extended
most of the time i mistake someone for someone else
- - -
Hell Hunt – a cafe in Tallinn
9.
window to europe
zavtra na rabotu ... ech, nie perezyvaete, jeshchio mozno nakalbasit'sia, poveselit'sia*
from a Sunday Saint Petersburg radio show
and so here the wide expanses of land begin
even death does not meet death in the mountains
how did it ever all fit into mandelstam's rhymes or maybe it didn't
a few uncensored words peek out
indo-european noun-endings
a melodic accent behind reszoty prison camp bars
time stopped but the watch continues ticking
the precise geometry of the city
is foreign to you my friend sergei
cannot get used to the squares of loneliness
and i am late for every conceivable train
i cannot find my way out of the hotel's labyrinth
i turn and turn in circles again like when i was a child
i count to ten and open my eyes
the wind from the neva whistles in my ears
your city grows naked peel after peel
the roofs are torn apart and that's why one needs more poetry
and love even the kind that is measured by the hour
by the most beautiful girls of the neva
the white nights make vision perfect one can see
spiky breasts the cupolas' crosses ice carts
it's a sunday night sergei we still have time
- - -
* Tomorrow it's back to work ... well, don't worry, we still have time to pig out and party
10.
europe's ghost
the writer is an unfulfilled tyrant
Viktor Krivulin
the climate changes my appearance changes
the wind rushing through the train window
scrambles the cards tousles my hair tangles my beard
at the station i look like rasputin
i undress some of the women with my eyes the others i see through
i couldn't care less about my european roots
the spongy air is filled with anger and passion
i'd give up all of northern europe
for one wild night in the rosiya hotel
or in a dive in the suburbs with the best russian poets
passers-by give me strange looks
maybe it is the wrong era maybe no one writes in blood anymore
maybe they just buy and sell in the evenings they watch television
hung-over they don't drink their water from tin cups
maybe it is the wrong me maybe my brain
could not keep up with the speeding train
maybe the body itself began to reason
you've lived all these years eugenijus
and look you've lost your brain
it's roaming around europe now like a wraith
11.
i got lost in the city and asked everyone i met the way
i asked the man by the seven fridays café
if the bottom was here
it is here he said and there is a bottom with many bottoms
go straight and watch what's under your feet
when you cross the underground crosswalk don't glance at the sun
your bottom travels with you
i asked a woman with a wool scarf
if the walls were here
they are here and there is a wall beyond the wall
do you see these quiet people
really you could hear their voices
if you were to press your ear to the tracks
or if you were to listen to the woodstove crackling
your walls travel with you i asked a child on a bicycle with a scraped knee
is the beginning and the end here
no it is not he said everything that begins
here never ends
whatever has an end is not yet begun
answers are questions
there shouldn't be too many questions
therefore one should not try to find everything out at once
12.
during my travels i collect maps, but when i return home i no
longer know what to do with them
Po spaleniu wszstkich map pozostaje legenda*
Robert Morawski
this is all i found when i woke up in the morning
a package of hotel soap and the broken teeth of a comb
and a line that had wandered away from tomasz's poem and into my head
probably something that we don't know about happened
probably it happened but who could now say
- - -
* After you've burned all your maps the legend remains
Translated by Laima Sruoginis
* * *
day settles into rock, hot
sleeping ocean, light
into which voices sink,
the gold of fish flickers in your
eye, really the shortest dream
of your life, the time
for a face to find shadow, for
shadow to turn into thought, under the skin,
under the breastbone, ever deeper in,
time comes to a stop
Translated by Vyt Bakaitis
THE ONE WHO LAUGHED AT THE DEAD
the one who laughed at the dead
was among us,
we could touch hands, sink into
a thicket of books, one at a time, stealthily,
as in a slow-motion sequence, snatched clear
from night's accoutrements,
someone's lips were humming goodbye,
the eyes had a greenbacked summer skyline
ripening, someone's hands distributed
the days, though not many wanted them,
the one who laughed at the dead
was the one among us
we couldn't recognize, insist on
the highest judgment for, not on death, nor
to having secretly renounced, we held to
the faith but lived on the interest, waiting for
drops to fall and wash our errant ways, so that
the dream we dreamed while our eyes were open
would not be coming back,
the one who laughed at the dead
was our day and age,
brimming with amphora which
we drank down till we were dazzled,
till we were crazed, till we just had to retch,
we never saw down to the bottom, never saw the eyes
of the one who was laughing
Translated by Vyt Bakaitis
GO WITH GOD
you go down a swaying staircase
to say goodbye to the sea,
goodbye, say the salty lips of evening
and amber dissolves on tongues of foam,
yes, and oblivion occurs precisely then,
when the wine runs out, salt arrives at the roots,
and the sand in waves
starts to bleach the rocks, right at noon,
when hourglasses are turned over, it happens then
and yet the one who has gone through all this,
the way a boy on approaching manhood will go through
death’s realm, is sure to know that it fails to coincide
with the soul, and there is a mirage to confirm this
Translated by Vyt Bakaitis
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Born to parents exiled to Siberia as children during the Stalinist purges, Eugenijus Ališanka was born in Barnaula, Siberia. During the Khrushchev era his family was "rehabilitated" (pardoned) and allowed to return to Lithuania in 1962. Ališanka, however, claims that personal history has not made any bearing on his creative work, and shies away from autobiographical poetry, allowing himself instead to delve into the world of the abstract, where rationality rules. One of the leading young intellectuals in Lithuania today, Ališanka is noted for his two collections of translated essays and articles on post-modernism, most of which he translated himself. He is the author of two collections of poetry, and 1995's winner of a grant from the United States government to study for a semester at the International Iowa Writer's Workshop. While in Iowa Ališanka met H. L. Hix, who has translated his second collection of poetry into English. |
