(born 1930)
TWO GREETINGS
I
in those sad and bright moments, when you or someone else
stand by the window, where the distant horizons, green,
look into your unconcealable soul, – looking back at ourselves
we see
geese and meadows, horses, wagons by the cottage and
the wind mill
with raised arms. Oh, winds people
hear them in sea shells, whispering among themselves
and then you put the letter aside and lower your eyes:
while robbing the parsonage
two youths raped my young sister caught there unexpectedly
oh, birds
in diaries, returning
for holidays, trains full of students, toward
Lyda
(that linen border
cut about 90 cm, did not fit transferred
into a new representation, hanging
on the wall between
two doors) Wilia, Wilejka, Zeimiana, Mereczanka
stretched out, among the grasses, in the currents, among green
swaying
forests, their echo, aldergroves, hopclusters
where the canoe "kanadyjka", among the "wloczeg's"
at night MKC in the heavens, reflections of constellations,
of fire, blades of "Scrubbrush"
in the brook the reversed monogram: CKM: the change
of plans stretched in the depths, the play of light and shadow
where
in the second plan (right before the world's end)
the standing servant, bare-headed, the sixth, unlike
those other five (hatted), independent
of portraiturists, and not having to pay the Master
o! on the road from Kėdainiai
with two lowland horses, mother's dowry, by wagon
across the demarcation line (of only not an officer! if only
common soldiers, to let us across with a small "gift")
to Vilnius. And after___ years
from Kėdainiai
in a post-war freight train
a small blackened dogbeetle, I
crawled in the waste land, in what was once a ghetto, in ruins
to fit in (alone: not sent, placed, seen off
by father or mother) I dug deep into
a dung heap
o! how many beautiful shiny dung beetles
labored there
in a falsified pantomime
"wielbicieli wlasnych ekskrementow"
(one
even flew through Stalin's window
one night as he was working
and – because of the smoke of his pipe
excrementalized on paper: pan Twardowski!) oh
engineers of horsepear orchard
souls! service of steel skeleton
liniment
superciliating and
self-animalizing
they worked at what they did not know, affirmed what
they did not believe
a band of beetles: and a whitish one
(in that way alone like the white
steed, the
whitish eagle)
the circumcizers' portraits bled
but not the conscience: Monomachas' heavy hat
o! to nuzzle through
strange dung
peace to him!
whitebeetle
from under the whitesteed
from Bubeliai parish, where
the vytis is worshipped
(in the dark and neglected land, that's why it was connected
to Poland)
and so in Bubeliai, where
all beetles, even the maybug
are in white surplices
(the composition's cut off part
the architectonic portrayal, the half burned in a fire)
so the whitish one encased in a glass tube
and heated on a fire of spirits
hissed, from the opposite end, persuaded to confess to
zionistic cosmopolitan nationalistic eructations
in exhortations, articulation's papers, collections of whitebeetles
(the linen plowed contours breaking, already on the other
side, in the portrait's
restoration: everything is otherwise: there fed the brook's
blackened
Jay (in Bereza Kartuska), and the Carp
suffocating in its own aquarium, and the byelorussian
Skurka, out of which the Lord framed
a soviet Tank) poor beetle!
in an animalistic world. Was silent
"donosicielski lud przeklety": its white-
bodiedness, its frightened
nature, was as understandable
as repainting oneself
II
God God! I shouted, how many
insects in the world, don't step on
the one crawling in the dung, Lord God,
as You walk in the Vilnius countryside, where long ago
poets were
trushes, canaries, nightingales, falcons
pigs, and where
God's Son died and was buried
in a hat
in a gendarme's cap
but that group of circumcizers, whose semblances in the
name of the world's
flood grabbed the rein
paid much
for the long knocking
for the blood from the nose, phlegm, paid much
for the Type book of sacrifices
(half of Vilnius died)
and so in that stench
in sewers ruined by war
an insect chorus clamored, and I
sucked my tooth
infected, black
sucked, and the whitish one in the cellar of glass
watched in amazement
later, already old, back in human form, at the story's end
the white white
Bubeliai prince, who had been changed into a bug through lack
of faith, sadly champed in the heart's red
ventricles
the insect's coat of arms, white, on the pillow, beneath
Lithuania's head, alongside the sidewalk
O THE YEARS PASS
o the years pass
the years pass
sunner runs barefoot through the snow
I walk in the years' footprints
lagging behind
myself
birds' nests
are all empty
bees are asleep
in their hives
I alone dream
of a hundred year long summer
rocking
breath a blooming linden
Translated by Jonas Zdanys
HORSES WADE IN THE NEMUNAS
horses wade in the Nemunas
they drink flowing fog
they drink the morning
floating on the Nemunas
stones from ruins
rest on the bottom
rolling for ages
from the high banks
fires sleep on the bottom
old swords rust
pressed in the shallows
moans of the drowned are quiet
horses wade in the Nemunas
they drink flowing fog
they drink the morning
floating on the Nemunas
Translated by Jonas Zdanys
WHY SOLDIERS DIE
some die painfully like the setting sun
others burn
like falling stars
or tracer bullets
some die
with the names of towns
on their lips
raising freedom's flag
others die like dogs
on foreign soil
rotting in bombcrater graves
some die
so others may live
others die killing
soldiers
soldiers
soldiers
my heart marches
with some guns to battle
my lips blow out the fire of others
my tears wet the ground
where so many soldiers lie
the ground that echoes
the guns' hoarse salute
the soldiers march to die
with tears in their cartridge belts
with tears in their cartridge belts
they march to conquer death
Translated by Jonas Zdanys
* * *
droplets from leaves
fall on my hands
a blue twilight
flows from your eyes
I can never recall
what the sea said to us
when we looked
into her locked eyes
linger with me until sunrise
and listen
to the forgotten words of the sea –
do you hear how they fall
like droplets from leaves
on your silent eyelashes?
Translated by Frank Yakstis
* * *
the railroad crossing barrier is up
cranes are flying past
after the rain in the forest
a withered firtree creaks
an old man stands at the window
listening to the clock
looking as the barrier
points to the sky
the grandchildren are already past the granary
making for the railroad
at the end of the railroad –
Oh – two high school girls
one likes poetry
the other apples
both look you straight in the eye
one can save nothing
the clock is ticking
after the rain in the forest
there will remain one withered firtree.
Translated by Frank Yakstis
THEN WILL I GO BAREFOOT THROUGH THE CITY
I can no longer remember the first time
I knew the earth.
Perhaps, it was a sunny midsummer morning,
and the earth sighed hard,
green forest-tresses drenched by a
stormy night-rain,
gazing up at a shining sky through overrun rivers.
That morning horses' hooves
raised no dust,
that morning grass regained its clear green color
and naked boys with proud heads dove into
brimming peat-pits
That morning mushrooms sprouted
and honeybees started their labors,
that morning farmhands from the manor
harmonized a ringing haying-song
and only the aged oak swooned from the pain of its
storm-split top.
Perhaps that was the morning I first knew the earth.
I remember, mother earth,
when I played
building in the sand
cities, yet unseen,
when in your wet clay
I left my childish footprints.
The years raced by,
circling another ring on treetrunks;
the years raced by,
spewing up even heavier boulders;
the years raced by,
striking old clocks,
hoot-tooting the hours
for the wildwood cuckoo.
My father sat in front of the window
of the one and only pharmacy,
dully staring at the slumbering village,
in which there was no doctor,
and there was no need for one,
for people either healed themselves
or died...
And then the sands of Lepiškalnis
gave them ease and rest.
In the distance trains keened,
carting away the nostalgia of unknown cities,
and engine-smoke teetered high above
herdsboys' bonfires.
Blessing the much-gutted fields,
villagers go to town,
and their heavy feet
sink into the soil,
knowing the tug of the earth,
and their hearts...
the yearning of the earth.
The countryroad rattled my back,
but the small autobus
clung to its nape.
Sadly I stared through the windows:
farewell, autumn earth!
I will never be a citified poet.
Cities are alien to me.
But such as we have inherited
from the other side of the frontline:
the crown of capitalism
sparkles
in goldplated churchspires.
Ane here, too – prisons,
smokeblackened railroad stations,
factory smokestacks,
prop up the drooping heavens.
I never solved
the trigonometry of crossroads,
I lost my way
in crowded marketplaces.
And soot tainted my face,
and my eyes did not mirror
the blue-flaming sky.
Four walls of a room.
Four years of time.
Four legs of a table.
Four eyes in love.
Everything as usual.
Just as two times two is four.
Rancid rivers
crawl past.
In shrunken schoolyards
kindergartens scream.
One needs air
and one needs earth untransmuted to trash.
The lights of shopwindows slide down wet sidestreets,
and I, silently, trample the luster of many lamps,
my ears hearing the dreamy rustle of leaves,
the hiss of a plow turning black earth.
And I felt the boundless desire for the earth –
black and fragrant,
exhaling a sweet smell,
dew-softened,
rain-nourished,
parched by the winds,
loved by the sun –
passion of the earth.
And now I dream
of cities of the future:
without factory smoke
and the scream of trains,
without bigcity people, crammed in cafes,
and humans, becoming automatons,
without children being born in basements
and old people dying in attics,
without signs, advertisements, notices, warnings
on which the eyes always stumble...
I dream of cities of the future,
extending from city to city,
from river to river,
from forest to forest.
Then, for the first time, will I take off my shoes
and go barefoot through the city,
feeling the gentle warmth of the earth...
Let us protect
the cities of the future!
Translated by Frank Yakstis
* * *
Where do the woods, where do the oaktrees come from?
From the earth.
From the silent earth.
Where does the snow arise from?
Where does the wind blow from – in the rustling sails?
From the earth.
From the silent earth.
Where from are horses' hoofs?
Where from the words paving the streets?
From the earth.
From the silent earth.
Where are you
With the bowl of reddish evening in your hands?
Look for me in the earth.
Translated by Dorian Rottenberg
* * *
Where do the traces of words lead?
You go on, carefully stepping from word to word,
Finding your way by the capital letters.
A blue bridge approaches, and a forest bowing to the sun.
In the great shower of thaw the snowflakes twitter, melting.
The traces lead where the poet never was,
And where stubborn readers
hope to find themselves.
The traces lead where all traces end,
Where, jumping from floe to floe, you cross the river,
And only then you notice
A bridge with people going over.
Your traces have been borne off by the river –
your bravery and blindness too.
All has dissolved in blueness –
voice, eyes, snow.
Translated by Dorian Rottenberg
* * *
O little lakes, I thank you for your light!
Here there are warm low clouds and rain
and little sheep beside the roadside cross.
My years have sunk already in the hearts of trees,
silent are stumps which have revealed their heavy sections.
All that has been goes slowly into fire.
My darkening face gets hot, while I with three
resounding gunshots drive the last
remaining spirits from the treetops.
Only the echo flies and then returns
to fall
beneath my feet.
Translated by Dorian Rottenberg
A LETTER FROM MIKAS KEDAINIŠKIS TO HIMSELF
I
the high school has not yet exploded: there stands the German
military hospital
painted in tiger stripes: like the culturotechnical mansion
the Radvillas' mansion to this day is reflected
in the pond, as if in a mirror, in the subconscious
where in winter a group of children on skates
crowds of people behind the dike, beyond the Dotnuvėlė,
in houses
across the middle of the field with eyes closed
sleds slide, stars twinkle, the seasonings of memory are bitter
II
and the moon
We painted in tiger stripes hangs head down
above the pond summer and winter, eyes lowered
while I listen to the schoolhouse bell
night watchman of the emotions I stand in the meadow
(in the pond head down like a child standing on my hands)
the illusion of reflections remains unnoticed, even when you
change
everything in your memory, imperceptibly, taking this adding
that
III
a stranger now in this landscape, Capricorn
speaks to me in the floured rumbling of the mill: grow, stretch
climb your own shoulders in reflection and darkness, in the
exploded but reverberating
illusion
IV
kiss the knife thrown into the door, practice
time beats backward in your chest, hoofs knock
against the door, the appointed sign, let in
the dust of explosives, the shadow of ruins
miser, give yourself away free, others will envy you
that you are nowhere and with nothing, reversed time returning
gathers what you had discarded, rejected declared stolen
V
beat the lowered head
the way you would a pillow
until bees hive
on the hanging feet: I opened the closet, there the moon
sliced, dried to tinder-fungus: carefully so they wouldn't break
I held the images in my hands: I see how
hungry children of Kėdainiai Scots climb from an old meat
grinder
the Radvilas' future palace guard, yellowed and emaciated
VI
I sucked their fingers, the moon in the closet
the Radvilas' empty offices
why did they not share their milk, arrows, coarse sheets
owl wings, treasure chests of stories
I sat on the open veranda in the embrace of wind
persecuted and hunched
now I sit elsewhere, near the Jew’s store
on empty shelves lay medicinal herbs, false teeth
and so I survived: one of the twins
the other, by order of the king, was attacked and arrested
in his own castle armed men broke in
led by the king's clerk
that's how in books Philip quietly
destroyed the templar order, stealing
its legendary treasures
VII
some ran into the street, others to the garden
having finished the madmen's scene, walking in the
intermittent rain
beyond the airport, where the prison camp stood
decaying and neglected like those streets to the ghetto, where
the tigers howl, storks are on the verge of extinction
were afraid to answer the cries from the grave or beyond, from
the fields
the beauty of the wondrous cemetery
VIII
but then how many people here have nowhere to sleep or
nothing to eat
the sleep they pretend to sleep is narcotic, unhealthy
the hypnotism of chapel cellars is not for them: you listen
with lowered head, loving but not understanding them: it's me
it's me! I put the skull on the shelf, in Capricorn's light
the knife glistens, not the skull
remaining in the subconscious
each day the number grows, runs toward us, from the graveyard
IX
letters cannot classify or explain it
this is empty wisdom: I joined the naturally
existing order of mendicant monks, searching
for a link to the people
to go, hurry, attack, rise again
lament your old semblance, that the wind would scatter
your thoughts, I explained them to you
thoughts, poor children, may my lantern shine for them, my candle
in the old skull flying on the table
X
above their heads an unearthly light flashed suddenly
their search for divine secrets forced them to turn to themselves
to search with their thoughts for still-undiscovered spheres
controversies of mind and soul: who created all this? they
hungered with him
wanted to unite with him and understand incomprehensible
reality
XI
the inconstancy of the living, the contradictions shaped by birth,
watch fearing nothing and not shuddering, just as when
you understood that someone was watching through the
ventilation
screen in the wall, in the classroom
understood but did not believe it: I am your double, silent
whispering from your subconscious, the class watched but did not
see the skull
staring through the screen
XII
things don't belong to me even though they are hammered out
of me
they return with documents, invoices, coins, religious
excesses: others suffered most, heretics
the misled fanatics blindly agreed
incited by the dignitaries
of this world, lye
travelers led by corrupted leaders
in ambush: thieves and murderers
XIII
beatings for those too much in debt, on the bridge on the back
of the head
near the pit kneeling a pistol shot
thoughts capturing the same thing, names, money, treasury
cerement coins
stamps from under the heels in the black earth
death's cobblers: women's bindings, horses'
harnesses, mimes, dancers, run up to hold me
by the halter while you climb down
XIV
coupling books, bookbinders are born, tar
drips from horseshoes: statues dance on pedestals
devil cauldrons steam, and farther on the gallows
wait for inspiration, stretching, tension
a horrible summer night's dream, the barely noticeable trembling
of the mirror or spoon, which you are set to take, accept
the strangely distorted face, your reflection, dead in the mirror
like Christ, on the bulletin board, it would rise again
they arrive in old locomobiles
XV
the re-creation of a relative, as the scraps
of hours dissolve among papers centipedes from under
the rock that has pressed your heart, people
dreaming themselves as ants and bees
XVI
my first attempt to fly
a la bat: with wings I made of tanned leather
off the windmill's roof, during honey gathering
carefully grabbing the tops of willows by the road
but I won't tell you! to jump from a windmill
would seem such an absurdity today: a man with wings
your non-submissive laughing servant
my liver ruptured, dungwash flowed from my mouth
o shame! asleep among the sheep
XVII
my two sheep twins milk-givers, whom
I nicknamed Mary Magdalen, broke loose
not moved in the meadow, both tied with one
chain beyond the airport, which
dragged behind caught on a railway switch. The sheep
lay down on the tracks, swollen, sensing nothing wrong
and just then a locomotive ran out from past the park,
with wheels reinforced by the Germans, but luckily
turned toward the warehouses and not the marketplace
where sellers offer mutton, paradise apples, and meadows
XVIII
I was angry at the stable boy
caught him in the cattle-yard
squeezed between the pen fence and raised gate
doing a sheep fawning on her in Latin
like a servant a maid, lifting up
to clean the dust from a picture frame, not taken down
the dough has cooled in the kneading-trough, for supper
it should have been a carcass
reflecting in her dusty eyes, sheets soaking before
laundering, a drum, pond frogs, it is that way too with
princesses
changed from frogs, from under the groundwork of winter
XIX
but that was all a joke compared to the processions
of self-flagellants: I watched them
in Burgundy, Germany and France: in the old days
some two hundred of them arrived in Strasbourg
with old-fashioned four stroke internal combustion engines
the procession in front of me carried pronominal flags, of
the most expensive
materials, and burning candles in pretentious candelabras
reminded me of grave stones: they marched in pairs, wearing rich
clothing, hats pulled low over their eyes, decorated
with red crosses, marched and sang complicated melancholy
hymns of the time, blaming themselves even with imagined
sins, and beat themselves, beat themselves hungering
to be more quickly deserving of salvation: into the rye fields,
into worked gardens
their hymn was accompanied by church bells: in the agreed upon
place
wearing only their underclothes, and whoever did not have those
sashed their loins with towels or cellophane: from
waist to heel. They all laid down in a wide circle and the master
(that's what the executioner was called then) began
walked as he wished, stepped across the penitents
before the world's end hungering for spiritual salvation, laced
those bodies with his whip, the whipped arose and walked
after the master, stepping over those who had been called
already by the governing master, cut down
everyone he saw before him, following after, chasing after
not to fall behind: stopped in a circle on the stage, the orchestra
fell silent, only the best voices remained: a hymn
in the name of the brotherhood: standing two by two they beat
themselves and only
the whips, from two quarters, leather whips, now without
the ballet-master who was a professional, he only
fulfilled the formality of calling them forth, while at the whip
ends
so they'd rattle were attached buttons into whose holes
were pushed nails: blood flooded onto the asphalt
from under the overturned truck, fueled by wood, etc.
flashes lighted the sky which seemed to rise
upward, until eventually Clement VI
forbade such fanatical penitence
XX
wrinkled
faces from the accumulator, always harder
to control
to simplify and perfect the ceremonial
the Radvilas already slept
in cellars, dried out and so endlessly small
compared to how much people today have outgrown them,
and perhaps time, drying them out, also reduced distance and
measure
from my childhood home to the wellspring at the sanctimonious
old women's home
wings and propellers dried out, alongside the railroads
only the moon shines new in my closet, cut
like bread crusts on the shelves
XXI
the eggs burns with light
from the accumulator's battery, where their unburned souls
pulsate in the ears
tongues are hammered in the forge to lie, to agitate, a cut-out
of an old man's heart, in the pocket, a tiny bird
twitters and twitters, crawling on one leg toward the railroad
Post Scriptum
solitary bones, gnawed by blossoming bushes and by grass
in history having lost all, taken away and collateral
evidence for their lost flesh, are scattered
in coffins: under churches
waiting for faded memories, thoughts of resurrection
embodied in poles, in roadside shrines, spiderwebs
their reformed soul, while everyone was laughing,
runs beyond the cemetery, squats down, hiding from the gunshot
how small, people are bigger now, grow and grow
outgrowing everyone gone to the past: nothing
not their graves, niches, beds, teeth
and not their country would fit beneath a foreign flag
life will not awaken their fear, from an empty mouth
calcified saliva, for the inquisition, for this time all the same,
the sun the moon, water and snow, the quarrelsome river
and military boots: coughed up in graves, moving feet
let's call this a fictitious incarnation, failure, barren
psychoses: down, step by step, into
a lost world, a starless void, a cellar, which is lower
than their self-respect: dismal and incomprehensible, torn away
from them
on which scale then to measure life after death
and the lambs have grown, one named Kristoforas
a horned madman, a reprobate rioter, under the Germans
went out into the forest, was a partisan, plundered, put
pyrotechnics under the tracks
so (under way from Marburg) the Radvila echelons, so
their bones would crumble on the ties, being taken to military
warehouses
not listed on invoices
market places, beneath the breaking wheels, swept up scattered on
the roadway
they blew up
heavy water in Dotnuva, on the bank, near the dam
the mansion beside my high school, rooms filled with news
diaries of the class struggle, international hatred, this and that
we returned from the forest, from an ancient ballad, the historical
past, with invalids, on their side
leaning against their shoulders, bracing legs, we stopped
in wall-hanging landscapes, family cellars, equipped with bars
after acclimating, in closet mirrors: sit me
on water! I'll hold out, I shouted, the Radvilas are ours! on water
and dried crusts! I will not sink into the reflection holding out
like the physicists' frog after electric
shock
I'll sit again in the corner of the cottage, shadows
falling from the swings, from the pea vines
from the guelder rose and jasmine, rowan tree roots
gnawed bones
shadows, falling from sarcophaguses, from the hanging fish net's
roots
from the stopped flow of thoughts, the touchable pulse
of the dead man's hand, while alive time is in me, while there is
strength
in mime and pyrotechnics, to be together with you
I received a receipt for the sheep requisitioned
for matters of war: such is the fate of sheep
only Schickelgruber kept company with the third Roman empire's
she-wolves
I milked alone, in the dark, before the religious retreat
dressed in a lamb's skin I was stopped outside the confessional
was taken to Londonderry and after the war was sentenced
in the Netherlands for vagrancy: this letter was mailed
before that
Post Post Scriptum
each day they checked his psyche, his near-sighted eyes: how
many fingers do you see, Winston? (they always confused him
with
some Winston) four or five? four? five? how many fingers
do you see, Winston? how much is two plus two? five? well,
confess
that two and two are five, enough of this wrong thinking
that two and two are six, how many of my fingers do you see?
and showed him
lying in a fog three fingers: six fingers? you must get used to it
Winston, that you see as many as you must see, this is not
mysticism, but
simple relativity: if we agree, that there are this many
that there is this, then it will be as much as we'll need: all
the scholars of Spain, Arabs and Jews
have thoroughly investigated the meaning of the inquisition
for the faithful: have thoroughly investigated
the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle's
influence on heretical deviations
from the path of truth
which led the innocent saints
to eternity, that is, to the fire
in the best instances to the reformation
to Protestantism, which was unavoidable
I'm saying this from the castle prison, from the fortress
of argument from the cell, where
skulls are interchangeable, money is confiscated and faith
is hammered with nails into generous palms through an empty
head
Ex Post
And there were those
who counterfeited money: they
were harshly punished: they were thrown into a pot
of boiling water or
their throats were filled with molten lead
because expensive products, for example
peppers were accepted instead of money, and no one then
could make such counterfeit
it list only strange
that in literature
there is no punishment
for forgery: on the contrary
the worse
one wrote
the more
one was paid
at that time masterpieces, as always
were not liked
it was difficult to publish them, and when published
some even ended up in bonfires, well then. The result of
the interactions of ruling princes and other various strata
was that in the XV century
a stratified monarchy developed Princes governed
according to roman law, and that's why here, as in Italy, there
began to appear
educated jurists, doctors, who understood both roman civic
as well as church canonical rights
before which a man holding onto the norms of the old "correct"
laws
was powerless: individualism nurtured by ancient example
the culture of language
and developing
worldliness
and nationalist feelings: fundamental
the outlines of an earlier humanism were and remain, because it is
not possible
not to see the difference
between time and eternity, between
this side and the other
therefore wanting to be like the scholarly spiritual knights
I had to understand, it seems, Rienzi
flying beneath the clouds, that early revolutionary troubadour
of humanism (as he was once called), o, and also Petrarch
Translated by Jonas Zdanys
NOTHING
Nothing may be interpreted as a philosophical concept
(for example, the Buddhist sunyata – emptiness, nothingness, from which
in the absolute sense everything arises) and as a sociological one
("what was nothing will be all"). "I" in the poetic text can be not
subject but object.
From my own observations
nothing lived in that castle
nothing walked in these rooms and corridors, climbed the stairs
nothing played the flute winter nights on the balcony
nothing, not even I
like smoke
scattered and directed joy the wind
in a circle of shadows
spinning with light and sun
would disappear
without a trace, in the snow, beyond the cemetery, at the edge
of the garden
or
would fall in wet soot near the crossroads
time
swinging changed its annual rings, the clothing of earth or
creaked heavily in the lathed
leg of the writing table, not a step
forward or back
under the table
and in the closet shadows on hangers, on the walls pictures
and in the pantries flitches of bacon
nothing touched them
only a mouse climbing the walls
looked at the hanging bacon, only her
teeth were there: she chose what for whom
nothing was interested
in legitimated
dead nature
a quiet life
only from cellars
the tired and pale souls of potatoes
watched through the grating at the receding stars
and stretched toward the icy nails and door handles
horses slept standing at night
and nothing dreamed of a beggar's sack
and every Sunday
scuffles of horses
I am a dwarf with bad eyes
placed on the storm-shuttered kitchen window
I looked
at nothing
the wellsweep rose each morning, was lowered
each night, raising
a bucket
of earth
on short winter days they let birds into the yard
day broke
dripped from the roof of the barn, ribbons
fluttered on tied wings, they did not fly to heaven
like people
who having died remained lying down and open-mouthed
snored
until they finished their living dreams, coming out of their
foreheads with sweat
and crossroads of wrinkles
on their hands
among candles
lighted for darkness to chase away the shadows
for the ghostly wailing storm
catching them by surprise on the road at night
when at home
mornings someone shoveled paths
from one grave to the next
and then to the chapel
until I pulled matches from my stomach
wanting to light the hearth
from it rose a cloud of blue tomtits
and descended on the splinters and on the wood
one could hear
a chorus of shadows from the chapel and in paintings
as if something moved
from dead nature, hunting scenes and battles
made in a round like stations of the cross
and I
still only a dwarf on a growing hand, which
might ask for alms, which might close for toothed prayer or
in a fist, threatening me
back through the window
while around my feet my shadow
each day tangled anew like
a vine of hops around a dead pole
near the window stuck into the frame of the wall
with bad eyes
caked with sleep
I watched how beautifully
those creatures knelt at the elevation on their forelegs
look, someone would butcher one
would lie on a platter feet toward the door on the table
if a bird, with chopped wings, while friends, neighbors,
relatives, acquaintances
sang, sitting round in a circle, wiping from their lips
foaming malt
bitter beer
which, like a spirit imprisoned in a cask,
knocked spigots from their teeth
and they began howling like wolves
until one day we see: from the edge of town, where America
is at the very middle, that is, down through the Caucasus
at the other end, beyond the brook, across the bridge
Berlin's farm laborer barracks – into that howling
already runs
what?
nothing
and carries in its hand
an unlit candle
a votive candle
for the end of the worlds, this one that is not, where nothing
lives and where everything
turns to dust without leaving even a shadow falling from its
hands
anachronistically turn out of time
from under epaulettes and visors
from the balcony downward
fall ladders made of vines
but nothing stops
and the prepared dead are quickly carried from the guest room
to the half-cellar, where they
do not hear the chirping of birds in the kitchen
their spirit
with spread wings
is among
the snow-covered stuffed birds near the globe
like a thread wound between the fingers
I try to wind
my shadow back, it wound itself so tightly
around my legs that I fall out of my shoes
small, dwarf-like, ah, rejuvenated
I press against the cows when after mass
they leave the church, listen to the horses
when they
talking among themselves pull out from under
a table cloth white as snow the Christmas straw – a long piece
for one, a shorter straw
for another – each the length of that life
the centurions'
eagle
rolled out
from the mask, a whole pile of them, like eggs on a shelf in a
painting
a full threescore
in the barn from under the straw
and a battalion
from the home guard
fire! flashed
but nothing fell down
only on the road to the estate, where nothing lived
burned a candle
is it not a votive candle
for everything? –
the stuffed birds
on the shelves moved, where on lovely beds
dust settled, from balconies
fall ladders made of vines, in kitchens
chirp birds. Eagles fed. With liver. In paintings already
in liturgical dress
shadows
from closets
fall to earth, lengthening
green grass
and luxuriant rose bushes
and nothing is buried
in the room, in the garden path, nor between hands pierced by
wind
what?
nothing
burns in me
when it is dark
Translated by Jonas Zdanys
COMA
an invisible body sways back and forth
While in the shah-of-shah's rose garden a white bud erupts
from the ticking of cicadas, the aromatic night, which stands
pale in the doorway
his bones
the unnoticed body floats away elevated
impulses move the hair, white with unfamiliar frost
in the door opening
night, incarnate
feared
seeing his body again blossoming with white roses
they are swayed by the wind
at one table
night
parts the curtains, so the moon would light the room
where they lay on the floor
sweating to death
hands bound with towels
in the rose garden
hunters
with knowing glances
life
with nothing
a body
where lilies bloom
horse
races
in front of
the summer house
the body is one
the blood is one
the judge is one
nuosprendis
has no heart
nor fingers, on which are rings
in the shah-of-shah's garden
because the body has no weight
the sweat of sacrifice is wiped, women see His face
taking off the tied towels, which were held by wind
lifting, so the army would pass
horses and camels
once
will feel
where mosquitoes settle on the stork's nest, where you find
the green stork color
of life
but castes are indestructible, like classes
of the school in whose yard we played
from where rose toy airplanes
that looked like dragonflies
that's how they thought, the drowned, having lost so much
of their weight
how much does the water pushed by a river into the sea weigh
how much does the burden of life weigh
and a coma, making everything light
not for long: once again those thrown
to shore will rise
each night
in the shah-of-shah's garden
don't move from your place: now places are found for them
in graveyards
it rains terribly all day, the army does not dry out its
clothes, all are silent and sad
the teacher of Greek says he still has absorbent paper
but how much
the smallest mistrust misleads, mice fly from the coffin
refusing to swim any farther, there are no agricultural concerns
details of daily life, the most elementary things
soldiers, camels, roses, nights
and still in the doorway Christ
with a rope around His neck, with thorns on His head
He wants to redeem the deported
Body and Blood
Nothing stands in the doorway and laughs
having cleaned his teeth well, they gleam
with my glasses, one side of which is shattered
they now show twice as much as they did not show me
there is a transcendental equation, it has been rewritten
many times – I say to hollow Christ, standing in the doorway
and close myself up again in the coffin, adjust my pillow, tuck
myself in
terrible sweating and rain even worse
then, halfway there, they carried out may coffin
put it under a fragrant linden, where I listened to their music,
the bees'
trees smelled of cleansed pine, all this my homeland
you found it again last, when you missed yourself
beware of that collision, better the shah-of-shah's
deep deep sleep, transcendental warmth
on the tray a beautiful still-life: fruits, spoils of the hunt
and sugar, all the more sugar – laughs Christ
with a white robe and a military cap
they give you flowers brought by cemetery visitors
now to sleep, to sleep until next summer, no
the drowned ask me
it's time, we are interred
we accept and relay impulses from far away
not just beneath our feet, we feel it all around
filled with humility
legitimized ships, mountains and ordnance
legitimized blossoming of roses
outstretched hands
to those thrown out of their graves after a storm
they must be interred over and over
their thinking interred, coming from the transcendental whole
those quick impulses
technocrats
he will govern the universe
ridiculing the humanitarian Christ, the apoplectic Mahomet
frightening the drowned, whose membership incessantly increases
having been thrown out after a storm from their graves
Translated by Jonas Zdanys
NOCTURNES
1.
from the room out the door across the veranda
four steps there, three here
from the veranda through the door into the room
here, again darkness, again from the room across the veranda
to the door, in it light, then into darkness
from darkness then through the room into the veranda: again that
growing sequel, I listen well: the distant
lowing of a cow, others respond, and the continuous
barking of dogs, their sound
from the room out the door across the veranda
and then they stop yelping
now I only watch
a long long pause
the full moon above the lake and flocks of birds on the island
they begin chirping in their sleep and rustle rustle
wings or reeds and a powerful toccata
grows, I wait, it will still
now now it will still, but it grows
into the room through the door from the veranda
o perpetual power of night
awaiting the revelation of the secrets of night
I drink bitter tea
your light brown glance, your naked breasts
above the clock, which goes
from the room through the stars into the heavens
where birds rustle in dreams reflecting in moonlight
full moon, toccata, power
you are gone, a train disappearing between two tracks
fading like two feet in the dew, tufts
of aftergrass, people
move, move and move
(the driver tried to stop the rolling car, but it rolled over his
foot, the bones didn't break, only muscle, we need rain: it is
time to plow, but the clay, especially in the hills, is like a
chin, the plows can't cut it, we need rain already: the wedding
party has arrived, a bus for them, drink to our shared fate, a
chairman, a bus for our guests)
on the table a feather, a duck, feather on
my window a wing, a duck wing
it couldn't be shot while in the water the bird
has to rise into space, higher, into the blue,
and then
it was shot
into the water
convulsions before death
then a boat
they do not take off their belts before entering
through the veranda into the room
touch the moon with a hand
it timidly flutters its wing
sleepwalkers
until they all rise to the heavens and float from the island
your city, your two breasts, the receding
moon, between the belts, empty cartridge casings
lend me one wing (the second is on the window)
I will follow after the train on the tracks
to search
until the hunters find in the train
an old bird skeleton
ah, now summer is ending
in the orchards apples thump while falling
we cut them up
into thin slices
and hung them
in secret necklaces before the sun
step into this small house on the shore of the lake
while you are not, only your hungry image
swallows me whole, at night suffering
I will swim out
into the full
moon
yet this night
then don't repeat me, then extend me,
then read my lines – in earth,
fire, water, iron and wood
while the distant barking of dogs disappears in the past,
in the future and nowhere
where we are not
where we are not now in the present
the days' work continues
while at night infinite power awakens
alive and alive and alive
until
death
until night
from which the spirits of birds will rise again
to flutter in destinies
your wild duck, two bills
wings
to here
and after that
once again repeats the growing night
2.
lost in the night
I walk topographically, with the palm of my hand
in a circle
I have to walk in a circle
and return
so I would meet the sun
at home
sleeping deeply
that's how a shot duck
dives to the bottom
holds on to water grass with its beak
and its spasm-clenched bill
even after death does not betray it
it does not rise
to the surface
across which float
mist
clouds
the boats of hunters
I am reflected in the water
in which I see the full moon
three boats half on shore
cold steel fills my nostrils
the blinding light of night
on the surface of the lake
you hold on to the reading paper with your lips
it will remain that way
between day and night
between yin and yang
do you see?
I returned
down unknown roads through night
casting myself from one hand to the other
put myself where you surfaced
having let your lips go of the water grass
in the light of the moon
your body not able to swim
between the bridge poles
from which will swim the first form of steel
a diamond morning
will decorate our land
while it is still deep night
3.
that day we were required to bring the dogs to the lake
everyone had to: to bring the hounds
all the hunters
had to be registered
a boat with human shapes surfacing from the bottom
they had to record them
but it didn't happen
I walked all night
down the dusty road among the flowering corn
they were fragrant
with the honey of summer
I walked down the dusty road
(there had long been no rain)
among the young pines
with which the field had been planted
in the meadow an electric shepherd stopped me
(ducks squawking rose from the Kirsna)
and I returned
in sharp moonlight
managing to hold on
two days to you
legible paths in the meadows, no one here walks here any longer
teenagers on motorcycles, children on bicycles
I on foot
and in the moon's reflections
see children play bells
and, when the moon's light blinks blindingly, the one
who dives for the bell remains alive
his lips finally let go of the water grass
and his soul is a bell
that rises from the ocean bottom
a boat with human shadows
they have to register the hunters' dogs
impatient, primitive, common and bold
where is that lake?
those cars?
where is that pencil?
his lips are painted gray
and I am astonished by the owl that flies from
a tree on the shore
so soundlessly
nothing flew by
and it will descend into that boat
floating on the lake of night
there is my childhood
a bee stinging the bell
it rings for me still
in the water
so we have risen now to the surface
and lie in the slippery water
with bodies not at all mythological
owls, dogs, shepherds
recorded in the notebook
you rose from the bottom
I fell from the heavens
flying by on owl's wings
weary with a dog's hoarse barking
into your own echo
it replies
dying and leading itself
there, where speech is forbidden
where breathing is suspicious
where we fear ourselves
shunning one another
the gaucho rode in
his lasso will save us
gauchos gauchos, I remember your estate
from my childhood
where in empty fields
trees have no shadows
a nervous empty full moon
how many nights, how many nights will that hungry
barking of trees drag on
frightening away
the owl's soul
don't push it off
hold on
so we gather ourselves from pieces
into which time continually
fragments
without a sound in moonlight shatter
owls, dogs, hunters' guns
into which time continually
fragments
don't push it off, hold on ,
raising one breast, the second was burned off in childhood
by Scythian Amazons
the moon's light will
break against it and time
will crumble into cold shards of waves
on glass
don't push it off
hold on
(the dog is exhausted from barking)
I will go before morning will stretch my weary joints
and will dream
of you
in my childhood
4.
o night! o night
I walk down the white road, above my head an owl appears
suddenly
flies down the road
so easily, so easily
as if I were walking on soft bedding
into your nest in the garden
among the swaying apple boughs
from which night takes fruit
o night! o night
the tall tops of the oak trees
among the luxuriant hazels
rising like giants
I draw near in the darkness
trunk split, bark torn, lightning
put my arms around half
if you were on the other side
I wonder if our hands would touch
fifty years ago
a hundred years ago
a man leads a cow, odd
I say "good evening", so he won't be frightened
where is he taking that cow at night
in the meadow by the lake
where?
a dried top, without leaves
dried ends of branches
something perches on one
hawk? owl? I look, head tilted back
clouds today, I can't make it out
I'll have to come back another night
when there are no clouds
the moon will shine
then – I only have to memorize the branch – I'll see
what perches there
fifty years ago
a hundred years ago
before I was born
o night! o night
how high the cows' lowing
in the dry sun-burned peat field
high above buzz myriads of mosquitoes
I sit on the edge of the bridge
let my feet dangle
there the Kirsna rustles
already dry, already straightened
fifty years ago
a hundred years ago
I lay in the orchards clover
all night, warm night
listening how ducks cackle in sleep
how the dog begins to bark
I find them in my own museum
owl, man leading a cow at night, storm-split oak
on the dried-out branch
death sways
at night waiting for us death
fell asleep, is in no hurry
does not flutter its wings down the road
blowing off the museum's dust
you lie in the bared garden
you, night, you, death, you, my beloved
apples thump while falling to the bottom of the grave
many years ago
we became the keepers of the museum
o put one apple seed between my lips
o night! o night
the bird's empty nest (I saw it during the day)
in the broken pear (I saw it during the day)
put a seed between my lips
take the shell of the bird out off the nest
and rise on great wings
spirit of the oak, spirit of the apple
spirit of the warm night wind
wind, which in the morning will bring rain
will wash the floor
will wash the stairs
will wash the ladder
and the museum of night's kingdom
I met another man (just leaving)
he walked drunk alongside a bicycle
on the handlebars hung a bucket
passing by I looked in
milk, a full bucket
long ago
good night! o good night!
bird nests, snake caves
I will yet go at night to caress
the cow's horns, the cow's throat
it draws near, already knows me
a chain, it stops
it reaches with its rough tongue to lick my elbow
and I caress its extended neck
around its horns
it doesn't know me, and I have never seen it
we sigh, good night
good night
it will soon be morning
o night! o night
for me the blood in your veins
dies
while I kin to the owl
laugh at myself
good night
5.
someone at night drives on wagon wheels
someone rides a bicycle
(lives beneath the bottom of an overturned boat)
someone at night travels on foot
and flies by on owl's wings
while the silhouette of the oak in moonlight – a long skirt
puffed by the wind and hair of wind
I listen to your gentle music, o night, I listen
to the cackling of ducks on the lake
(dwarves here cooked on spits, drank and ate)
they live beneath the bottom of an overturned boat
mice in caves, owls in books
rivers in lakes, at the bottom, the long journey over
I listen to the rustling of the rain, which is tired, listen
to the growing snow drifts, listen
to what old people mutter, as rain drops drip
(deep into the lake)
far into the clouds, where windmills
turn without stopping, we in their dreams
young and naked (dogs barking), in their dreams, we remain
dropping apples
thumping against the boat, beneath which
rain rains, sun shines
time melts, snow drifts, because you are
mother earth
a young and beautiful girl's silhouette
I a black knight on a black horse tramping in the moonlight
because I am dead, I lift you from your bed in the granary
put you on my horse, tell you to throw away your scapulars
throw away your Bible, throw away
the name given you by your mother and father
tell you to sit on my horse and ride, where there are stars
and his unshod hooves thump
against the bottom of the boat, beneath which
old men sit smoking and drinking
tea from a samovar, because we
are in their thoughts, imaginations, their
other reality
then they finish their roast
then the fire burns out
then comes evening for that night
and we turn over the boat, beneath it
are graves of soldiers and crosses
and our bare feet across the field of snow
(why do the little toes point to the sides?)
(you sleep, wait:
we will soon leave together)
the forests rock the boat
the field of rye rocks the boat
the fragrance of sweet-flags in the air rocks the boat
someone at night walks on foot, someone at night
drives the horses, someone
floats above the graves
in a long museum boat
in the land of night
in the sleep of peace
sleep two sweet breasts
Translated by Jonas Zdanys
ATONEMENT
He awakens with a start. Quickly buries the executed.
Finishes off those still alive with his shovel.
The large steps of silence echo in the empty corridors.
Pale morning presses its ear against the brick wall.
Listens.
It beats. Yes, his heart still beats in this large prison.
His near-sighted eyes still see the ray on his transparent hand.
He will not leave here. Ever. He does !not believe in life after
death.
In the faces of the guards he recognizes the witnesses who had
described a scene of horror, from which he grew sick
at the trial.
He understood long ago that it was his job, but why had he not
seen anything? Why had he not heard the shooting?
It must have been at night, as he slept. But he remembered all his
terrible dreams, dreamed since childhood. There had
not been one like that.
He sees: on the other side of the wall – his three children and
his wife.
They look though a chink in the fence at life's grand carousel,
turning alongside.
And he is guilty. Alone. They are guilty of nothing.
He has never held a gun in his hands, and it is hard for him to
recreate the facts – how he aimed, how the muzzle
flashed and how people guilty of nothing fell into
the hole.
He is familiar with the shovel (he used to dig his garden) and
imagines how he finished off those still alive and
poured dirt on them – just like on your apple trees
so they would blossom every winter.
Finished them off so they wouldn't suffer. He knows what pain is.
They tortured him until he started to laugh.
After that he no longer laughed. He understood his job. That all
this was atonement.
Translated by Jonas Zdanys
THE SAD HARMONICA OF NIGHT
Helmet pulled low over its eyes, the moon stepped across
the floor with hobnailed boots.
The harmonica's high twitter: the brittle border between life and
death!
The naked fingers of trees with the coal of shadow drew
symbols of danger on the shut-eyed walls.
Wind wringed the wet shirts, hung out to dry before the dreary
hearth of autumn.
Nazis brought thirty war prisoners to work in the dismal town.
(From their grizzled skulls hunger stared hopelessly.)
Hungry hands gathered the gifts of the birthing earth.
A fire burned in the potato field.
The prisoners ate
raw
cooked
half-baked potatoes.
That night in the former national guard's armory on the straw-
strewn floor writhed eighteen men who had eaten too
much.
In their empty bellies the potatoes had sprouted shoots of death.
In the morning the town's pharmacist hurried with medicinal
drops in his hand.
The guard refused the medicine, told the pharmacist idy ty...
and forced the men out to work.
The fire died in the potato fields.
Hungry people with trembling hands gathered potatoes
sprouting with death.
Those who ate little in the evening dragged back those who had
eaten much.
A11 night the sergeant in the pharmacy praised alcohol and
scrambled eggs.
Eighteen men writhed on the national guard armory's floor.
In the morning the pharmacist hurried out again with medicinal
herbs.
The guard did not refuse the medicine, did not say idi ty... and
eighteen men were not forced out to work.
They drank medicine and herb tea.
*
That's how the story about the potatoes should have ended.
But a few years later
in distant Siberia
a tree-cutter's fire burned.
Starving people
hurried to cook the potatoes they had secretly dug up.
The former guard ate many; the former pharmacist
knew how it all might end
and tried to stop it;
but the former prisoner
said
"Don't get involved. To each – his due."
Translated by Jonas Zdanys
EMIGRATION
sometimes the floor collapses like a child's ball, and it
seems as if you had long since
stumbled and fallen
you begin not trusting yourself
the self you were twenty years ago
when the heavy steps of the blind marched to plunder the forests
and spoke softly without gestures or tension
ah, I must be getting old. My glasses sometimes look around
on their own
and when they come home don't repeat what they had just heard
my hands gallop
hands with curious nails tear the trees' deaf bark
(I always warned you to protect your hands)
first love returns and poems return
the wings of birds return
my voice returns, having leaped across winter
like a gardener I graft the polyphonic movement in my throat
I carefully bandage my neck with grasses and knives
I'm tired of America
there's nothing new here
and all the people are from Europe and Africa
their ancestors' bones walk in antiquity's forests
where their coffins grow in trees, cut down years ago
where their voices like drums drink the Burgundian plains
and Lithuanian mead like Clarence his malmsey
I don't want anything else
only to come home from America
to find myself sleeping, in the morning before the mail comes
to wake myself, sit myself at the table
and be still for an hour, looking directly back at myself
then go out to the woodshed
and tear out my voice
which years before had been chopped into a block of oak
we have been chopping add chopping oaks
for two thousand years already
Translated by Jonas Zdanys
BENEATH THE STARS
To the memory of Vytautas Butkus
We stood before a great hill,
it was called our life
and it was so unreachable.
Its top was hidden in the clouds.
Marigolds grew around its edges.
During our mathematics lesson
a bee flew in through the open window.
Near the forests bullets cracked.
Time seeped with blood into the earth.
We published a class newsletter.
You illustrated it
with water colors.
You were the class artist,
tall and reddening quickly
around teachers and girls.
Water colors!
I did not know that art.
I looked at the small tabs of paint,
at the glass of colored water
where you soaked your brushes,
and smiled to myself
when you, caught up in inspiration,
rubbed the tip of your tongue against the corner of your lips.
(That seemed so childish to me.)
For memorial day
I wrote a poem
about a solder returning home.
You painted a flag,
a machine gun and scythe in the shape
of a cross, and beneath it – a helmet.
Then you decided suddenly to write a novel.
About war.
Your turned pages of notebook paper
fillled with quick writing.
Your eyes burned
with the fever of fantastic marches.
The novel was titled "Battle".
Shots walked near the forests.
There was revenge. For that which was holy to us all.
We shad to identify
the corpses thrown in the marketplace.
We climbed a difficult hill.
Its top was hidden in the clouds.
Necks craned we looked ever up.
But one night
a long train took you to the East.
(Your mother was a writer, your father the town mayor.)
You became suddenly
one of the innocent condemned.
The Siberian forest embraced you.
Pressed you firmly against its snow-drifted breast.
Hungry ax in hand.
Hundreds of kilometers of forests.
Sleeping at night beneath the stars.
It was completely different than
it was then in high school
as the first snowflakes fell –
in the woods at home
as we gathered kindling for the classroom stove.
Lies fell like a great cut tree and crushed you.
Tossed you to the very depths.
The cold would reach fifty below.
You slept hoisted and tied in the trees,
above fires you had made.
And only the warmth of the embers
would call you forth unfrozen
each morning.
One night
you fell out of the tree.
Lay there unconscious.
The embers cooked your face.
The smell of human flesh slid through the forest.
One eye burned out.
You had no lips.
The others, awakened, untied themselves, jumped down
and pulled you from the fire.
Nursed you.
Only epileptic fits remained.
With a hungry ax you continued chopping the Siberian forest.
It is possible to chop down a forests!
Your water colors awaited you
and your unfinished "Battle".
But you knew:
in moments of inspiration
your tongue would not play childishly
in the corners of your lips.
Your lips burned.
Only your teeth remained.
Tightly clenched teeth.
And crumbling faith
that everything would turn out right.
Could the lies be so great!
Would nothing lift that fallen tree from your chest!
With open teeth you looked at life.
Light flashed in your one eye.
Your death was unexpected and simple.
There was a fragrance of spring.
A brook burbled in the forest.
Early in the morning
you breathed in a full chest of fresh forest air
and bent over by the brook to wash.
O, if only it were living water
able to give you back your face!
You smiled with your teeth
seeing the skull in the water.
You sank epileptically into the small brook in the forest.
The others were too late.
Translated by Jonas Zdanys
From PRELUDES
I.
snow covered birds in the forest
their gentle thoughts in the tree tops
they sleep, and that place
and time are woven into a sphere
and through the frozen window
threads of red rays among the ferns
and where is he? blossom, hearth, where shepherds
sit as if in an old photograph with unshorn
hair, and wind does not stir
the wormwood's falling leaves: they turn
in the air as if moved by the breathing
of spirits: o forefathers! we have long ago
grown accustomed to you and no longer notice
how you eat with your wooden spoons, your bent
backs turned to us, you walk
ahead of us and speak
in half-whispers among yourselves and rock
our children at night or stand
near an overgrown grave, which we had
stepped across, hurrying
to bury your dead: to forget: the way a tree
forgets its stump and in the ground
its roots and stands as a pole
and remembers nothing: with roots
or leaves
vodka
flavored with cherries on the dew-covered window
where the old woman cooks her eyes in the fire
staring into the pot
of potatoes on the smoldering hearth: three letters
remain on the door: once
three kings entered here with clips
filled with bullets
and ate
cucumbers pickled by children and drank
the cherry-flavored vodka and as gifts
brought the smell of blood and spat
their pits on the floor, and the wall
calendar remained
untorn: each year
roofers changed the broken shingles
on the barn roof, not the Dutch
ones, and with their red color
frightened their eyes, which were
accustomed to green: and naked women
ran out of the sauna: Rubenesque
and bathed in the lake: nothing
satisfied them: only work, which they raised
with both hands like a tub
of clear water. And everything retnains in memories,
written down and untorn. And birds
awaken suddenly and snow
falls from their wings and they fly
with wings spread wide
and the top of the spruce sways
and the top of the spruce sways
and the top of the spruce sways like a pendulum
until it slowly comes to a stop
III.
I will take a frog for a wife
and will live in an old swamp where smoke
floats along the ground, where stars
twinkle high above: my days
have scattered in the forest, and wind
carries them, scarred and with cut
roots or sewed together with a thick needle
and the stitched thread
of waxed memories: where is the middle
of this story? Where is the orphan girl? A swing
rocks under a branch in the yard. Where is the green
land of the forest? It stopped
near the stream because there was
no bridge and trees
stood without coming together, only occasionally
wading across the shallow places or in winter
when they brought the ice. I will take
a frog for a wife, where spider webs
dry as they curl across my forehead. Where the forest stars
fall
into coffins in the tops of the oak trees
into coffins in the tops of the oak trees
into coffins in the tops of the oak trees where those
without countries are buried. Where their black
hands grew, holding
a cross, rain, and the falling
snow of the trees. Two large
tears flow. Where
are the deer? At the bottom of the creek
their shirts dry
where the chalk of the manor was burned out. The master
was at war in Hungary and brought back
a leg of a foreign tree: the maid
tore the feathers of screeching birds. Where did they lay
the first dog, the first cry
where is the bark of the birch? Where scattered
days sleep among the mosses
with the rabbits: with eyes open
and lips firmly clenched: I find only part
of a smile in the left pocket. Where are the two
violets from the old letter? Beyond the town's
fence the hornpipes of the blind
played as the frog
danced on the floor: like a princess on my palm
the small forest frog, brought to me by the stork
I will live until my death and will find
great truth in bread, that I crumbled
for the birds who had no nests
as I walked in the forests: once again
burial mounds will rise and the stones
will fall, and someone will run to the other side
splashing time. Where my girl
is sleeping, where my girl
is sleeping for a thousand years
and the bridge is burned
and the crow holds in its beak
her pecked out eyes
VIII.
it is a great circle: at its center
divided into several planes
the time of the middle ages: convolvulus
curls around the sharp edge of the rim: reeds
are carried across the surface of the covered lake: someone
goes straight to the hill: gypsy-like
semitic faces from the bible: beards
strangely lighted by candles
held to the side: the thick smoke of death
above the heavy altars
rises toward heaven and burns
the bodies of kings with their horses and herdsmen
nations where hoards of people, condemned
to eternal insecurity
struggle up from under the ground: they fill
the gothic yard, where saved
horses are shoed and doves
coo for love. The nation
does not yet know it is the chosen one: he is
the redeemer, a fanatic: will
nail to himself and burn
his corpse with the thick
hatred of people. Along the sides
angels with carefree faces, leaning their elbows
against the clouds: their wings
are made of the pages of books. They are not birds, which
watch so impressively from the tree tops
all that is unfolding: in the market place
toss helmets and threats
and shouts and even prayer books
or quotations, which they repeat
walking in a circle, when it's necessary
to determine who you are: here, on earth
where there is an abundance of monasteries and deserts
where you can
hear your own voice. I walk into
everything and hurry
to draw my face in the corner
of the third horizon, at the edge
of the market place, where horse manure
smells of history: I want to understand
the truth of humiliated cities, when they
with contempt reject the entire painting. No one
wanted to understand them in the new
hegemony of death, when they pull on
their togas
and things fell out of the circle and awakened
in space dissipated and fell and fell
like the mechanism of a clock
one approaching person's paintings
thousands of similarities
all the same
XII.
the encountered man in the meadow
tears himself away from his hat
turning into a peewit's wing, which takes
you up and down, crying out
"alive," circling around you: you see
how everything slips from your hands: that face
is your own, at the edge
of the mirror: how changed it is
as if wearied by illness: wagon wheels
down the road in the field, are they
turning? this place? someone
walks together from far away: at the fording place
the swollen river flooded
their wheels, and the consecrated
dead person floated
in his coffin with the current, scraping
the rock in the river bed, which broke
from memory: something
would begin ringing in the tree
tops or the bell towers, where church steeples
swayed, and crows
beat their wings creating
still untouched sounds, until they
climbed out of the water bowing
their heavy heads
at night they listened to clocks
on the deeply sleeping hearth protecting
the indecipherable inscription
beneath the portrait of the girl: mosses
sleep among the ship's timbers, where
all birds and animals and parrots
are in their cages, and elephants
with small towers on their backs from that
quickly unhooked painting, in which is
the girl's untouched cry
the East's untouched cry
where they themselves
naked and small
speak hindi with each other
walking from the sauna, having flogged
themselves with the holy days' grasses: a bag
with an infant floats down the river
where you see your face
looking as if through mist
in the market place like young crows fallen
from their nest: vagabonds,
whiskeymakers, carpenters: they don't know
how much to ask, how much
to discount
their value is the same
barely perceptible
towers and cities
from Noah's sunken ship
"alive alive": it is the shadow across the snow
Translated by Jonas Zdanys
MY FATHER'S WINE
My father made wine
and buried it in large bottles
in the orchard soil
and year after year
the wine fermented
among the roots of apple
trees and cherries.
And then he was gone,
buried far away.
I wonder if he
could find his wine
beneath the ground
where they took him.
They wouldn't let us
look for it among
the orchard's roots
and I never felt
its sweetness on my tongue.
But I believe
that when we are all
in the ground
we will gather together
to savor that homemade wine.
There will be a great celebration
and my father will lift
the first toast
for all our living and dead.
And mine will be the first
head to spin and I will be
the first to cry, to cry
that while alive
I never had the chance
to taste my father's wine.
Translated by Jonas Zdanys
METAMORPHOSES
we are all able to change
to turn into clocks or blotting paper
because we have foreseen the inconstancy of natural phenomena
today, let's say, it's raining, tomorrow it will also rain, and
a car stands, stuck in snow
that's why we'll plant
some edible beans
let's try eating them
bebebebebe
blotting paper (on which I write) is my entire inventory
and I blot myself, not using tobacco
turning into cigarette paper
papapapapa
I walk, leaning my elbows on the table, stamping my feet under
the table
check last year's drawers
in the table I discovered a swallow's nest
they winter while still in their shells
and having flown nowhere
we came barefoot from Odessa
where one vagrant lived, under a glass
where he worked on sacks, and in them fermented wine
after ten, fifteen and even twenty years
maintaining jurisdiction, where a herd of whales
jumped to shore, during a storm, some incomprehensible
phenomenon
bulldozers dragged them back to sea, on coast guard cutters
but they once again, a second time, jumped out
in our instinctive memories we searched for our ancestors' genes
we come from La Mancha, from a corpulent nefarious villager
who from his left eye saw his right ear
the children are still good
pupupupupu – they say playing
and heads roll from shoulders into the grave hole in the corner
we change places with the dead and then vice versa: powerful
metamorphoses
rattling the whole world, forcing us to decide
there is nothing, only it, that metamorphosis
led by the exotic character of churches or civilian funerals
a human bone is found, which changed turning into a mammoth
a human scissors is found, which pitied the meadow flower
a human voice is found, which turned into a shot in the
unintelligible forest
a right eye is found in a left ear, but not the opposite
a bridge to the roof is found, straight across a stream
a door to the porch is found, where graveyards stood
a board to sit on is found, time to speak is found
all a man's changes are found
all a man's changes are found
shirt, worn out trousers, vest
stockings, socks, changing like the wind
cow udders, filled with colostrum, which did not yet give milk
but drooped toward the ground, swollen and heavy
still unsucked, still not given to others
give all of yourself away, give away your thoughts
elbows on the table, feet stamp under the table
walking always on and on, and how difficult that walk
when you return you say "hello", "hello good morning"
a man's motions end, he has to remain what he is
from all this world remain only two beautiful things
friendship, protecting one from the other
when one becomes an other, protecting your worth
and the worry of others
mothers, carrying infants
a person-to-be, nourishing it with drops of blood, the one who
laughs at everything
but carrying him while stumbling, stumbling in their wombs
before appearing as a human in a primordial band
perhaps he will not kill his mother, perhaps he'll kill some other
perhaps he will pray to her, madonna, before dying, saying
farewell
the metamorphoses are finished
the metamorphoses are finished
the metamorphoses are finished, awaiting the steps of the one
who returns
Columbus said near the shores of the other continent
searching for human embryos among the beasts
in the fragrance of flowers, in the parting of women's hair
we will extend man without wanting him
saving ourselves from him with cleverly devised schemes
in a flash of sensuality, unintentionally, so he would not come
having taken everything from us, having chewed at and carried
off
our distorted joy only to justify himself, himself
only himself
from statues and sculptures
from drawings on Egyptian vases, from that distortion
we are north of that
pupupupupu
we force our hearts to hurry, to run forward
where the herd of whales jumped from a cow's udder
and lie naked, in the heat of the sun, breathing but not moving
those people thrown to shore covered in fish scales
fins and tails, the moon that night
shines cold above the seas
above lost people, above fish, already changed to roe
changed to roe, the walk is ending
to the hands alone remain on the table
hands near books, near the sheet of paper
paper
miracles and people, who long for one another
Translated by Jonas Zdanys
TRACK OF THE ANT WAR
on this side of death
they walk on the other side: they are shown
film cuttings, of the running
track of the ant war
I have nowhere to live, no work
two meters forward, a step to the side, a few more centimeters
across the heavens
and the picture frames are already empty, chiromancer, you
told a lie
they were being taken to be executed in the police car (that was
under the Germans, I think, in Italy, or maybe Greece, I don't
remember clearly)
after them followed a truck carrying their coffins
(how respectful!) at the beginning of the war
they stood their backs against a wall arms raised
only then noticed that they had forgotten the keys (their hands
were locked in cuffs) and they
refused to die with their hands chained
they sat and smoked, maquis, brave men
until the others returned from Paris with their keys
so they could be shot, at the very beginning of the war
according to protocol
they sat and smoked, maquis, brave men
eventually they returned, brought the keys and shot them
according to protocol, with free hands, according to protocol
and passing birds saw everything, that they were gone
the point is that you will be able to add nothing
while they catch crabs with torn off claws: disappear
and in fact it is beautiful to die really according to all the
regulations
the way a man should die while he is still a man
Translated by Jonas Zdanys
BABYLON
wind
in the castle's towers, where the shadow
of the crucifix soared
and fell
into water
hissing like a torch
with water
he washed chalk from his brow
crowds accosted him with deaf hand signs
having dug up
the tower
of Babylon
people rose
with closely shorn heads: dog catchers
scurried around
searching for foreigners
women
stood naked, hair loose, covering their bodies
awaiting
their turns
fires smoked in the squares: mass spectacles, destruction
of the dead
prohibition
of ghosts
a lamb
a tied lure
for those flying by
seeming to appear
Translated by Jonas Zdanys
FOUR SONGS OF ANTIQUITY
1. PLAYERS
they played
with wild trees
with wounds
with what they did not have
with swords
with beads on necks
with clothes
and were naked
then lost their bodies
allowed their hands to be bound
sold
to a foreign land
tears remained: but they did not roll from their eyes
they could have recouped their losses with them
but it was a question of honor
where are they? o where are they
players
using their own blood-stained
coins
children listened, the old man spoke, all
stared into the fire, from which
rose a spirit greater
than the body
2. INNOCENCE
they kindled a fire
gave their innocence to Vesta
while the empire corrupted
(after Nero there were many pretenders)
in beds
lovers and strange wives
and debauchery
and astrologers
betrayed
the goddess Vesta's temple
trampled innocence
themselves
gods
rejoiced, prepared vengeance, did not protect them
priests, emperors
concubines
only one astrologer
young, examined the stars closely
and said that the earth
would open
they hurried to punish
the destroyers of innocence with death
but too late: Vesuvius
began smiling above their heads
ashes
buried Pompeii
the old man said, children listened
longing for the innocence of vestals
3. JESTERS
jesters
are free
and so pretend
to be fools
gladiators, ah
are slaves
to the beauty of public spectacle
kill one another
but the emperor
overthrown
it is the jester
who laughs loudest
his last prank: a corpse
swinging
beside the toppled
throne
but gladiators
they can become free
only if their help is needed
on the stages of conspiracy
what would you rather be? –
the old man asked the children – jesters
or gladiators
killing one another for the beauty of public spectacle
the children were silent
but one, shouting loudly
killed
the old man
4. THE SPIRIT OF THE TEACHER
the old man was silent, the children argued
then grabbed the short swords
blowing flower petals from their lips
(they plucked blossoms with their lips as they inhaled)
roses fell on the old man's corpse
astrologers
from sacrificial entrails divined
the resurrection of goodness
vestal virgins
in their imaginings caressed infants
without touching
the body
players
gnawed ropes from their hands
and played
with blood-stained coins
children awakened
quite late
the old man rose
with the gladiators
see, he said, I confirmed myself
in your bodies
the spirit
is greater than you
Translated by Jonas Zdanys
IF MY LIFE...
If my life is like climbing a mountain
When a slip
Means a fall
Into a yawning abyss,
And a trip of the foot
Gaping wounds,
If my life is like climbing a mountain
When one hand keeps on gripping
The hand of the man who's above me,
The other outstretched
To the man who's below,
If my life is like climbing a mountain
I must look only straight and ahead,
For all those looking back
Lose their balance
And suddenly fall to the ground,
If my life is like climbing a mountain
When each day
And each step that I take
Opens up
Ever broader horizons
And I see I am getting closer
To the radiant face of the sun –
If my life is like climbing a mountain
I shall die when the summit is won!
Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis
RETROSPECT
To take into poetry
the haze of autumn peatbogs,
to fill all my pockets
with clusters of hazel nuts;
to take into poetry
the sad lowing of a cow
on whose milk depended
a cotful of barefoot children;
to take into poetry
the ring of a dew-bright scythe
and to pick from the swaths
all the sad meadow flowers;
to take into poetry
the clatter of dusty carts
and the folk after Sunday service
removing their shoes art the roadside;
to take into poetry
a faded well-thumbed reader
with poems never written
by consumptive poets;
to take into poetry
a fluttering crimson flag
aflame since dawn
on a roadside birch –
is to take into poetry
my very own childhood
staring at the world
with wide-open curious eyes.
Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis
THE JEWISH CEMETERY
For Shalom'ke, my childhood friend
during the Great War the pub burned down
bramble pickers flew to the forests
a girl called here-pigey-pigeons! to doves shot dead
but the doves fell straight into the Jewish cemetery
later stones remained alone
no one divided them – burdensome furniture
someone is sleeping in those same beds, as before death
fallen asleep in the cemetery, they wait still for their children
but their children have turned to smoke
become wildflowers in the wood, the Jewish dynasty
is broken. Only stones
scatter wind and stars erase stone
the river skips before us, I hold onto it with my hands
waving from the corner of a handkerchief to those left ahead
now I am a Jew and wear
a yellow star on my back, like their glances and their talk
as they carted the graves' stones to the crematorium
a storm approached, and Moses on an ashen mount
spoke with God in the language of the deaf and dumb
till God slammed the window shut and toppled under the table
only two nightingales didn't know Yiddish
two nightingales – I carry them in my pockets
resting on indecipherable stones
in the cemetery, whose people have vanished
Translated by Laima Sruoginis
BIRD IN FREEDOM
1.
no one cries
early morning wind
2.
where the long-haired monk prays nodding
black Madonna
river
3.
a small pear cries on a windy night
while drops heavy as fruit fall on the tops of bee hives
tops beneath green trees
beneath smoke gathering above them
mercy! sawdust, gas masks
carved wooden faces, fallen
letters from beneath rocks, the silenced
earth, faithful, and peat, steaming, mute
the centrifuge spins, rain
spins above our heads, and lightning
turns around, strange, at the fields' edge towards the village
towards the dripping seer, who tells
of a servant girl killed on a bicycle
at the corner of the churchyard
by red army trucks, wheels, the same, a coffin
expanding, expanding cemeteries, above roofs
candles
the wind's steps across the table
concrete
slabs
4.
search for the truth, clutch your heart and cry out
the silhouette of tragedy in the window
I won't die, no, my promise is for real
at the moment of truth lemon will melt in a glass
a swarm of bees will hover within the linden, that will be blooming
mother will come out, call us in for breakfast (a voice from the grave)
and you will come, feet bare, skipping through your childhood
a repressed face, horrible, terrifying, you don't answer
don't hear your mother's voice, the rabbits lie shot on the kitchen floor
an asphalt road of lies grows from the roots of truth
and a horseshoe is nailed to the forehead of the one going to paradise
proving truth
proving sleeplessness
proving poverty
proving the unprovable
beneath the bell tower
whose bells have drowned in the lake
bitter airplanes, two-fisted wings
the remaining bits of experience
dusty reeds by the roadside
coming to pray
they crumple under the oak
the shadow of bees in the linden
mother's voice from childhood's graves
and you, crying, your tiny fists clenching my shirt, my chest
in a tight grip
and I promise: I won't die
5.
really, where the body naked, where thought-pictures, where the bandage,
a blossom tied in two, but after all it's a bud
there is no trust, cat and bird
the cat is in a cage – the bird is in freedom
I live in all corners, in all fingers
without my own home, my own corner
without my own cage, a bird in freedom
I dream my reflection in the river's waters
oh, be true, street cleaner
gardener, selling flowers tied
into a bunch, bluing into space
into home in all the corners, into the ghetto
there is no death here, no death in the olive garden
chisels, pliers, hammers, curling-tongs
valerian's roots, given to the cat in the cage
valerian's scent, after the storm, in the wind
give me back my childhood, give back the bee hives my father nailed together
files, planes, the bees' honey, the scent of bean stalks
that is us on the red brick kitchen floor peeling beans
the kerosene lamp smokes, childhood's scent, a sleepy silent midnight
see the kitty, see the birdie, valerian
in a paper bag on the shelf
see the kitty, drunk, rolling in laughter
he has found his cat-nip
then they shut him up in a bird cage
then they took him far away by cart in circles ever closer and closer
till the circumference of the earth ended
on the opposite side of the manor orchard
beside the roadside cross, the cat is crucified
but the bird is free, holy ghost, in God's world
the free bird watches from between the bars
how the cat expires in the summer's heat
how snow falls on his white fur
snow on Christ's hat
on Mohammed's cane
on Buddha's character
absolute nothing understandable
see my beans, garlic, beeswax, honey
honeycombs, a mirror melted by the sun's oven, I
do not resemble myself, not having yet seen you, still waiting
for you to come, the only one, princess, on peas, on beans, on acorns
farewell, thank you, you came
farewell, you came too late, no longer here
I was already sleeping beneath peas, beans, nuts
taken off the cross and buried
an infant, tiny, bird, cat
a cage for myself, a circle within me
something within me, unfamiliar to me
I, pea, bean, nuts
6.
scorched memories flicker in smoldering embers
and convulsions of suffering course southwards
spring winds drag, birds rise from the rushes
on the bottom of the Kiršinas a peat moss kingdom lies
the mill, the sawmill, the road over the railroad crossing
burial mounds sinking, beneath the water already, below the dam
snorting, an elk runs, shakes itself out, runs
till he crumples onto ice and slides, slides
I long for you, I need you desperately
everyone is drunk here, and God's son has been shot
I argue with them, trying to prove that he could not have been drinking
everything was frozen, wounded, he could only chew snow
I long for you, the elk, out of the forest, was shot
his rack and soul smashed into a roadside birch
God toppled out of the tree, and in his hand he held a pie
I long for you, miss you, wailing
they say human kind can no longer be saved, from beneath the ice, a
fish, from beneath the ice
hung by bait, a fisherman caught by a fish
shot dead they lay in lines on the ice, in the plaza before the church
and a crow hops from one forehead to the next
they pull fingers from rings, take away watches
from hours, yank calendars from their brains
and now, snorting, the elk runs on the opposite edge of the break in the clouds
standing, missing you, in the forest by the fire
tossing a hot coal from palm to palm
I long for you, I say it quietly, so you wouldn't hear
so you wouldn't come here, where I am alive only in longing
I long for you after so many frozen days
books smolder in a campfire on my shelf, the guard paces
run, elk, run, not crumpling to your knees, not knocking
your rack up against your breasts, against your lips
run, elk, run, endless longing
the only one, of all of them, the last
run
7.
from this and that side of the horizon
from a three leaf clover, from morning's dew
from a stone tossed aside at the crossroads
a river
you, me
from sawmills and windmills between us
from sewing machines and carding houses
from sugar, from flour, from a dozing pillow
you stood then in my memory
there, where there was no you, no me
where there was a board fence, where there were sagging gates
and a child burst out spinning a wheel rim
in the forest the berries are ripe, the nuts ready
in the forest the first snow has fallen, the first deer prints
and hounds baying, barking down, down
you slept beneath the frozen river
you stood inside the mirror
you sat behind the portrait in the wall
you went opposite all that, opposite the final page
of the prayer book I did not believe in
I stood in the church and watched how the sun's rays fall through stained glass
you were opposite the confessional, opposite the alter, opposite organ music
opposite me, the way I still was to be, opposite
the way I wasn't, but you are
shy and timid, strange and easily startled
by what is true:
the dark muck of this world
the quiet of death under clanging cemetery bells
you stammered: I
God help you
God help you
help
death is within each fruit
within each fruit is you
you are in bread, in a daisy, in an onion budding violet
only I am already beyond all that, far
as irretrievable and irrevocable as childhood
8.
birds, alight, temporary bird-house, bolts
a cabin choppable in two and dividable
at the bottom of the well, my headache pills
removed in greeting together with my hat
together with my hair, scalped
for my own sake, head placed beneath my feet
evening, beneath my legs, trees, beneath my feet
nature greets a ditch dug beneath my feet
listen? hear? mice scratching
in my stomach, a briefcase full of lard,
three pounds of rye, hear? Taurus
paces, sensing tomorrow he'll be slaughtered
slaughtered, hear? they're sharpening their knives
in the manor smithy, black grimy faces
in the well a model of the universe spins
we children swim in the Jewish cemetery together with ancient ghosts
hear? fire, hear? the heart beats
hear, recognizing my scalp, I stop short in the market grounds
where horses in wagons parked backwards
read headlines covering tomatoes
my name? I. surname? no – I
waiting for spring I survived the winter
Taurus' scalp, Taurus' hat
along with the apples, the gate to the orchard grows wormy
on your breast is prayer, on your breast is blossom
on your breast is a wagon, full of hay and logs
on your breast is me, reading a newspaper, eating tomatoes and staring
straight at the church from the front
it is built like a work house, the Kaiser's officers in uniform
pose along with me for a photograph
they've already removed their scalps and hold them in their left hands,
above their hearts
I understood: I go straight into the church
through the open wool scour doors Christ in felt boots
sits conversing with a few Jews at his knees
I approach him (he is on the cross) and remove his scalp
my hands are bloody, I am holding his crown of thorns
hear? I'm here, hear? between us
there was nothing, two remaining Jews
prop up a ladder and climb up
into the pigeon loft: we are doves, doves
9.
simply a quiet corner to die in
a quiet corner, your own, that you wouldn't be tossed out of into the
street in the morning
where they wouldn't ask you the next day to leave
If I had a quiet corner to die in
a quiet corner and more: scissors
a mirror, ears, hands and socks
and an apron for washing, for you,
and lipstick to blow out the fire
that I could have but a piece of my own pain
pain, that reflected up from the river as I walked past
pain that lies at the bottom of the river
repeating, it is not mine
to think that people live each day not recognizing themselves in the
reflection of the river
not finding their sorrow, not recognizing it after rain
when it rinses off the alcohol, routine, anaemia, sleep
working and rising each day, each day after work
oh, how I love myself
I like to chew myself and stick the bits into me
I like to see myself, familiar, in the river
or in my corner over-explaining, putting myself on display
I like to see myself
I like the shadows of his pain coming through the window of a strange apartment
I know the price of a bottle, the heart floating in it
I know Rumpelstiltskin bathing in the river
they're unhappy, I don't envy them
they suffer more than I do
but they've grown accustomed to being hanged and don't notice
and pain for them is Rumpelstiltskin's daily sleep
I see you on the riverbank undressing
I'm not his mermaid, not his, not Rumpelstiltskin's
I was born in pain, giving birth to pain and pain
united us on the riverbed hooray
there we will find our corner to die in
and our souls will float to the river's surface
like two young gods, and our bodies will lie in the grass
and only our clothing will ascend to heaven, fire's clothing
we did not recognize it
I waded halfway into myself
the other half remained in the water
standing at an angle to me
blossoms opened out
in little stars from our bodies' pores
and a trinity remained: the body, the soul, and our clothing, missing us
and the lonely corner cried
I was still afraid of my own corpse
my signature, my passport, my gravestone
I was still afraid of my first letter
I still have my final letter
hooray! hooray for monotony
the routine after death, the daily routine, I lost myself
I was
after my death, I no longer am
thank you, you took over my reflection
from the underside of the water, you reflected me
you took me over
oh, how wonderful it is to die again
from a new corner
your hip's curve
blossoms of pain, like little stars
bloom in my mouth
Translated by Laima Sruoginis
THE UNRAVELLING
The candles flickered. The organ was moaning and sighing. The two
of them stood facing the altar. One more ring flashed on
her finger, this one without any diamond.
There followed a slow, gentle kiss. It lasted twenty years. A son
was born, and a daughter.
The stronger the daughter's laughter sounded, the darker
his face grew.
He never gave his son war toys as a present.
One evening men in uniform entered their modest chateau.
He turned yellow as wax. Quietly looked over to his wife.
Kissed his daughter on the head.
"Don't wait for me. Go to sleep. I won't be coming back."
That night a Jewish woman who had been burned to death crept
into the wife's bedroom and one by one started stripping
the diamond rings off her fingers. She herself
removed the wedding band and gave it up.
The son left home. The daughter went mad.
Only the widow was left in the castle. Not alone though: several
hundred men and women lived in with her.
Youngsters, girls. All had been shot.
Besides these, three small children up on daggers.
Translated by Vyt Bakaitis
* * *
jumping up I can sometimes
reach the sky
climbing the roof to its top
my ear to the night's breast
hear the stars sparkling
sometimes I seem to have no strength
afraid I'll suddenly vanish
somewhere between sleep
and waking
Translated by Vyt Bakaitis
* * *
there were such cloudbursts then
one small cloud running in
beat the dust flat in the road
five minutes cycling
from start to finish
rooftops and drains
all at once turned on loud
we danced barefoot
splashing the world to all sides
and all I still wanted was
a girl to come out of the poems
out of the rye
out of the sounding river
when braids run wet
each drop a clear note
there were such cloudbursts then
Translated by Vyt Bakaitis
* * *
a poet has the right to speak
for all
even those deprived of their right to speak
or mute
a poet has the right to live
the life of all
even those who've killed themselves
or forgotten to live
a poet has the right to know
what's known to all
or what you know
your own way to be
Translated by Vyt Bakaitis
* * *
phones talk all night
tied up all night talking
rivers run over
swamping the, parks
the benches where figures from the past
small in the distance still sit
stuck there wondering
their feet in the water
all night long
it snows the snows of May
unwritten love letters
that melt at noon
all night at the head of my bed
a rosebush smiles and smiles
going over my life story
all night in a city asleep
the phones keep blossoming
Translated by Vyt Bakaitis
* * *
for Kazys Boruta
they lean on their shovels
and listen to the eulogies
by the edge of a black abyss
getting to know the person
their erudition has grown
over a span of years
regarding coffin and decedent
they know what each is worth
their eyes are calm
searching out strong lifelines
they take in and evaluate
unexpected cultural merit
the shovelling sounds a harsh
somber applause
to the beauty
of human
life
Translated by Vyt Bakaitis
* * *
a tree cut down stays up
a bird shot down still flies
broken records play on
I can hear inside me
lines I never wrote down
that a knife carved
in big linden shade
by heavy moonlight
while beyond the ceiling
somebody's fingers strayed
over a cold keyboard
Translated by Vyt Bakaitis
* * *
how the years run
on and on
summer runs barefoot over the snow
those same footsteps I step in
lagging behind
myself
all the birds
gone from their nests
all the bees
asleep in the hives
I'm the only one keeps having this dream
of summer a hundred years old
swinging away
under a flowering linden
Translated by Vyt Bakaitis
THE THREE WRIGHTS
Three wheelwrights went down the road, singing:
"Had we no need
belly to feed,
having eaten our fill
get drunk as well,
for justice in the world, there'd be
equality! fraternity!"
Three wrights went down the road, saying:
"What the hands earn, belly eats up.
What the hands earn, belly eats up."
Three wrights went down the road, swearing:
"String 'em up, the bellies. We'll string 'em up!"
Then all three jumped a ditch and went deep into the woods.
And stopped in front of three oaktrees.
And strung up the bellies.
Then they breathed easy.
Walked back out.
Grabbed a cab.
Back to town.
All around them people were eating and drinking,
and starving to death.
And the wrights whistled as they went on with their work.
Rims for the Big and Little
Dippers.
Rings around Sun and Moon.
And on the pond's surface.
Also sleds.
The years went fast.
More and more now, in dreams, they drank wine and prepared roasts.
Then one day
while out to get fresh lumber for a set of spokes
they came across the bellies they'd left behind in the woods.
These gluttons had gnawed the three oaktrees down and lay withering
in the sun, on three stumps.
The three lit a cigarette each
and took to thinking it over.
The wood-doves cooed.
There was a smell of hay off the fields.
The wrights picked up their bellies.
Stuffed them full of roasts and swilled wine in, saying:
"Let belly eat up what the hands earn."
And when they slept, blossoms no longer fell on their faces.
Translated by Vyt Bakaitis
|
Vytautas Bložė, born in the town of Baisogala in central Lithuania, was the son of a pharmacist, who also owned land. In 1946 Bložė's father was sentenced to death for administering medical aid and care to Lithuanian partisan fighters. Later that sentence was changed to fifteen years hard labor in Siberia. (Bložė's father died in Siberia in 1953). In 1948 Bložė's mother and sister were exiled to Siberia. Vytautas Bložė was able to avoid deportation by living in various hiding places in Lithuania. Bložė's poetry deals honestly with issues such as partisan warfare, mass deportation, subjugation of the will, while at the same time remaining true to art. Much of his subject matter is drawn from his experiences (and metaphorically the experiences of a generation) living in hiding in war-torn Lithuania. In 1972, just as his epic poem Preludes was about to be published, his work was banned outright by the Soviet regime. Up until 1981 none of his work was allowed to be published; his name was crossed out whenever it appeared in an article or periodical. Despite over ten years of censorship, and a sentence served as a prisoner of conscience in a Soviet "psychiatric" hospital. Since the reinstatement of Lithuania's independence, Bložė has been able to publish many of the manuscripts he kept in hiding during the bleak years of Soviet occupation. He has published thirteen collections of poems, has translated Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Greek, Russian and Polish poetry into Lithuanian. Among others, he has translated the work of Lermontov, Pushkin, Nekrasov, Schiller, Vallejo, Cavafy, and Heine. In 1991 Bložė received the Lithuanian National Prize for his book Nocturnes. This was the first National Prize given after the restoration of Lithuanian independence. Since his first collection of poems appeared in 1961, he has been instrumental in revivification of the Lithuanian poetic voice and in the expansion and further articulation of the Lithuanian poetic idiom. Bložė is considered to be one of the most important innovators in modern Lithuanian poetry, and his work has influenced generations of younger writers, who have sought as well to liberate the tradition from conventions of form, theme, and expression –- a fact made increasingly possible because of the ground Bložė managed to break in the face of great aesthetic and political opposition. |
