In any rash attack they cannot cross his bridge
But broach the river and ravine
Down at the estuary or far upstream.
He listens to the stunning bloodrush of their arms
And shakes his head, never grows older
As he bends to his paper which one side or the other
Contrives to set, with food, by his hands’ reach.
Sometimes sly messengers approach at night
Suggesting he writes and then recites
Upon some momentary theme
To suit one side and damn the other,
At which he nods, tells jokes and riddles
Agrees to everything and promises
That for them he’ll tear the world apart
With his great reading.
He stays young, ignoring all requests and prophecies,
But his bridge grows old, the beams and ropes brittle,
And some night alien figures
In a half-circle at each dim bridgehead
Brandish knives and axes. Lanterns flash,
Blades and points spark like spinning moons
Gathering as he puts away pens and parchment,
Closes his eyes, and does not wake for a week,
Knowing he will once more dream
The familiar childhood dream
Of falling down the sheer side of the world
And never wake up.
But he owns and dominates his bridge.
It is his bread and soul and only song –
And if the people do not like it, they can cut him free.
LEFT AS A DESERT
Left as a desert:
Deserted by one great experience
That pulled its teeth and shackles out
And left me as a desert
Under which bones are buried
Over which the sand drifts.
Seven years gone like laden camels:
The gravel and the wind
Is piling this vast desert up
To one sky and one colour
And sky reflecting desert shapes.
The solitary heart lurks on the off-chance
That rain clouds will come and fertilize
The great experience that made this desert.
LOVE IN THE ENVIRONS OF VORONEZH
Love in the environs of Voronezh
It’s far away, a handsome town
But what has it to do with love?
Guns and bombers smashed it down.
Yet love rebuilt it street by street
The dead would hardly know it now
And those who lived forgot retreat.
There’s no returning to the heart:
The dead to the environs go
Away from resurrected stone.
Reducible to soil and snow
They hem the town in hard as bone:
The outer zones of Voronezh.
GOODBYE KURSK
The thin moon sliced the heart out as it fell,
Then effortlessly made its way
To the earth’s true middle:
The only cure is to fall in love.
The moon gives back what it takes away.
Blocks of flats blot out the moon.
People live with happiness and work;
I left my love too soon, too soon,
So wait for me, it won’t seem long.
She put sugar in my coffee
Lit my cigarette
Fed my eyes with the glow of lost desire
Wept when I walked away.
Write to me: it won’t seem long.
Hull down: tanks are waiting.
I hear them coming through the dust.
FEBRUARY POEMS
Forests have turned into desert
Powdering the soul to ash,
But sand sends out new blossoms
Till flowers and trees grow strong again.
In the desert that was once a forest
Where eyes see only dust and fire,
Tears dry even as one drinks
On water freely flowing.
Sandgrains fly up nostrils
Turn cool in their protecting flesh,
Salting blood to make a forest
Before the soul can perish.
A brittle seed feeds on the deepest sandgrain
Where the sweated liquid of despair
Makes a forest from the driest desert.
* * *
Through a gap in snowlace curtains
Winter turns to fire and sun:
Heat makes the earth a board to spread on
Dust drummed solid by a white sun descending.
Needle-tips tattoo cat-scars on the sky,
Drum-beating letters burn: no escape
From the flat white iron of the sun,
No fauna living but serpent skeletons
Bleached so clean the weakest breath
Can blow such bones as dust.
The white-hot circle blacks out life:
Lie flat and stroke the earth
Before rain comes and rivers overflow.
* * *
Hope, a longing for something new,
Crushes the beetle of the past.
When hope takes hold its ruthlessness
Feeds on the purest fuel of injustice,
And sharpens the spike for action.
* * *
Whatever you want — bites the fingers.
Be careful what you want:
Wait for the chill river to separate the limits of desire,
For icy banks to break the watercourse
And sweep all venom clean.
* * *
Let go, feet tear ladder-rungs
Losing views of pepper dunes
Beyond ampersand trees
In the withered arm of the horizon.
Between the toll of heartsick
Into hole and hiding
The eye of winter’s snake-sun
Needles into the heart
Paralyzing both hands to let go.
* * *
Life begins when love’s game is ended.
Live, and death starts biting:
The game robs you of life.
A week of rain, and the house is an island,
A mudtrack after months of drought
Leads to the paved road.
A smell of spring freshens the brain,
And water slops at the bank as I wade through.
No black sky can finish off the never-ending game,
Or engines drown the memory of peace.
* * *