is permitted a non-i-ppearance
wants libert-i
——
Tramcar, tramcar, squat and wide!
Pushkin pops his clogs inside!
Dingle-dangle Pushkin-Schmushkin
Dying cloudberries in the bushkin
Demigod theomorph
Dig the burning peaty turf
Innokenty Annensky
Stuck between heresky and theresky
Is feeling miserably empty
At the station in Tsarskoselsky
All the hungry passengers
Waiting in the railway shack
Say Look! A Bone is stuck in your Throat!
But the bone is red-lipped gabriak.
No I won’t be your good boy,
The teenage poet blurts—
Voloshin can have his way with them
Stick his fingers up their skirts,
Crimean wine, bearded philanderer …
Now Blok appears—is gone again
Under the sun of Alexander
Polyakov picks up the reins.
Ancient Scythian stone women
Glow as they crumble
Instagram posts for Soviet airmen,
Seizing wheat ears as they scramble
Now fire the search engine!
Fix eyepiece on the earth’s sphere!
Glazova and Barskova
Are coming over loud and clear.
There was an old woman who lived in a shoe
All the poets were full of woe
And nobody knew what to do.
Dying, like clearing out a room
Without making a fuss
Resurrection, if and when
——
visible delicate
invisible inviolate
nearest dearest
souring, steeping
delayed en route
root of the
wormwood
clamped
in the teeth
wordeed
wordtree
word wood
beasting
the unbested
suspended, resisted
put by in secrets
halfcracked halfvolk
——
let her come out herself and say something
(and we’ll listen to you)
she won’t come out
it won’t come right
speaks from the heart
(tchaikovsky! let me die but first)
but she says it like she doesn’t mean it
it even seems like her words
might have come from someone else
always over-stylizing
like she’s dressing a corpse
where’s her inimitable intonation
the breath catching in her throat
that individual stamp
recognizable from a single note
(the work of an engineer and not of a poet)
(not lyrics, mechanics—
signs not of a lady but of a mechanic)
and these projects all the time
as if the cold sweat of inspiration
on her forehead never made her hair stand on
enough, I said, I’m prigov
you prigs can fuck off
——
when blossoms tum-ti-tum
for the last time the blossom
in the dooryard bloomed
the lilac in the dooryard bloomed
and stars that shoot along the sky
not yet will measureless fields be green
and dancing by the light of the moon
the light of the moon
and after april when may follows
banquet halls up yards and bunting-dressed
and breasts stuck white with wreath and spray
marked off the girls unreally from the rest
who lined the sidings grimly gay
(she loves embedding quotes because
she can’t be without love)
washed by the rivers blest by the suns of home
my land, I love your vast expanses!
your steppe & coachmen, costumed dances!
your peddlers of mystic trances!
and murdered tsar nicholas
oh, and kitezh’s watery kingdom
and how above our golden freedom
rises gloom dusk cumulus
how early that star drooped in the chilled western air
I’ll remember may the first and the scent of your hair
when for the last time
when we saw
last one to the gate is a rotten egg
and they run and run
——
and so I decided
I was told
curly feathers of metro marble
milk white enamel girls
in gilded kazakh skull caps
and children with gently determined faces
you, blue-eyed aeronauts and machine gunners
saboteurs, cavalrymen and tank drivers
fringe-finned guardsmen, officers
platforms of shaggy crouching partisans
and especially the border guard’s alsatian
plum blossom in a golden bowl
early morning crimea
ballerina winding herself widdershins
apollo in singlet and hockey shorts
alabaster profile on wedgwood medallion
clearly sketched in a golden oval
aeroplane wreathing omens in the clouds
hercules, given to omphale
you must have forgotten
in the passageway leading to the circle line
——
Do you remember, Maria
our twilit corridor
nineteen-forties Russia
a settlement, post war
dances to the radiogram
twostep at arm’s length
freight trains loaded
with gold and frankincense
those hard done hard won
those barely alive
down on your bare knees
a head against your thigh
tea twinkles in the strainer
steams in the room
bulbous iron knobs
where a cheap dress is thrown
remember how she stood
weeping on the porch
when they hunted him down
caught him in the church
smiling, he was led
looked back as if to say
then a round in the head
and a truck sped away
at the crack of fire
you turned and left
and cranked up your life
and lived it cleft.
——
my brother said you’re a fascist
you sing up, and I’ll sing loud
we’ll be back when the trees are in leaf
but I’ll stand my ground
when the leaves are in fist
and the deer dances past the oak
the antifascist flips to fascist
and the wood goes for broke
words are attached to things
with old twine
and people lay down with their tubers
in the ground for all time
but them, they cross yards
with lists and chalk
and lick the paint off window sills
with tongues that fork
fascist fattish fetish
flatfish, flippery, facetious
but the air knows we’re not of them,
none of you or us
untie the words
let them drop in a corner
and the wood will call back its men
non omnis moriar.
——
across the vast rippling sound
under the evening star
from the furthest shore
floated a wooden box
you couldn’t hear any captain aboard
you couldn’t see any sailors
all you could see a faint flickering light
(it floats closer to our home)
all you could hear a faint scratching
as if something was awake in the case but crumbling
shifting handful by handful
all you could hear the dripping and crackling of wax
and water psalm by psalm
read then washed away
then read and washed away
forgive me forgive me my friend
let me perish
it isn’t about that
don’t run along the shore after me
along a path that doesn’t exist
legs collapsing under you
don’t look for my wooden box
bobbing in the shallows
caught in the reeds
and most of alclass="underline" don’t take off the lid
turn your back on the old world
don’t take off my lid