A king’s ransom: gold
Frankincense and myrrh
Won’t light us through the cold
Won’t ward off the hunger
So it was all a lie, my girl.
No need to caress the brambles
Or finger through the copse
I’m the empty corner of old cloth
The earth has lain on top.
Poems from earlier collections
Bus Stop: Israelitischer Friedhof
Along the bus route, to the right and all in front
The letters on the wall spell out G – O – D.
And issuing from the mouth with unprecedented force
Involuntary, like a speech bubble: Lord. Have mercy.
And so another verst slips
By, with such and such upon the lips.
Like the cheapest ballad of a briar
At the bus stop, yet bearing on apace.
It runs at you and unwreathes
Like a paper handkerchief blossoms on your face
The whole town momently bathed in light
Climbing to the upper branches for a sight
Dumbstruck at the balustrades
Watching, like the neighbour, from behind her lace,
How the dead rise from their graves.
There is no place for the living on dead ground
Even there, where the first lady of the sod,
Soviet Maize, strode on limbs earth-bound
And waxed unceremonious towards the Gods
The young mother, the queen bee
Who has learnt to gather up like children, the glean
Of harvests, meadows and sowings
Her tongue sucking sap from the weed
A cocktail of vital air and dank mould-green
Blood and water from the left flank flowing.
Even here where she leafs through the fields
Speaking with the voices of seasons
Where the antennae quiver, the swarm breathes
And unready minds are breached
By the promise of bright new reasons.
Thimble-bodied, the sparrows flit and fly
The sparrows, as shaggy as foxes.
Where a cross is formed from every outline
And, like the maypole, surges to the sky
And flies – but onto the ropes, like boxers.
So at dawn they lie stilclass="underline" her, him, any of us
Like the babe in its pram, the ice in the compress
Like the unborn child in the amniotic flow
Its soft down washing in the womb’s scumble
Like a headcount in a children’s home
Like a little finger loose in a thimble.
Is anyone easy in their skin? How about the one
Who will wake embraced and held tight?
Moses in his basket, the muses’ suckling son
The newlywed appearing in smoke and light?
Stepping across the reproductive earth, one as two.
In imitation of spring, whispering, renewed
And will he give thanks and praise
For this duality, so newly gained…
Is he easy in his skin? Who was pulled into light
And opened himself for the first shriek
Between red and white, between doctor and breast
The indignity of air in the barrelling chest
Now speak!
Nor is there place for the living in the warm surf.
Is anyone easy in their skin? Is anyone easy enough?
And clutching at the very last the last of all
The hands I can trust, I glance out over the silclass="underline"
Between soothing and surviving, between living and dead
There is a secret place, I know
I cannot steal it, nor is it my debt
Nor will I leave it alone.
In the deadest of all dead places at the heart
Of the earth, in an empty sleeve, in the untouched dust
Of endless cenacles, each colder than the last
Brought to life by the cooing of doves.
On the buses terminating at and on their paths
In the darkening bushes, the unworkplaces
The brashly lit halls where kids learn martial arts
On orphaned balconies, two joining faces.
Buying the day’s pretzels
Crossing with the bicycles
Every warehouse loader, every wife, every girl
This place drags them all into its thrall.
I stand by it like a watchman, pacing my duty
Borne by invisible hands, in a heaven that is earthly
At the cemetery, where the eternal act of bringing forth
Is the meeting and parting with a new natural force.
(as they must)
Night terrors
Marching their way –
Dragoons of them, tapping
Their beetle legs like twigs on dry paper.
The native population of the heart’s nether-nation
Their tears cocked like a loaded weapon
Like a lesson got by rote, your words of explanation.
Once they’re in, they devour everything.
And you, sweet reading
Lifting the lamp’s lit arms above its head
Spreading your tent above fallen dreamers
Hiding the Jew in an empty store cupboard.
And you, courage,
Fear’s flushed veneer.
The pointless ability to rest one’s cheeks in one’s hands
And lift one’s own head like a cup –
A cup
Barely half-filled
And quite useless:
The wine of madness, its dark contents
Spreading and taking hold in the animal body.
Oh how it foams,
Full of the dark fruits
Veiled over with a dull-blue film
Like the eye of a dying bird.
(He knows
Will he help?
Will he mix the wine with water?
Turn out the sleepless plasma screen?)
We deny, we turn away,
We walk the road step by step
Breathing with our eyes, hardly able to bear each other up,
We see acorns, fixed in the dirt clay:
Morning, morning is here!
How many of you there were, acorns.
The ones without caps,
The shaved heads of Cossacks
Burnt black in the sun,
Hardened, with long running scars.
And the ones like children, thick-walled,
Tiny barrels, big-headed boys,
So very sure of themselves
Born for the palm of the hand.
For the roll of the fist, for the life in a pocket
(A pitch dark, populous, perspiring pocket?)
In somebody’s possibly kindly grasp.
You aren’t for growing, for unfurling
You aren’t for rupturing the paper earth,
And humming from root to topmost leaf,
Like a hive interrupted.
Nor for the extending of a ship’s long deck
Or for the wearing of a feast on your back
Or for the lying as someone else’s bed.
You were meant for another purpose.
The squirrel busies itself, the wind passes through
Rat-a-tat!
One by one, two by two
All they know is how to fall on the road
Where they lie, as they must.
Fish
In a tin bath, a tin bath she lay
We poured water in, and mixed in some salt
One man got drunk, another repaired the transmitter,
A fourth man wandered the shore in lament:
What would he tell his grandchildren, but I digress:
Speaks no English, has not expressed hunger,
Still one should do something – cook, or offer something raw.
This cannot be, it simply cannot be.
Eyes – hungry, wide-lipped, hair
Like wet hay, pale as ice and smelling of vodka;
If it turns on its side even slightly, a line
Of vertebrae knots the length of the back, like on yours.
Not a word of Russian, most likely Finno-Ugric
But sadly no experts were at hand
When the nets were cast in hope that morning
And the beast smiled and beat its tail in greeting.
Twilight, tins were opened, lamps brought in.
Cards and a chessboard appeared without undue haste.
I try debating with our mechanic, but he won’t take the bait.