with the night sentry
prostitutes pale shadows
under the shadows of trees on the arterial road
blinded by headlamps
approach the cars
careful like deer to the feeder
wagon-restaurant plastic flowers
menu in gilded letters on leatherette
waitress with bitemarks on her neck
anyone who speaks as I can’t yet speak
dust storm at the railway halt
where on another day we could have lit up a cigarette
the expanse of fields, rain-moist and restless
a retired officer in a military coat
a truck driver in his lit cabin, now we can see
whether it’s high-walled like a palace’s eaves
and whether light will dispel darkness between two tiny towns.
place your hand on my I and I will give way to desire
June 2014
War of the Beasts and the Animals
look, the spirits have gathered at your bedside
speaking in lethean tongues
hush-a-bye, so flesh and fine,
for what do you long?
*
I smiled
he said, marusya,
marusya, hold on tight and down
we went
*
no vember
the cruellest month, the hoarsest mouth
driving from the dead clay
peasants forged to the field,
cows, curs, leaving over their dead body
the postbag snagged in the stream
the tin spoon
the quick streams slipping the quicksilver
slip sliding away to the estuary
this little piggy went to market
and this little piggy froze to death
and the landowner put a gun to his head
and a black car came for the officer
the greek in odessa, the jew in warsaw
the callow young cavalryman
the soviet schoolboy
gastello the pilot
and all those who died in this land
out of the murky pool, the surface still warmed by the sun
in a night in may, steps rus al ka and quickly begins her work
throws her wet clothes from her tramples with her wet feet
her black body shines her white smock cast
mother, mother is that you? alyosha I don’t rightly know
o swallow, swallow, is it her? she flew away, my friend
*
such high-minded intercourse
topples and must fall at last
a plague a’ both your
(ivy-clad turret, waterside folly)
masha learns on breakfast tv
’er petticoat was yaller an’ ’er little cap was green
till apples grow on an orange tree
breaches of password security
if I were drowned in the deepest sea
thus sung the maid down in the valley
russian actor mikhail porechenkov
fingers his warm little rifle
like the latest novelty musical box
like he’s desperate
to grow his own golden fleece
and the narrow water’s already round his knees
svyatoslav in kiev did hear the ringing of that knell
and tom thumb
bid them listen
who were of the lands of surozh and korsun:
black night brings long strings
foot-foot-foot-foot slogging
all the millers-of-god
hi ho hi ho and off they go
to civil war
*
lathe operator lay to the left
a general touched his side
over the marxist’s chest
the liberal’s curls spread wide
o your goldenes haar
and a pair of blue eyes
few words spoken
feel free to surmise
thou art the armourer of the heart
sing me a ditty, something from rossini
rosina, perhaps, like on radio rossiya
*
as in a chariot race
the chosen one, glistening like quartz
in his roaring metal carapace
whips this way along the course
but the chariot is cleverer
throwing up stones
crashes the barrier
and crushes
the marrow from bones,
so, setting out rooks and queen
in their chequered chambers
culture leads fear
down the gauntlet of human nature,
stinking of laurel wreaths
steeped in a boiling pan,
to where there’s a lively trade
in the living unit of man
sing to me of how, on an ancient alley on your family’s estate,
the weathered bones lay bleached and scattered
under a birch tree; quietly they chattered:
there was no point to us, we didn’t lend each other our hands
like babes we lay in the nursery in our swaddling bands
*
I can just imagine coming under him
says one, and I can hear everything
and the other is speaking, speaking
fruits of the kerbside reads the jar label
from whatever takes root in the stony rubbish
embers, sawdust, scorched wood
suspended in sweet amber sugar
cockerel-shaped lollies for the day of the dead.
when I’m off to market, or when I’m coming home
I always remember what she said back then
*
one leg crossed the other: who goes on top
one leg vows to the other: I’ll top you
*
when we seize all the banks!
share out the fruits of our labour!
and the engines in all the tanks
flooded with rainwater
then we’ll help the poor earth
shake the wig from her head
erect a polytunnel instead
with a multiplication of those poles: cold and dead
and the south will come knocking at our ears
pears will droop in the heat
gleaming bulbous pears
swollen globular fruit
and the pizza delivery’s well-oiled
and the truth wears at our heart:
for the rapid soil
shall bring forth its own bard.
*
were it not seemly, citizens
to begin in ancient diction
to stay silent
*
oh in paris I could have lived and died
if there had been nowhere else besides
moscow of your land
china of your water
and tanganyika of the small trees
where the saplings and new roots are hidden
when it comes to it
somebody’s been put here to keep guard over it all
here, at the crossroads
of two legs, vast, fumble-footed
the un-russian god rose
the puddles reflected
to swell the goats and plump the hazel shell
the shadows under a birch like a cut out
my darling priapus, surely it’s time to sprout?
or is the geist not doing so well?
nothing here corresponds to the spotted skin
and the pink dusk
comes from the time of a nation’s devastation
no one calls for coolness,
all want con flag ration
and here the iambs trip-trap: tetrameters chirrup
but trip up on naked vowels
and fall so far from europe
bleeding pelts, they howl
*
children in the yard played at being olympian gods
and then at gestapo interrogation – tbh it’s much the same
I had a dream
night in its nuptial attire
the cornfield the melon’s swelling belly
under the stars the machine gunner sings
to the machine gun,
swaddled
cradled at his breast
sleep my sunflower
sleep my poppy
soon the warm sun will come back from the south
and there’ll be new life in the
pedestrian subway
playing on the half-dismembered harmony
and soldiers soldiers
gather the light ash in pots
*
how little earth was saved on the bosom of the earth
lift the corner of the blanket, replace the hot water bottle
measure perspiration, water allow reach for it
deep in-draught:
ditch after
dug-out
dogged indrafted
*
say the word that don’t belong
put it on and march along
forget the old and step anew
and the word will march with you
that word, it curls up and dies
at your lips as it emerges
like the spread-eagled toad it lies
in the heat on the verges