|
|
Translated from Russian by Boris Dralyuk and David Stromberg  |
  
|
| about the author |
|
|
Ariel’s Message Your father lies crushed by the sea’s weight He is the volume of the wave, the coral. Your father circles round, diluted by the sea wind His skin is bark Acrawl with panicked ants. The whites of his eyes – prideful pearls. The yolks of his eyes – worthless pearls. His skull is a chorale. Everything in him knells and trembles. Nothing within him fades, But everything transforms Into something strange, thick, promising. Curious Nereids immerse themselves in this solution – So as to watch your father’s transformations, Since nothing in him fades, but rather turns Into you, to you, Ferdinand: your father lives! Your father sleeps. Your father is a red Ball, Washed up beneath Pont Neuf. Your father is shame. He is the heat of blindness that encroaches when I look at him: the membrane melts. He is the cold of stammering that like a stinger creeps out of the mouth. Your father still lives, but he’s dozing off. Look at the sleeper, Ferdinand. A streamlet of saliva trickles down his chin. That is the way a canny snake descends a cliff, The way a fat chain spills into a skiff. He sighs, not on the outside, somehow – but within: He’d rather trap the sound inside himself than share it with us: He’s sleeping, Ferdinand. Ice flickers on his curtal lip. Breath is a very tiny thing, rounded by dreams. Farewell to the Ghost Chorus: Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin, Unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled, No reck’ning made, but sent to my account With all my imperfections on my head. A bird appeared to me this morning With a barbed wire in its beak. In the immeasurable stronghold, The beasts have stilled. I glumly spat In the already troubled waters – My spittle swam towards the West. O welcome news! You did not rush! I’d heard so very much about you When overripe clusters of cherries Were lost at the first hint of daybreak, When fog streamed in across the sea And down Starch-stiffened folds. Well, then, I’ll only wash the mildew Off my face. All will be well. I did not sin. The reason being – My concubine had been a single Hollow and spotless bit of cinder. She does not smell of carrion, like any living flesh... And with this punitive forgiveness the Lord has now assessed my choice. O welcome news! How you are dreadful. There’s not a bit of sanctity in you. I’m but a middling puritan. But you’re a purse riddled with holes. Again I am a beggar. I’ll be forced To foster deserts the entire age. The rainbow crumbles in my dream. Light grows, just like the bosom of a goddess. Scene Anna went to fetch some water, Found a young man sitting there, His black beard shaking in the air. It isn’t that he simply sits, He’s not really in a fit, He laboriously tracks the sunset’s blots. Here, now, with a golden border – Like a little golden ruble – Swims a smoky apparition, Acid-scorched on every side. Here, enormous as a bee – The epitome of heat, A shred of the exhausted sun, Burned completely, inside out. After them, hard on their heels – Black over here, green over there, Soars a bird right out of Blok, a captain out of Gumilev. A dark-rusty mugginess, A crumb of hay, a swarm of midges, Anna, out of heavy buckets, pours out water on her feet. Anna comprehends the plot, Gnaws a reddish strand of hair, A reddish beam on a reddish neck, Crawling upward like an ant. Now, already, darkness, like A red stream out of the mouth, Pours from heaven on our faces. So the bottom line is drawn. What’s the meaning of our meetings – The river knows, as does the speech, We’re to recollect and not, And to guard our ignorance. |
| © Copyright: Polina Barskova |
| © Copyright: translated from Russian by Boris Dralyuk and David Stromberg |
|
