YANA DJIN

You heard a voice...
I’ll teach you a woman – she said.
Creeping up like a smile of a cat.
I’ll fly you beyond. To surpass.
You don’t have the choice but to let
the green-eyed danger in.

Live!
Break those walls to pieces!
Blow them out!
Blow them in!

February.
Embarrassing to dream.
Distance. Howl. Scream.
Bums – like puddles on the sidewalk gleam.
The night evaporates into the dawn – like steam.
Because it’s February.
Embarrassing to dream.

“I know, I love.”
“How?”
“I no longer need.”
“Who?”
“You.”
“Why?”
“Because a word is not yet a deed.”
“ What is it then?”
“Simple. It’s a word.”
“Who made it so?”
“What questions! You and I, I guess. The Lord.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to kiss.”
“So you could tell whether you miss?”
“So I could feel the nakedness of my own lips.
So I could hear out tongues’ lisps!
So I could rise and fall within your breathing hiss!
So I could never, never miss!
Then, buried in your mouth – that dark abyss
Then, I will swallow that viscous bliss
Then, I will no longer dismiss
the... Oh! It’s so simple! I just want to kiss!”

And... I will hear the pain...
While walking hand in hand through narrow streets.
With you. Un-noticed. Un-spoken. Un-touched.
Un-used. Un-bought. Un-trampled. Bit detached.
Through houses with dusty chandeliers. Dusty books.
Dim light. Lives that haven’t lived for years.
There – horny spirits evoke elastic fears.
Oh! Stop! Don’t quote to me from the King Lear!
Not now. Now... see the voice.
And stop the rhyme!

Live!
Break the words against your chin!
Blow them out!
Blow them in!

Life is not full of objects – but of their absence.
Eyes of a cat shimmer with mice that aren’t eaten.
Dark, narrow streets suffocate for light and space.
Emptiness – toothless, forced-on smile.
Not dissidents – beauty is in exile.
Wipe off the eternal moisture from your eye
While the last swamp misses its crocodile.

“Do you hear the pain?”
“Don’t be silly! It’s the rain!”
“The rain. Perhaps. It knocks against the glass like...”
“Like hick-ups?”
“Yes! Like hick-ups. So evenly – like a punctual Dane.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to disappear
and reappear as a gondolier in Venice.”
“You are insane!”
“No! I want to break that god-damned chandelier
to tiny pieces.”
“And then what?”
“And then – I’ll whisper into the vessel of your ear:
Listen closely. Do you hear?
Can you see Beauty shedding its last tear?”
“You must be feverish! That’s not a tear – it’s your beads!”

I think of the past – pure – un-spoilt by nostalgia.
I come form the parts where men – those shits! –
Count the beads of alabaster
until their time expires.
Death always stops their music.
For every dog there’ll come a boneless day.
And Don Juan will hang himself on a night without a lay.
All this will happen suddenly.
Like life itself. Without delay.

Memory – detail recalled:
A marble arc over an open street.
An architectural design – a lie –
inducing people to believe that
something is there to connect
and hover over their 
disjointed, lonely thoughts and
words and deeds.
Indeed!
It is a lie!
And.. no matter, no matter
how much we try,
We’ll see that Saturday without its Sunday...

But do not be afraid.
True light we see is million years old.
Tomorrow has already happened.
The past and the future – mere scarecrow!
There’s only now.
Harmless, sudden – Now!

“What do you want?”
“I want to trap the good!”
“What do you mean?”
“You misunderstood!”
“You sound strange.”
“That’s it! I want to rearrange
the furniture inside this dusty room!”
“You are not well!”
“Quick! Get me the broom!
I’ll make four walls without gloom
I’ll show you Now without its doom
Where even flowers in their bloom
look ugly in comparison. 
I’d be your bride just for a day
You’d be my groom!
And then we’d...
“Stop. Stop the rhyme! Right now!”

Eternal moisture in your eye...
Sadness stayed with me even
when I was cured of youth.
When I would no longer recall
things that never happened. It’s the truth
that kills and makes us old. She said:
Make up, invent, lie!
Give, take, kiss, die!
Eternal moisture in your eye...

Thank God, there are no forty days without sadness!
Stale happiness embitters hearts.
And makes the edges of your words smooth with familiarity.
It’s easier to find the similarity!
But why? Why bother?
In a foreign country you feel your death,
or, may be, birth – it’s all the same.
Everything becomes concrete – thus meaningless –
thus true.

Wednesday. Three o’clock. Good time to die.
The longest hour of the longest day.
On a Wednesday my great-grandmother
ordered a gravestone for herself from faraway.
She must have known it was her time to die.
She must have known – she had uttered her las lie.
she left. Without notice. Just a glance for a good bye.
And dewy moisture rolled out of her pale blue eye.

There’s something low about even numbers.
About a pair. About pieces that fit.
As if they’re flattering, as if they’re pleasing
God knows whom or what!
Noble oddity. Thursday. One o’clock. 

Time – eternal Now.
What’s left after millennium of years?
A buried skeleton of a dinosaur,
a fish bone,
a broken jug for wine...
Perhaps, a tale of ancient heroes.
But mostly, one transparent tear
rolling down the cheek from a pale blue eye.

Being is cruel –
in a world where life and death
happen at the same time.
Blue sky is nowhere to be found.
There’s only the horizon pushing down
transforming you into  outskirts of life.
Into an underground.
And making you a vessel into which
sadness drips.
One drop by drop...

“What do you see?”
“The recognition of unknown?”
“In what?”
“In you: I could have sworn
I heard the words you said before.
I could have sworn,
I heard the thoughts within you.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to pray.”
“To what?”
“To the purity of the  first  snow.”
“Are you a saint?”
“No, I don’t believe that saints were saints.”
“What were they then.”
“Sinners, I hope.”
“Was Christ a saint?”
“He was a leap towards impossibility.”
“IN what way.”
“In the way that narrow, greeenless
streets have the ability
to grasp vast territories of silence.”
“And what is silence?”
“Unbroken beam of whiteness.”
“What do you see?”
“I see the yellow sadness in the blue, blue sky.
I see a question mark without a reply.
I see that I’m not real – I will never die.
I see a round tear rolling from a pale blue eye.”

And...you will hear the voice...
amidst the pregnant silence.
When the sky is covered by the spider’s web.
And when the trees stand like naked women on display.
And you will have to choose because you have no choice
Between your happiness and freedom.
Between two kingdoms
of mututal negation.
And you will know – the only thing that rhymes in life are words.
And you will no longer ask forgiveness from the Lord
who speaks in deeds.
And while you still cast off a shadow against His deeds
You’re always and everywhere ill at ease.

February.
Embarrassing to choose.
A month of fiery streaks.
A month to loose your happiness. To gain your freedom.
Paradise is that one-way kingdom,
that architectural lie,
where everyone is looking at an exit sign.
And tearing through the spider-web sky,
words flutter out – just freed butterflies!
At random. Like the events of life.

What’s left after the years?
A single touch. A smell. A kiss.
A jigsaw puzzle with one piece always missing.
Some photographs.
Unfinished thoughts.
Disrupted lines.
Arrangement of random moments.
Untold lies.
“I should have danced more!”
One last outcry.

And ... may be not. It’s all hypothesis.
Eternal questions of tortured adults.
Answers change with time.
Children ask: do you like ice cream?
They answer: yes. No. Never: may be.

“What do you want?”
“I want to fall in love.”
“That’s clear. What else?”
“The else – I am ashamed to say.”
“Afraid?”
“Ashamed.”
“So, do you know how to end?”
“To end? By turning the beginning inside out.”
“Let me begin...”
“You think you’ll win?”
“Win?!
It’s like being a fish with out fins.
It’s like repenting without sins.
I want to break the words against my chin!
I want to live.
I want to blow them out!
Blow them in!

It’s dull without sadness.
It’s sad without sorrow.
Happiness – is when you no longer remember.
When nostalgia becomes a yellow lie.
When you – forgetful – no longer try
for the past and the future.
When absent-minded, unprotected in the Now,
You look up, but do not see a black cow.
When walking silently with him, you kiss and dry
A round tear rolling down the cheek from a pale blue eye.

                                                                                 1992
 

CONVERSATION NUMBER TWO

While I can still throw off a shadow against the wall.
While I can still disturb a feather with my breath.
And while I still possess all the five -
In short - while I'm still alive -
The music will go on.

And the yellow hour of death,
When time cuts off the cord
connecting me to space -
Like some obstetrician in the ambulance,
and you will ask with roving eyes:
"What have you done?" I'll answer:
"I have danced!"

I have reached that age
which divides my life in half.
The midpoint of neutrality -
where cry is = to laugh.
Where You are = to
Your sacrificial calf.
Where rhyme is no longer at the last syllable.

I was born in the land in which I will not die.
It looks with a cruel, Eastern eye.
There was no poet who hadn't been deceived
 by its vicious lies.
But you won't find me there.
I bid it farewell.
Good bye.

I lived like everyone.
Alone. Together.
I fell in love. And out.
I've promised. Broken the promises.
I've told the truth. I've lied.
I have rejoiced. I've suffered.
Twice I've almost died.
I ran away from home.
Came back.
And ran again.
I've gotten married to a man
who was ashamed to live.
He didn't know how to take
but only give.
One night he took his life.
It was an overkill.
And left with an eternal, yellow chill.

You saw how they killed my child.
You saw how I didn't cry -
And You should know the pain.
It didn't rain
when He was crucified.
Where were Your tears?
So, when You ask me for forgiveness
on the day of Doom,
I will not wail in gloom -
I have no fears! 

Angel! You have to know
I'm not that Job
who hit his head against the wall
and then caressed his bruises!
I won't go covering my bumps!
I'm not afraid of losing!

What?
You think it's whispers of delirium?
You think it's madness talking?
Then why is everybody walking
in solitude?

Lord! You only speak in opposites.
What did You really do on the seventh day?
I don't believe You rested!
You made the Devil.
Who wants the good
while there's still evil?
And there's the key to Paradise
while there is Hell!

You are a chess player.
The earth - just a chequered board
upon which You attack.
And what does it matter
what side You're on -
white or black?!

To trust in You?!
How? How could I?
On that October night
when happiness was finally at hand,
a murdered body was found in the ramp -
and it was someone's daughter.

I know it's foolish to be surprised at slaughter
in our century of mutilated flesh.
But you won't find me nodding in a cynical:
"What can we do?!"
You won't see me dancing a kikadoo!
There's always one branch that stays atop a stream.
There's always one last, unstifled, un-mutilated scream!

I am not complaining.
In fact:
There's only gratitude I feel.
You want to know if I believe?
I will answer -
Because even when arriving - we only leave.

I am not coinciding with myself.
You might say I am torn.
I look around ill at ease
Like the sun after a storm.

There's nothing that I want.
There's nothing I regret.
There's nothing I'll remember,
When the time comes to forget.
Like a butterfly released from a spider-web,
words flutter out in a delirium,
and start the second round.

Pieces of sounds torn out with flesh. Unfinished words
where every letter is a premonition.
Our life is but a preface to the neither-world.
And man - conglomerate of contradictions.

Two eyes.
A nose.
And lips.
Two arms.
Two legs.
And hips.
That - (if you're lucky) -
are shaped like a guitar
for others to admire.
Afar -
a snow-white ship
upon the waves.
And stone-age beasts
inside the brown caves.
Here -
lust for Paradise,
fear of Hades.
Hear!
how the last echo of rhyme and rhythm fades...

Lord, are You bored?
Are You fat?
If I were You, I would be!
I picture reclining on the mat
of scrambled clouds.
Are You having any doubts? Well,
I guess I'll tie the cross around my neck
and scamper off the hell! To all the devils!
Love goes beyond the good and evil
while man and You don't go beyond the commonplace.
Love - is when someone taller than yourself
pushes you upward - unafraid - above his head.
And standing on his palm, the wind slaps against your face
and kills the memories. The past is now dead.

The higher you stand, the wider is your scope.
But you are farther from details than ever.
The world appears in scant designs. Through a kaleidoscope
of images. As in fever,

life stops its motion.
And for a fleeting moment
stares at itself.
With a cautious whisper -
like a woman who last looked
in the mirror when she saw was just a girl -
it asks:
"Is it really me? Or has someone switched
the masks?"

Happiness - when all memory is gone.
The weightlessness of life,
when you no longer compare.
When everything's that's done
is done for no apparent reason.
The point where loyalty is not the opposite of treason.
Where good is not the opposite of bad.
When to describe the living, you don't point to the dead.
A man is always ill at ease.
Not existence - our inability
to find a reason for it is what stings
and tortures us.
Memories of past return - transparent like a winter breeze -
numbing of happiness. Making the horrifying future sheer.
Details - reborn again.
No, there is nothing mere!
 

PART TWO

I'm tired of appeasing You with rhyme -
False music.
He was right: "Just say it!"
I've been waiting for this tension
to say "I" to the "All"!

A great nightmare that precedes a fit of joy is here.
A part extracted from the dung of the whole.

Hear? Do you?
Are you near?
Are you?
Come closer!
Come here.
Now, you can hear?

Turn the page and dedicate it to
those who only fear the day.
For them night is the way to come together.
Total darkness. Void. Where "zero" is the only number.
If it costs, you shouldn't pay!
The time for fiery streaks has come.

Stillness. Nothingness. Void. Void again.
Avoid the act! What's done is really undone.
Get it through your head!
Don't believe the living
when they talk of the dead.

The conversation of the two is
harder to endure than the blabber of many.
Two - is an incision. It cuts upon the "I" -
upon the "You". Upon the will.
Give me that nail-file. File your thoughts away
to ashes.
Trash - is where our thoughts arise.
And rhyme? Can you hear how a butterfly cries?

I feel like a number "13" -
unwanted.
All I need is a dream.
Perhaps, some coffee to go along with it.
And cream. No sugar. Thank you.

The best dreams are the ones that we forget.
Light erases the forbidden knowledge.
All-accessible day begins.
The rat-race where no one,
you hear?! - even the winner - no one wins.

The most violent scream is the one un-screamed.
The most wished for wish is the one un-fulfilled.
First, fill the glass with tears and then laugh!
Remember, cry is = to laugh?
Stop digging in yourself. Let the "yourself"
plunge to the surface. By itself. 

I'm not here to glorify what "is".
Hell with that! I only love what never "will be."

Picture this:
Pierce them with your honesty.
Screw up their clocks.
I should have been a watch-fixer.
My eye - a magnifying glass.
Mess with the arrows.
I'm not your jelly-eyed Muse,
your Goldie-locks.
I will never loose
my "I" in "you."
Because - "alone" is the only word I love to pronounce.
Announce
for everyone to hear:
"I love you now!"
"I love you here!"

Picture this:
A dream. A remnant of the phrase -
like a Gothic tower.
"Sleep - is pain turn sideways."
Do you hear? What could she mean?
She spoke the language of "not here."
A foreign tongue -
the only one that makes any sense to me.
When spoken.
German - Words like stabs in the back.
Like a car - 90 miles an hour
against the train - a wreck!
Thin boiled lips. Yellow teeth.
Rain. Rain over the Aryan "yes."
Over the transparency of eyes.
Their blueness. That soaks in the world
and doubles it - like Plato - by reflecting.
Brown eye shields and rejects the Word!
 shields and rejects the Lord!
 shields and rejects the World! -
A fat "No!" to all "Yes'es."

Picture this:
Do you know me?
Do you know who I is?
Write my name down and cross it out!
Whisper it softly! Never loud.
Loud - echoes in the distance
and repetition is the only sin.
Avoid adjectives and verbs.
Stick to nouns.
Remember, no one wins!

Picture this:
I knew an idiot
who'd write down every word.
"Here in America, we live in a free-dealing world."
I asked him: "Why?"
"Poetry!" - he said.
I'm glad, he's dead.

No one deserves honesty.
So, lie!
No one knows what they mean when they shout:
Die!

I'm glad I have an accent -
implies the knowledge of another home.
    another time.
    of abandoned trace.
    of deserted crime.
    of another Rome.
    of another dome.

generations of idiots.
Scoundrels.
Vileness everywhere.
In everyone.
What makes us different from
others in the past?
Our desire to last.

You told me: Don't climb too deep.
The depth of the hole is the measure of
difficulty to rise back up.
But what is "up"?
Is it not another hole?
The "down" - upside down.
That's all.

I will not leave before saying it!
I'm one of those who'll add a word to other words.
I'm also one of you - with the past.
I also want to last.
No one is holy!

Little girl!
People who look like frogs don't
turn to princes.
And princes don't think twice
before crushing a frog.
Even in the best of spirits.
This is the only merit
of history.

They all want one thing:
To grab the "you" and
file "you" - up after their own image.
To smooth out the edges of your words,
they take after the Lord.
I am not like Him!
In fact, I don't even like Him!

Yes! You can say I'm angry. Yes!
But - my anger is your love.
So, can you imagine what my love is like?

Love is an ill-usion.
  ill-fusion.
Most often - in-trusion.

Blue. Germany. Farewell.
Commonplace erases the nuance.
Reality cuts into trance.
And everyone rushes to find the main line.
The main street.
Even before the hope, I knew it was all hopeless.
Can't you see the spark that in the distance lurks?
Why are you afraid of the outskirts?

Shake the ashes off your cigarette!
Drink your coffee and
shake your head for thoughts-words-
sounds-tears-silence-fears-void-
emptiness-nothing left-nothing to avoid!

The time is here to squeeze the something out of...
And then... then you said it.

Learn to forget and lie well.
Farewell.
See how your shadow disappears with the light.
Don't cry! That's how souls should die.
And now farewell. Good bye.
Don't grieve.
Only the dead know how to live.

                                                              1992
 

CONVERSATION NUMBER THREE
 

For you – forgotten, scared, lost,
The only one without a cost
The only one who overlooked his youth
The only one who didn’t dare chase the truth
The only one who wept when others cried
The only one who did when others tried –
I’ll squeeze the last, remaining rhymes 
out of this tortured Muse.

For you – I would have made myself unlike them all.
With shovels I would have scraped out my soul
And offered it upon a tray –
for you to pray.

For you – I conquered fear of rhyme
Where every repetition is a crime.
I would have only cried dry tears –
for you, my dear.

For you – who measured time not by the clock,
but by the church-bell’s chime.
For you – who composed his life from trash.
Between us – space is just a dash.

You are the sky after the rain –
Delivered, swollen, a bit in pain.
Live! Sin! Forgive! Forget! Lie!
Yours will be the face I’ll see before I die.

Last day of winter –
Relief!
Last throws you into first –
Almost a belief
in the unknown,
where you and I 
entwined upon a cot:
I asked: “How are you?”
You said: “I’m not!”

The first embrace –
 Yellow light.
I hid my face,
 When I learned you died.

Time stretches space.
 Space crosses time.
Words no longer know 
 How to rhyme.
 

PART TWO

You – there – one with the less.
Left. I am your afterthought.
I wish I believed in the resurrection of souls!
I wish – below the earth’s crust
You’d be more than just tired dust;
That worms won’t eat your flesh
And in their own turn – become trash...
But wait!
“From trash our words arise.”
The color of the night – your eyes.

Last day of winter.
Foggy.
Here –
morning is never sure of itself.
It shies away into the afternoon.
Here –
everyone’s dancing to the same old tune 
for centuries.
Here –
variation – fright.
Here –
stars – nails into the flesh of night.

Here – deed is never equal to word.
Here – always – the one cord.
Here – they are ashamed of rhymes.
And there – is it rue – there are only mimes?
Is it true – you can see behind the words?
Smile at their fourth dimension?
Is it true – there are many lords 
strumming the cords of silence –
their best invention?
 

What is there?

Another here?
Another now?

Another fear?
A round tear?

It’s the same as here,
Isn’t it?
 

No answer.
Death never answers life –
the un-answered question.
Vice versa:
Life answers death –
with our bodies, our flesh.
Embroidering our names in mountain-ash.

My dear,
so much unsaid between us –
so much heard.
But how 
do you turn –
love into life,
Psyche into Eve,
what into how,
then into now?
How? –
Can into will,
words into feel,
shame into game,
rhymes into yes,
more into less.
How? –
Funeral pyre –
into a lyre?
Ashes in fire –
dust of desire?
How?

Memory.
Its sharp profile cuts into a rhyme.
Memory – what a loquacious mime.
Can you tell a truth from a lie?
Tell me, do souls live or die?

Are you free?
And does that mean?
What happens to leaves
that fall off a tree.

Don’t strain yourself to answer.
These questions – light, like a Chopin’s sigh –
will only brush against your graves and cemetery flowers.
Mortals don’t have the powers of impromptu silence.
With violence of moans and wails,
they topped you off with a farewell wreath
that spelled:
Life is understood by death.

Words... Just words... I know.
But what is left to do – if not grab the rhyme?!
And turn away, not notice how space is crushed by time,
In every yellowed-out leave see a sign?!
Wait patiently for the horn to finally blow
and hold your breath in fear.
This year, Jerusalem saw its first snow
in many, many, many years...

And when it melts,
what’s left –
but drop a silent tear,
and whisper:
“My God, You were so near!”

What’s left for me to do –
now that you’re gone,
but see your face in every cloud?
What’s left to say –
when all is done?
When it’s accomplished –
but scream outloud:

To you – under this ground,
under the dust of dried-out leaves,
fallen God knows when;
Under the dogged-out dreams;
Under this time of ours –
outlined by doubts and fears –
What’s left?!...
We only see the present when it disappears.

Cemetery –
Affected real-ness. Absurdity.
A star – fallen from the sky.
Those who say they like it – lie:
It’s the unknown they crave
Shuffling from grave to grave .
Articulating with the dead in wails and moans –
Despairing their own future – dust of bones.
Hallucinating the letters that spell out their names in lead.

I think instead:
I’ll stand afar.
I won’t come near.
I feel – every word, and every thought,
and every note of silence
is an alliance with sacrilege
in the face of death.

Tomorrow – is the first of March for me:
For you – the first of Chronos.
Here – first deceives the last by sliding into
second, third, then fourth.
But there – you have stopped infinity:
There’s no more going forth –
Just one short step from Paradise to Hell
Just one last gasp, just one last farewell...

Enough! Where is that word that crosses out all the rest?
Not here.
???????
Everything’s as clear – as Greek mythology,
and as cruel – as Leviticus.

Enough!
of mourning marches
of incensed churches
with their priests – God’s black-robed pimps.
What do they know of moving lips?
Of conversations?
Enough, enough elation about Rachel’s beauty!
Look, Lea is drowning in cruelty!

Enough,
about lives,
about deaths,
about sorrows,
about yesterdays,
 todays,
 tomorrows.

Forget it!
Skip it!
We don’t know!
Be more like children:
Say “yes”,
more often – “no”.

What is the use of memory,
If it’s not equal to imagination?
What’s left to me of you –
Just bits and pieces of conversations:

“What do you want?”
“I want to be forgotten by all – but you.”

“What do you see?”
“I see an underside of colors – their hue.”

“What do you hear?”
“I hear your words: Be good!”

“What will you do?”
“What else – I’ll wait!”
“For whom?”
“For Him. For the Messiah.”
“Till when?”
“Till a sign becomes a bait to clutch at.
In other words, till it’s too late.”

“Where is He? Is He hiding?”
“No. He is waiting.”
“Where?”
“Behind the horizon.”

“When will He come?”
“When more turns into less.”
“Do you think He’ll come?”
“Yes.”
 

“What do  you want?”
“I want to fall in love.”
“And what is love?”
“One kiss.”
“What will you do?”
“I’ll soar up to you
in thousand splintered pieces.”
“When do you think He’ll come?”
“After a thousand kisses.”

                                          1992
 

A DREAM

It was one of those indefinite nights 
when you lie in your bed and can’t sleep. 
Shifting your thoughts between past and present.
Picking out the best among the many people that you meet.

I looked out of my 7-th story window, 
hoping that cold, moist air will tell me
whom to choose. 
And instead, saw Jesus and his disciples 
walking in a triangle down the street.

Dressed in white they pierced 
the pitch-blackness of the night. 
It was so beautiful to see something different 
in a human light.

I wondered where Magdalene was. 
Has she abandoned him? 
And just as I thought that, 
he looked up at me.

I said: "Mother, God is downstairs. He’s calling me.
He found me through my thoughts, and 1 must follow him."

In a ragged nightgown 1 ran down the stairs. 
Chasing him down the street with my hair flying, 
I swear, 1 looked like Magdalene!

He met me with no word or no caress, 
while his disciples slyly looked through the holes 
of my night-dress.
One of them even tried to slide an emaciated finger inside.
I looked distrustingly at him, when he said:
"Hallo, my name is Paul."
And Jesus smirked and said:
"Maria, he means Saul."

Maria, Maria, let me mend your dress.
Maria, Maria, let me braid your tresses.
Maria, Maria, I''ve been looking for you.
Maria, Maria, is it really you?!

Oh! Maria, Maria, come back upstairs!
It''s lonely without you,
I feel childless and scared!
Your father murmurs your name in his sleep, 
Maria, do not abandon him!

Mother, don''t play on sympathy!
I''m not in the mood!
I married the devil,
Now I''m marrying God!
Neither of them is what I want,
But if you search for the middle,
You end up in mud!
 

Maria, Maria, you’re a fool!
You think that beauty is being cruel. 
You should try indifference, my child, 
That''s one middle you will never find.

But most people have it
And they are proud.
No, mother, most people don''t have it.
They are just loud.

Mother, I’m going.
The dawn is here,
Dragging behind it its useless day.
Soon, we will wake up and find each other near, 
While our dreams are tearing us away.
 

1990

AUTUMN PRAYER

The sun peeked through the window-pane — 
Dull, as a face of an unmarried woman. 
The highway trucks screeched through the lanes — 
It was another autumn morning.

Another autumn promise of the rain,
Another never-ending dreaming
Of hundred angels coming and delivering you from the pain
Of hundred memories of escaping glory.
The sun rays fall upon your tears,
Like razor blades upon some bird that's being slaughtered.
Oh, God! please take away our fears!
Forgive us Lord, for all we've faultered!
 

BEYOND THE SEEN

Don't ever wish for everything — 
There'll be nothing left for you to wish. 
Don't ever dream of all there is — 
There'll be nothing left to dream.
Leave something in your life undone 
Unfulfil at least one hope. 
Leave at least one word unsaid. 
Don't tie all the ropes.
There's beauty in what isn't here 
For when it comes — it's gone. 
Don't always try to get so near 
To every holy man.
Don't ever wish for all there is — 
For all there is — 's not all. 
And when you're holding back the tears 
Leave at least one to fall.

1991

EASTER SUNDAY

Tulips — like frightened soldiers
surprised by general's command to "Fire!",
stand in the middle of a lawn.
Couples walk by teasing with obviousness of their love.
I'm sitting, waiting on the bench alone.
It's Easter Sunday.
Bells wail in the air for the fallen God, 
who is nothing now but a symbol. 
And once, He was a man.
Ten years ago today, on Sunday,
having an Easter dinner with the elders.
I was asked: "Who would you want to marry?"
Without a thought I answered: "Jesus, son of Mary".
But being pure, young and fresh, I added:
"Only if and when he comes to me in flesh."

Some say that destiny is written on our palms. 
I believe, it is sometimes. 
So, why do we go out and give out alms 
to every poor man that cries?

And if the destiny is ours, —
Let's erase it!
Rewrite it over, make it new each day!
If it were up to me,
I'd lace your every night with silver days!
And meanwhile, while I think these thoughts 
that millions before me have thought about, 
I feel like tearing through the veil of the world 
and getting for you that long-awaited share 
of unpaid happiness.
But:
All is in vain, they say. 
And vanity is vain. 
We come from dust. 
To dust we shall return. 
May be.
But between this "coming" and "returning" — 
there's contoured space, 
and how we connect the dots — 
that is what counts!

What is it that we do?
Live and rejoice?
Or suffer?
Curb our passions with a frown?
The answer is as meaningless
as is the choice —
between two lovers.
And still,
it's good to taste the wine, and kiss the lips, 
and climb the pines, and smell the water lilies, 
and listen in the evening to a scared priest, 
who tells stories of ancient burial thrillers, 
of ancient lovers, ancient killers.
I miss my childhood!
With memories of the past, I race towards the future.
Remembrances of things that passed,
torment us like the dreams that we all nurture.
 

EVENING

By the end of the day
I feel like an 80-year-old man.
Like a woman who just gave birth.
Like a horse that's galloping by force.
Like a wounded soldier with no strength to fight.
Like the sun on a cloudy day — just barely bright.
Like an argument of a married couple — predictable and trite.
Like a pacifist who abhors might.
Like an evening longing for the night.
 

IF I COULD...

If I could change the day into the night,
If I could turn the water into wine,
And wake the still, dead people — make them dance,
And plunge this whole big planet into trance,
Wouldn't you say, "She started all anew?"
If I could make a man for every woman, 
If I deliver joy for every evil omen, 
If I could make all people different but true, 
Wouldn't you say, "She started all anew?"
If I could answer everyone's desire,
And fill with fuel life's burning fire,
If I should brush away the boredom from you,
Wouldn't you say, "She started all anew?"
 

IMPROMPTU

Picture yourself a street
with un-nameable trees
thinly spread out.
Picture how slowly
snow turns to sleet.
Picture a faint echo of footsteps
measure the ground
in an attempt to melt the time.
Picture the unspoken words of a mime.
Picture a whisper raised to a scream.
Picture a fear transformed in a dream.
Picture an endless dotted line....
Picture yourself a sudden rhyme!

Two in a room —
Winter's day.
Mountain mint, freshly stacked hay.
Two in a room —
Winter's night.

Piano on water — black and white.
picture an empty, empty street. 
On a quiet,quiet November. 
Picture yourself to be a fallen leaf 
That no one will remember.
In darkness words acquire weight. 
Thoughts dissolve their layers — 
The lightest, the most fleeting — 
For a forgetful prayer!
Into his father's house does not return 
The Prodigal son, distraught. 

He flees into the endless blue 
Upon a careless thought.

1993

KALEIDOSCOPE PAST
 

For my father

My past — the kaleidoscope tower of memories transforming into hopes
My past — the merry-go-round of happiness. 
Nostalgia for green narrow roads.
Sharp mountain cliffs cutting off the blue horizon.
And sea, the endless sea, 
immense as the yet-unspoken, undistorted thought.

The skyscrapers of New York — 
New Rome have a condescending glance. 
Still, they won't erase the remnants of the bygone modesty. 
And one day — I have patience! — 
I'll get a one-way ticket to the lilac-colored land of the forgotten honesty.
A bird is gaily chirping on top of the golden onion-dome, 
announcing: "Rejoice! Messiah's here at last!" 

So, it turns out that all roads lead not to Rome, 
but to the lilac-colored past.

1991

ODE TO LOVE 
 

Freedom — is when you forget the tyrant's name 
And you saliua is sweeter than Persian pie 
And although your brain is twisted like the horn of a ram — 
Nothing drops from the pale blue eye.

J.Brodsky

Because habit equals indifference —I am glad we're apart.
In our separate existences —
Two parallel lines.
Because the familiar smells and colors
evoke in the heart only pain —
it is safe to conclude —
we're still alive.

Because five fingers are too many
to recount the people whom you believe —
you're getting old.
Knocking against the pavement your calloused heel.
In solitude you're left like a forgotten Lord.
To whom no one prays any more
With whom no one strikes a deal.

It is not by accident that 
"rain" rhymes with "pain." 
In the rain — aching bones and wounds. 
Memory undresses 
and reveals a skeleton of losses 
of possibilities intentionally missed 
of conversations made of alliances and pauses 
and of escaping words caged in fists.

Being mostly water, we merge with our own
selves in the rain.
Gray silhouettes of buildings weigh upon the eye.
A seagull soars high —
confusing a sea for the sky,
and a fish for a star.
Love is not a Cupid with an arrow — but distance:
its last name Far.
Love begins in darkness...
Beneath a lowered eyelid.

An eyelid separates a dream from us —
With the first kiss — soft and damp like moss...
With the first damage — first sense of loss.
If there is a Cupid — he must be carrying a cross -
another word for farewell —
— a festive cry.
This scribbling of black on white 
is nothing but a sign of distance — 
of a dash.
Time clashed with space
and opened eye,
unable to bear the void dropped a tear:
Transformed into a story that didn't find an ear
and left.
Un-wept. Un-told. Un-suffered.
To rest beneath a blue and a brown eye.
And come alive only in a stream of let-out tears
crawling around the face like alleys of an Eastern city:
deceptive in their lack of order — lack of goal. 
Beneath a lowered eyelid hides the soul.

What's left after a farewell?
— An afterword.
Precise and quiet —
something out of Robert Musil...
Nine sober Muses
stand over the absurdity and laugh.
A cough blends with a seagull's cry.
A marble lid covers the eye
unable to take in the blue ahead.

What's left after a farewell? 
Either a piece of led in the brain 
Or: provided you are well into 
your thoughts and years — 
Some memory and patience — 
at times, accompanied by tears.

Neutrality approaches with age. 
Speech stripped of adjectives —
dash — lies.
Only a mirror now is capable 
of shattering the cage called — 
thought of oneself:
which acquires profile as time goes by — 
offering nothingness en face — 
unfolding yet another loss — 
tearing yet another illusion with greed. 

Life is a tragedy at subtle speed:
A slow, slow tear taped at slow, slow motion — 
something like the sun that drops with a splash 
behind the ocean
and leaves the indifferent waves
to smother the sand...
It is not existence without you,
but after you — which I can't stand!
For, it erases every lie
and, as you said once:
nothing drops from a pale blue eye...

And that is why
my final glance will not be upward —
but toward you —
towards the cause of a tear:
For nothingness, not pain, is what I fear
the most. If only because it doesn't punish
like Dante's nine discs of Hell —
but just accuses.
If only — because there — you won't find any uses
for words like "dream" or "dear"
And the eye loses its autonomy
For, why is it, — if not to drop a tear?...
 

May 1993

THE INDECISION SONG

Living — like in old Japanese prints:
Clear and direct. 
Breathing in cold air. 
Touching the dew with your lips. 
Feeling content.

Some of the time,
Some of the time,
I feel fine.
But other times,
I could use some more wine.

Living in laughter and rage —
A Shakespeare play.
Watching birds from an iron cage.
Making kind soldiers with children's clay.

Yes, some of the time, 
Some of the time, I'm all right. 
But other times —
Just run out and fight!

Living the lives of adults — 
Soft compromise. 
We all envy children, 
In our slow demise.

Some of the time, 
Some of the time, 
I think, I'm okay, 
But other times 
We all decay.

Living among the gold sand and blue sea.
Watching the snow-covered mountains from under a tree.
Looking into the water — to see if you're yet there:
If not — I'll go off alone somewhere.

Some of the time, 
Some of the time, 
I know I could wait. 
But other times, I just forget.

Living the life of feasts —
Like the birds and the beasts.
Having no illusions of eternal bliss.
Loving and dying with no self-deception.
Don't tell me, I know — there are some exceptions
Like: living in lace dresses, 
And dreaming of leather boots.
Smelling white flowers, 
And wondering whom to shoot.
Living the lives of gypsies — 
Constant elation.
Fire at night. Sweet self-negation. 
Knowing to sing and be the song. 
Crying with weak and being strong.

Some of the time,
Some of the time,
I hear soldiers' drums.
But other times,
All I know is the moan 
Of drunk guitars.

Living kaleidoscope lives — 
Change, transformation. 
Being half-black, half-white — 
Thousand dreams with one direction.

Chameleon moods 
And the eyes of a cat, 
Where is that dream 
That I've never had?

Some of the time, 
Some of the time, 
I'm afraid.
But other times — 
Just ashamed.

Living the life of unrest.
Bottomless melancholy to walk 
To the ends of the earth.
Desire to love all — anyone.
Falling into the darkest pit.
Flying up to the very sun.
Metallic taste of champagne
Stings the tongue.
Many-colored dress of a gypsy
Blinds the sun.

And the old men are still talking of doom,
While the sea is softly caressing the moon.
 

September 1991

THE OTHER SIDE

Amidst the blueness of my dreams, 
Deep in the vacuum of my lived,
unlived past, 
I hear voices shattering in screams - 
Unearthly voices yelling:
RUN! RUN! RUN!

To where the future brings with it
accomplished missions. 
To where it is unseen —
despair's rope. 
To where the images of foreign visions 
Give birth to new and foreign hopes.
 

THE WINDOW

The window sprinkled by the tiny drops of rain
Looks like a just-begun Seurat painting.
The drops stay — as if glued — 
intact, devoid of movement. 
Of joy. Of pain.
Except for one that circles 'round the glass
and forms itself into a brilliant tear of shame.

It illuminates the night in all the sparkling glory.
The drop engulfs into itself the whole of the night:
the insects, buzzing in a summer frenzy
under the bleak and yellow light.

The street lamp glows so modestly, so shyly.
Lost in the liquid it becomes a semi-precious stone,
not unlike the one that distant travelers discover
upon a snow-covered mountain topped by a cone
of shining ice.

The drop crawls down the slippery glass 
With a scientific, measured pace. 
Enrapturing a room with cautious fear 
For just a blurry instant, 
it becomes a place
In which we show ourselves... 
then disappear.
 

November 1991

WORDS
 

A soul, while living, takes on mortal form.
             Joseph Brodsky

How do you express that which is hidden
amidst the labyrinth of your thoughts and feelings?
How do you translate into existence 
that which is non-existent?

Every translation of what was to what shall be
is the act of killing.
How do you choose among the many thoughts
that you are thinking,
That swirl inside you like summer's frenzied
white-winged insects, the one to murder?
Like God who breathed a breath of life into Adam
you breathe a breath of life into your thoughts
and limit them — by granting the act of living.

Death takes on a meaning 
Only when it is accompanied by life. 
So, do we  really thank the Lord 
for living? Or — our right to die?

Before a word is born — it is a thought. 
Before a man is born — he's God's potentiality,
God's feeling. 

Like words betray the thoughts that they are meaning, 
So, God betrays us — by making us alive.

Life ceases to exist the moment we take on our flesh, 
For our flesh is — His spoken word. 
His betrayal of us consists in 
making us His-thoughts-be-known.
When He could have been silent...

Dying is a reunion with silence —
Escape from noises, obviousness, spoken feelings.
It's a return to the un-realized — un-murdered kindness,
Return to hidden, unaccomplished meaning.

Like every thought is here to be dressed in flesh,
So every man is here to draw his last breath,
So every word awaits to be collided with another in a crash,
And life becomes an expectation of death.

THE RESULT

If to speak about anything
Then - about the past!
That escaped through my palms
Like a slippery snail.
And found abode in the form of dust -
Forever settled upon memory’s tail.

I am speaking to you on a winter’s day.
And it isn’t my fault if you do not hear.
From a foreign city where Empire lay -
Undisturbed and old - like our planet’s fear.

I am speaking to you because you left a trace.
Like a wind that blows upon Eternal Flood.
I am speaking to you, for there is no one else
That could make the rhyme flow like blood.

I am speaking to you like they speak to pain.
On a quiet day, with  no one in sight.
I am speaking to you like a summer crane
With a broken wing that will fail him in flight.

I am speaking to you like they speak in need.
Like they spoke on the evening of bread and wine.
I am speaking with words that will turn into deed.
And with grief that stretches along one line.

I am speaking to you like they speak to life
That’s about to end with a whim of a choice.
And I see a palm, and the edge of a knife.
I am speaking to you - and the rest is noise...