1. The leap from one punishment
the leap from one punishment to another one is valuable: you
awaken from sleep in a womb with a word from an unfinished prayer
Awaken with shining lips that insure the continuation
of the prayer and the perpetuity of the kneeling ritual
and then my obstacles are obliterated as easily as
shrinking ice-hole circles disappear from a river you never play ball
but the heavy snowballs have long ago targeted you for a game – suddenly
you remember your unfinished prayer from last night
and you kick every snowball away, visualizing yourself defusing bombs
Now I can finally play that song about a gypsy for you –
Wait, I`m slowing down
And ending up near you I collapse awkwardly
into the soaking trampoline of snow and now you recognize me
the leap from one punishment to another one is valuable: you
awaken from sleep in a womb with a word from an unfinished prayer
Awaken with shining lips that insure the continuation
of the prayer and the perpetuity of the kneeling ritual
and then my obstacles are obliterated as easily as
shrinking ice-hole circles disappear from a river you never play ball
but the heavy snowballs have long ago targeted you for a game – suddenly
you remember your unfinished prayer from last night
and you kick every snowball away, visualizing yourself defusing bombs
Now I can finally play that song about a gypsy for you –
Wait, I`m slowing down
And ending up near you I collapse awkwardly
into the soaking trampoline of snow and now you recognize me
***
2. The umbrella pine remain uncut by vanquishers
The surrounding mountains are dragon bellies swollen
with a massive gulp of air not one of the eternally panting dragons
ever exhales in fear of its movement being noticed
See the trees` canopies: they are all
moss-covered dragons chopped down a long time ago, with the first rays of sun shining
through their fleshy slabs, only the twisted canopies of the dragons of the Roman umbrella pine remain uncut by vanquishers
so the first dragon, who became entwined in a tree
with his scaly tail like a trunk and his body and head like a tree’s canopy remain still.
As time goes by, the dragon`s eyes open wider and wider –
acorns popping out from under their caps like eyes from their orbits
In oak groves the dragons exchange their acorn glances, wink
And the first of the dragons wanting to see better
Drops one eye on the ground after another unaware
that he`ll be blind until the next
eye-ripening .
***
3.The beard of the bark
After warmly wrapping into the rough neck of the tree
Divide its juice among nine jugs
And count your freckles
Until you feel
The beard of the bark growing numb everywhere
And the moment when the tree cringes from over dryness
You`ll find three red freckles missing on your face
You see, they`ve changed their hue
Becoming browner
The leaves absorbed them
Adding weight
That`s how it is now –
Some of the leaves are green and some of them are
Brown-spotted
You rejoice dancing in the hay
And only the juice-filled jugs
Imbibe themselves.
***
4. A Carthaginian interpreter with his tattoo
I longed to see in my dreams
a Carthaginian interpreter with his tattoo –
a parrot with wings open wide.
I imagined how when falling asleep
he appears before me:
the parrot’s wings are open, but
the right one is missing feathers.
Every other one is plucked
like the black and white keys of a piano
painted against a black background.
I ask the interpreter:
“Your parrot has open wings –
according to the Carthaginian custom
you must know more than one language?”
“Yes, he says, I know three.”
“And why is the wing of the parrot plucked?” – I ask
“This is my punishment” he says. Once
they asked me to interpret a church service
in a church where the priest was a stutterer.
I started to translate and suddenly realized
that I was afraid of altering something. I tried
to stammer as many times as he did
and when I got to the words “Lord Have Mercy” –
I saw tears on an icon.
My right shoulder started to hurt
as if every several millimeters apart
a small piece of skin was being torn off.
And when I got home
my wife told me that which you see now:
that the parrot on my shoulder has feathers plucked from the right wing –
one feather for every word I lengthened during the church service.
***
5. She turned on the TV
each day upon waking
she turned on the TV
and after she heard any bad news
went out onto the balcony
carrying the TV in her arms
and dumped it on the grass
she lived on the ground floor
that's why her TV never shattered on its first fall
later she painted the walls red and
leaned her whole body against them
and immersing herself in the astringent
smell of paint
began to sing with strained effort
like a web of paint stretched between outspread fingers
or the trace of a short puff of air
that is still somehow able to disperse at least a little
until the actor on the TV
greets the grass by the side of the road
that trace scorches the air the same way that
her deliberately wildly colored clothes intensely scorch her
her singing will soon cause the early birds to remain
voiceless.
2. The umbrella pine remain uncut by vanquishers
The surrounding mountains are dragon bellies swollen
with a massive gulp of air not one of the eternally panting dragons
ever exhales in fear of its movement being noticed
See the trees` canopies: they are all
moss-covered dragons chopped down a long time ago, with the first rays of sun shining
through their fleshy slabs, only the twisted canopies of the dragons of the Roman umbrella pine remain uncut by vanquishers
so the first dragon, who became entwined in a tree
with his scaly tail like a trunk and his body and head like a tree’s canopy remain still.
As time goes by, the dragon`s eyes open wider and wider –
acorns popping out from under their caps like eyes from their orbits
In oak groves the dragons exchange their acorn glances, wink
And the first of the dragons wanting to see better
Drops one eye on the ground after another unaware
that he`ll be blind until the next
eye-ripening .
***
3.The beard of the bark
After warmly wrapping into the rough neck of the tree
Divide its juice among nine jugs
And count your freckles
Until you feel
The beard of the bark growing numb everywhere
And the moment when the tree cringes from over dryness
You`ll find three red freckles missing on your face
You see, they`ve changed their hue
Becoming browner
The leaves absorbed them
Adding weight
That`s how it is now –
Some of the leaves are green and some of them are
Brown-spotted
You rejoice dancing in the hay
And only the juice-filled jugs
Imbibe themselves.
***
4. A Carthaginian interpreter with his tattoo
I longed to see in my dreams
a Carthaginian interpreter with his tattoo –
a parrot with wings open wide.
I imagined how when falling asleep
he appears before me:
the parrot’s wings are open, but
the right one is missing feathers.
Every other one is plucked
like the black and white keys of a piano
painted against a black background.
I ask the interpreter:
“Your parrot has open wings –
according to the Carthaginian custom
you must know more than one language?”
“Yes, he says, I know three.”
“And why is the wing of the parrot plucked?” – I ask
“This is my punishment” he says. Once
they asked me to interpret a church service
in a church where the priest was a stutterer.
I started to translate and suddenly realized
that I was afraid of altering something. I tried
to stammer as many times as he did
and when I got to the words “Lord Have Mercy” –
I saw tears on an icon.
My right shoulder started to hurt
as if every several millimeters apart
a small piece of skin was being torn off.
And when I got home
my wife told me that which you see now:
that the parrot on my shoulder has feathers plucked from the right wing –
one feather for every word I lengthened during the church service.
***
5. She turned on the TV
each day upon waking
she turned on the TV
and after she heard any bad news
went out onto the balcony
carrying the TV in her arms
and dumped it on the grass
she lived on the ground floor
that's why her TV never shattered on its first fall
later she painted the walls red and
leaned her whole body against them
and immersing herself in the astringent
smell of paint
began to sing with strained effort
like a web of paint stretched between outspread fingers
or the trace of a short puff of air
that is still somehow able to disperse at least a little
until the actor on the TV
greets the grass by the side of the road
that trace scorches the air the same way that
her deliberately wildly colored clothes intensely scorch her
her singing will soon cause the early birds to remain
voiceless.
