- fearful bridegroom
his shoes sharpened like scissors on his feet,
he glides through gasoline stations,
his right hand on the slender waist of emptiness,
his left one raised high up,
its middle finger pressed down on his pulse,
as if on the huge bass instrument of his blood,
his eyes, like two blue balloons, are tied with strings to his eye sockets,
a pink gauze handkerchief sticks out of his mouth instead of a smile,
from time to time he slips on the mother-of-pearl puddles of engine oil spilled on the ground,
the sound of a radio playing wafts like the smell of old rubber out of huge piles of used automobile tires,
behind him stretches the narrow road of his life paved with the cobblestones of days,
the giant plane trees of events grow on both of its sides,
before him looms his wedding like the spires of the Segovia cathedral bright in the sun on the background of the mad Castilian sky,
you can’t tell them apart from the stubble sticking up on the empty wheat fields,
it was in Segovia that Hemingway banged blue angels in their big fat asses,
the bitch of my heart whined at the door of some person’s heart,
I spun around in my bed like a ball bearing in its housing,
my bones pounded like hot pistons inside my flesh,
my lips throbbed from my soul like fingers burned on a hot car engine,
dawn sparkled on the windowsill like broken glass,
the hands of the clock had wilted like two violets in a glass of water,
I craved for the cool lemonades of moonlight,
shook the pink door handle of her mouth,
you sit bundled up in the thick sweater of loneliness in all cafés of the world,
I turn my face away from myself as I walk past you,
unborn children squeal like mice all night long under your bed,
my fingers gnaw like mice on themselves from morning till night,
I walk through empty streets with the collar of my soul raised high,
my soul makes the hushing sound of a rubber raincoat rubbing,
our love is a hole made by my foot in the wet snow of your face,
it fills with the black water of time,
time melts like a pile of dirty snow on the sidewalk,
water drips from the watch in my fist,
my fingers are white as bones from squeezing so hard,
all night long we shook in the third class carriage of the bed,
the gray mirror in the corner jumped up and down like a corpse laid out on a bench,
its glass shattered like a huge splash of sperm on the floor,
I felt dust and sand under my lips,
only the cracks between the floor boards were left in place of the lines of perspective,
we were heavy like two suitcases all packed, ready to go,
the shards of the broken afternoon stuck out dangerous in the windowpanes,
time had wilted like a violet in the glass of the clock,
the beer in the city square shone like a travel trunk trimmed with brass as the three of us drank it together,
silence descends like the sound of thousand of speeding bicycles,
that bushy-haired whore with her loose hips and morals trains her face like a wild beast in front of the mirror,
fences with the world with the epée of her sex,
“They fuck you and they don’t even pay you!”
silence descends as in a marriage bed behind a screen,
the cockroach named Dimitri comes out running to play its itty-bitty role on the floor of the restaurant,
the sea like a dog jingles with the broken chain of my pain,
reality is a city squashed flat like a blueberry,
its architecture creaks like cheap furniture,
no bronze of men’s backs and thighs sharpened with sweat shines bright on the profiles of hills,
blood doesn’t neigh, doesn’t try to stand up on its hind legs,
stubby swords don’t try lapping it from the enemies’ throats,
at night the moon stays darkened by long woman’s hair,
it doesn’t foam like beer in a glass,
on the slopes lie only its ruins and those of a civilization,
in a kiosk in the park Socrates is dying slowly behind bottles of anis and Coca-Cola,
he has no strength left to raise himself up on his rusty elbow,
in the Square of Urine the insides of apartments stir lazily like curtains in the windows,
that bearded stranger rolled in lard sidles up to me across an ocean and two continents,
I try to move away from him shaking with fear,
the world tilts like a bench,
I fall down to the ground,
the earth rises up to my throat like a scream,
suddenly a lot of feathers comes flying from somewhere,
I spit as it sticks to my lips,
there’s only one lonely candle left for the whole universe,
the hotel is like a giant apple bitten into with a room on the seventh floor,
somebody is chewing on the stairs as on a huge apple core trying to climb them,
consciousness like a weak street light barely makes it into the empty apartment of the mind,
in the corner there’s a huge pile of ashes instead of a bed,
on the dusty tiled floor you can hear a scraping--
like that of a lobster suffering from polio
1987/14.09.2012
***
2. death of che guevara
(waltz)
with a flick of his wrist your faithless friend shakes off the cigar of his penis,
mumbles good-bye through the thick woman’s bush of his beard,
the sandy beaches glitter like a golden bracelet on the hairy wrist of Cuba,
the Pacific Ocean shakes millions of its green tits like a fat old woman grown wild with sex,
the Moscow pope gingerly extends the white host of a telegram through two continents and an ocean
and the red cardinals in La Paz kneel down obediently, meekly sticking out their tongues,
you steal along through the suburban vegetable gardens of the country,
your beret hangs down over your forehead like tar-black hair,
a bright red hole is already in the middle of your forehead readied for your death,
the thirty-nine soldiers of your years follow closely behind you,
asthma like the ridges of the Andes cuts through your lungs,
healer of nations you couldn’t heal even yourself,
bent down low you steal along past the fences of suburban vegetable gardens, pain racking your back,
the thirty-nine soldiers of your years step on your heels,
during the afternoon hours your pen scratches the itchy pages of your diary,
wild boars and people’s asses oink in the bushes,
Tanya comes riding in astride a big red penis,
brings along your death in an envelope sealed with a Judas’ kiss,
all night long you shiver with the chills of love,
you thrash about in you sleeping bag with the skeleton of your death,
its hair is red like blood,
its teeth yellow and cracked like an old washbasin,
traces of dry feces on them like on a toilet bowl,
in the morning your body is covered with bruises,
your soul is like a sack full of overripe plums,
when you steal along through the fields of corn
the local Indians watch you through the doors of their huts half-open like mouths,
their drooling saliva points in the direction in which you disappear,
the whole country flaps its fields of corn flying away from you,
the pheasants of radio stations screech wildly, startled by your presence,
in the valley that bears my name
your way is barred by the shattered trunk of the stream,
the white splinters of its water threaten your wrists,
the hands on the face of your wristwatch hang untied like two shoe laces,
time has slid down like a mountainside on the face of your wristwatch barring your way to tomorrow,
you start dreaming about bowlegged sergeants,
you lie stretched out in a woodshed on the edge of a concrete trough,
you dream about thousands of bowlegged sergeants,
they drill on the vast empty square of your body,
it’s covered with the paving stones of cold sweat,
the steel studs of cold sweat dig themselves into your flesh,
the doors of the woodshed open wide,
their hinges creak with the sound of blood,
in walks the giant bowlegged sergeant of your death,
his ass creaks like an old chest of drawers,
leaden flies start buzzing in your ears,
brass wasps sting your body,
you swell up from their bites,
you turn pale forever like a person who has drowned,
cold water comes streaming out of your body,
your hair and brain drip with it,
the bucket isn’t big enough to hold it all in,
it’s your consciousness leaving you forever,
the feeling of mud stays forever in your memory,
your hands turn thin like pages in a magazine,
the bowlegged sergeant comes nearer, his ass creaking like a huge chest of drawers,
he holds a pair of scissors in each of his hands,
they have wings and beaks of fierce predatory birds,
he cuts the hands out of your body like pages out of a magazine,
jumps back startled,
they fly out of his fingers,
they fly out through the door into the open,
they join together into a pair of bird wings,
into wings of the white bird of innocence,
they go on flying, flying, flying,
they fly higher, and higher, and higher,
it is the soul of Che Guevara flying like that,
it is the soul of Che Guevara flying to its maker--
smaller grow electrons, atoms, and molecules,
smaller grow grains of sand and of corn,
smaller grow fields of corn,
smaller grow cities and the peaks of the Andes,
smaller grows the Pacific Ocean,
smaller grows the globe of the earth,
smaller grows the blue color,
the soul of Che Guevara comes flying in to its maker like a white dove,
it sits down on his knee,
it looks with its tiny eye into that one vast eye,
it coos for him softly its song of praise!
1987/20.07.2012
behind him stretches the narrow road of his life paved with the cobblestones of days,
the giant plane trees of events grow on both of its sides,
before him looms his wedding like the spires of the Segovia cathedral bright in the sun on the background of the mad Castilian sky,
you can’t tell them apart from the stubble sticking up on the empty wheat fields,
it was in Segovia that Hemingway banged blue angels in their big fat asses,
the bitch of my heart whined at the door of some person’s heart,
I spun around in my bed like a ball bearing in its housing,
my bones pounded like hot pistons inside my flesh,
my lips throbbed from my soul like fingers burned on a hot car engine,
dawn sparkled on the windowsill like broken glass,
the hands of the clock had wilted like two violets in a glass of water,
I craved for the cool lemonades of moonlight,
shook the pink door handle of her mouth,
you sit bundled up in the thick sweater of loneliness in all cafés of the world,
I turn my face away from myself as I walk past you,
unborn children squeal like mice all night long under your bed,
my fingers gnaw like mice on themselves from morning till night,
I walk through empty streets with the collar of my soul raised high,
my soul makes the hushing sound of a rubber raincoat rubbing,
our love is a hole made by my foot in the wet snow of your face,
it fills with the black water of time,
time melts like a pile of dirty snow on the sidewalk,
water drips from the watch in my fist,
my fingers are white as bones from squeezing so hard,
all night long we shook in the third class carriage of the bed,
the gray mirror in the corner jumped up and down like a corpse laid out on a bench,
its glass shattered like a huge splash of sperm on the floor,
I felt dust and sand under my lips,
only the cracks between the floor boards were left in place of the lines of perspective,
we were heavy like two suitcases all packed, ready to go,
the shards of the broken afternoon stuck out dangerous in the windowpanes,
time had wilted like a violet in the glass of the clock,
the beer in the city square shone like a travel trunk trimmed with brass as the three of us drank it together,
silence descends like the sound of thousand of speeding bicycles,
that bushy-haired whore with her loose hips and morals trains her face like a wild beast in front of the mirror,
fences with the world with the epée of her sex,
“They fuck you and they don’t even pay you!”
silence descends as in a marriage bed behind a screen,
the cockroach named Dimitri comes out running to play its itty-bitty role on the floor of the restaurant,
the sea like a dog jingles with the broken chain of my pain,
reality is a city squashed flat like a blueberry,
its architecture creaks like cheap furniture,
no bronze of men’s backs and thighs sharpened with sweat shines bright on the profiles of hills,
blood doesn’t neigh, doesn’t try to stand up on its hind legs,
stubby swords don’t try lapping it from the enemies’ throats,
at night the moon stays darkened by long woman’s hair,
it doesn’t foam like beer in a glass,
on the slopes lie only its ruins and those of a civilization,
in a kiosk in the park Socrates is dying slowly behind bottles of anis and Coca-Cola,
he has no strength left to raise himself up on his rusty elbow,
in the Square of Urine the insides of apartments stir lazily like curtains in the windows,
that bearded stranger rolled in lard sidles up to me across an ocean and two continents,
I try to move away from him shaking with fear,
the world tilts like a bench,
I fall down to the ground,
the earth rises up to my throat like a scream,
suddenly a lot of feathers comes flying from somewhere,
I spit as it sticks to my lips,
there’s only one lonely candle left for the whole universe,
the hotel is like a giant apple bitten into with a room on the seventh floor,
somebody is chewing on the stairs as on a huge apple core trying to climb them,
consciousness like a weak street light barely makes it into the empty apartment of the mind,
in the corner there’s a huge pile of ashes instead of a bed,
on the dusty tiled floor you can hear a scraping--
like that of a lobster suffering from polio
1987/14.09.2012
***
2. death of che guevara
(waltz)
with a flick of his wrist your faithless friend shakes off the cigar of his penis,
mumbles good-bye through the thick woman’s bush of his beard,
the sandy beaches glitter like a golden bracelet on the hairy wrist of Cuba,
the Pacific Ocean shakes millions of its green tits like a fat old woman grown wild with sex,
the Moscow pope gingerly extends the white host of a telegram through two continents and an ocean
and the red cardinals in La Paz kneel down obediently, meekly sticking out their tongues,
you steal along through the suburban vegetable gardens of the country,
your beret hangs down over your forehead like tar-black hair,
a bright red hole is already in the middle of your forehead readied for your death,
the thirty-nine soldiers of your years follow closely behind you,
asthma like the ridges of the Andes cuts through your lungs,
healer of nations you couldn’t heal even yourself,
bent down low you steal along past the fences of suburban vegetable gardens, pain racking your back,
the thirty-nine soldiers of your years step on your heels,
during the afternoon hours your pen scratches the itchy pages of your diary,
wild boars and people’s asses oink in the bushes,
Tanya comes riding in astride a big red penis,
brings along your death in an envelope sealed with a Judas’ kiss,
all night long you shiver with the chills of love,
you thrash about in you sleeping bag with the skeleton of your death,
its hair is red like blood,
its teeth yellow and cracked like an old washbasin,
traces of dry feces on them like on a toilet bowl,
in the morning your body is covered with bruises,
your soul is like a sack full of overripe plums,
when you steal along through the fields of corn
the local Indians watch you through the doors of their huts half-open like mouths,
their drooling saliva points in the direction in which you disappear,
the whole country flaps its fields of corn flying away from you,
the pheasants of radio stations screech wildly, startled by your presence,
in the valley that bears my name
your way is barred by the shattered trunk of the stream,
the white splinters of its water threaten your wrists,
the hands on the face of your wristwatch hang untied like two shoe laces,
time has slid down like a mountainside on the face of your wristwatch barring your way to tomorrow,
you start dreaming about bowlegged sergeants,
you lie stretched out in a woodshed on the edge of a concrete trough,
you dream about thousands of bowlegged sergeants,
they drill on the vast empty square of your body,
it’s covered with the paving stones of cold sweat,
the steel studs of cold sweat dig themselves into your flesh,
the doors of the woodshed open wide,
their hinges creak with the sound of blood,
in walks the giant bowlegged sergeant of your death,
his ass creaks like an old chest of drawers,
leaden flies start buzzing in your ears,
brass wasps sting your body,
you swell up from their bites,
you turn pale forever like a person who has drowned,
cold water comes streaming out of your body,
your hair and brain drip with it,
the bucket isn’t big enough to hold it all in,
it’s your consciousness leaving you forever,
the feeling of mud stays forever in your memory,
your hands turn thin like pages in a magazine,
the bowlegged sergeant comes nearer, his ass creaking like a huge chest of drawers,
he holds a pair of scissors in each of his hands,
they have wings and beaks of fierce predatory birds,
he cuts the hands out of your body like pages out of a magazine,
jumps back startled,
they fly out of his fingers,
they fly out through the door into the open,
they join together into a pair of bird wings,
into wings of the white bird of innocence,
they go on flying, flying, flying,
they fly higher, and higher, and higher,
it is the soul of Che Guevara flying like that,
it is the soul of Che Guevara flying to its maker--
smaller grow electrons, atoms, and molecules,
smaller grow grains of sand and of corn,
smaller grow fields of corn,
smaller grow cities and the peaks of the Andes,
smaller grows the Pacific Ocean,
smaller grows the globe of the earth,
smaller grows the blue color,
the soul of Che Guevara comes flying in to its maker like a white dove,
it sits down on his knee,
it looks with its tiny eye into that one vast eye,
it coos for him softly its song of praise!
1987/20.07.2012
