Rimas Uzgiris 

Translator

ugh, spring

the police are riding

with their windows open,

you can almost hear their radios.

and the much longed-for school girls

are out with skirts

and striped japanese stockings,

speckled like lithuanian easter eggs.

it’s nice, what can you say – liver-leaf, daffodil

and the vagabonds can finally

sleep in the street.

let’s be happy for them

in this the time of happiness and rebirth,

in this the time of approaching exams,

of approaching summer, sea,

sand and thunder.

it goes without saying, but the tv antenna

on the neighbor’s balcony

is pleasantly warm in the sun.

of course, it’s not yet hot enough

to burn your hand when you touch it.

overall, super,

the trees are bursting in front of your eyes

and that’s the real faith.

so believe in yourself too, and touch yourself,

you don’t have to take off so many clothes.

and you can have dignified pride

in the underarm sweat-stain of your t-shirt.

everything is good.

even the children’s toys

stuck on the roof of the garage

are more pleasant today.

and the willows, the willows growing beside them,

good god, they don’t even seem to droop

but look like the hands of a teenage girl at the bus stop

sitting on david’s lap.

so then, flowers. i took them into the shade and watered them

because they were wilting on the windowsill from the heat.

flowers, trees, women, and the slightly older ones

who gaze indifferently at the youths,

but still notice, no doubt

the strangeness of your gaze,

what do they want? they’re in a theater, don’t worry.

and the men? where are the men?

the men find their strength again in the spring,

but they don’t like to talk about that.

little student bitches with hard nipples.

this very second a blond is driving a ferrari

on the main street of town.

i expect she gets pretty good bouquets.

i expect the bikers are happy,

cutting through town in a tender night breeze

passing suburban gas stations

under a full moon.

we understand.

in playgrounds the kids

thrust their hands deeply into sand,

and cars drive above rivers on bridges

under which you once smoked weed.

so what’s the worry? impossible, i say,

time does not think about that.

the river flows under your bridge,

the police are almost on vacation,

god rides a spaceship from mars.

i gaze at the water while

you all water your plants.

soon a dog will bark.

soon a stone in the river will be caressed.

soon your cat on your back.

me too soon.

me too soon,

i’ll live

also with you.

on valentine’s day i got the gift of herpes

the next morning some geezer skied into our neighborhood yard

to feed the pigeons

a year before that on valentine’s day

i woke up in a strange bed

but it happened by accident and it took us a while to understand

so we greeted each other with a bit of unease

a year before that i celebrated the anniversary

of our squat in london almost overdosing on ecstasy

while watching amelie from montmartre

standing in front of the television

pouring tears

and passionately waving at the characters

yes!

a year before that i was homeless

sleeping on the sofas of friends

screaming at night the name of the woman i loved

they only told me later

a year before that i thought about how i don’t have a clue

as to what champagne to buy my girl

a year before that i left home

a year before that my parents left me

a year before that i wondered how long i could stay

a year before that i seriously believed in god for the first time

a year before that i thought so this is my whole life

a year before that i was sixteen and had long hair

a year before that i had much shorter hair

a year before that we took a picture of ourselves by niagara falls

and mommy is prettiest in that picture

a year before that we tried to catch salmon in a swift river

there were so many that they swam through our legs

but we had no luck with our rods so we finally

got our landing nets and just scooped away

we caught two big ones that way

and also took a picture

a year before that i consciously jacked-off for the first time

a year before that i broke up with my childhood love

and it was very sad

a year before that i used to call her at home

and sometimes her grandmother answered

a year before that i brought a toy gun to school

and the teacher took it away from me

but when she wasn’t there i opened her drawer

and took it

like a real man

a year before that i thought how big i was already

a year before that the older kids taught me how to play four square

a year before that i lived in fabijoniškės and we were robbed a lot

a year before that they tried to steal my dad’s new black bmw

that was given to him by a man with his mafia

and who tried to steal it back himself

a year before that there was certainly no bmw and no champagne

but my brother was born

a year before that i was paging through an illustrated bible

a year before that everyone celebrated my first birthday

a year before that my body entered the universe

a year before that my parents loved each other

high pressure

hot sun

there’ll be lightning

in the evening

and thunder will rumble

echoing

through the sewer pipes

of tenement flats

under sweltering asphalt

under the streets

which cars wind up

onto their spindle-wheels

but for now

in the fields

no one’s afraid of that.

because we’re going

yes we’re going to sit on the grass

to watch the hot air balloons fly

and to play badminton

and drink wine

to read to each other and play

music loudly

and even if we don’t like people too much

we do it because we haven’t succeeded

yet at taking

our beloved unhappy girl

around the waist

and that

(that is wonderful).

but it’s going to rain soon

and there’s this huge lithuanian falcon

soaring above us.

we’re all watching him

and here are his wings

and here is he himself:

- - - - - - () - - - - - -

because today i’m wearing white converses

and i really can’t take part

in your graduation ceremony

i press the parentheses

and place for you in them

one

large

white

flower.

i press send.

and i hug you a bit

strangely

because today you’re more beautiful

than usual

your friends and family

are waiting for you

as well as a strange lunch

in a restaurant

for which your father

will try very hard to pay.

while you enjoy

each other’s company

all our flowers will lie

in your father’s car.

(they will burn a bit in there)

at some moment

a passer-by will look

at his reflection

in the car window

and on the other side of the street

a helium ballon

will escape from a little girl’s hand.

you

barely listening

to your mother’s praises

over a cup of coffee

will think about all that

for a little while.

i like you

but i tell my friend

that i like patricia

and thank my brother at his wedding

for seating me next to giedrė

but really

i like writing to monika

because she has this pink jacket

and she never meets up with me

because really

i like to lie in your bed

and kiss the handsome painter from the looney-bin

while you party at “opium” with your admirers

and come back at midday

when we aren’t there

where a cat waits patiently for you

along with empty bottles

while eternal fires wait for me

because i’m really a christian

hanging out with demons

and sometimes god

i like him too

but there are moments of weakness

when i really want god

to take me

and just do me

do me good.

maybe i’d be different then

and no one would

judge me

^{Cornelia blows up supermarkets, exterminates}

^{parasites, refuses lunch with Maria Callas...}

^{shivers with boredom, wraps a bra}

^{on her ankle...}

^{William Levy}

a schooner white as clouds

slides across the smooth surface

sliding so silently so dully

that you want to stamp and scream

go Stapleton go

lick the hides of all those philistines

up to their ears in poo

but smiling like rainbows

go Steven go

chew up all their pearls

hone your teeth with files

pound them into green porridge

and feed it to those rainbows

am i still a wandering man?

or just a poodle smothered by family matters

with a well-combed groin?

give me your Scythia

the dust of the wind sifted in sun

all the Bulgars Khazars Huns

Pechenegs Nogais Sarmatians

give me your Bessarabia

your mad mermaids of the Prut

riding on the whacked-out hippopotamuses

of the Dniester

go Stapleton go

drive from me the piss-soaked fool

let the cage-swallowing parrot sing

Diana Rogerson

feed her the whip i want her feather

to poke myself and write letters with blood

to all the coolest people

to European Union psychoanalysts

so that they would peel out of my chest

the sprouting mandrill tooth 

for which i can never find pliers

writhing like a worm

even though everyone says O how good you look

go Steven go

drive from me the lover of soft sofas

cowering hiding 

behind a curtain of thick smoke

once in the very heart of the action

life turned down my flame

darkening my mind and strength

weighing me down with horrible invisible dumbbells

but one night i dreamt a three-headed angel

and ran outside and began to bark at the cross:

domines canes, domines canes...

ceaselessly: domines canes, domines canes...

the police and an ambulance came

the police cut me into pieces

and the ambulance sewed me up

i lost a little weight after that

it seems they left out some parts

unnessesary ones but i felt something

was lacking in my brains as well

go Stapleton go

fire me up in a shameless rage of blood

i want to dance with Cybele’s eunuchs

with Gadafi’s female jihadist bodyguards

with pornolilies and provincial shopgirls

beating out the rhythm:

bunga bunga Silvio, bunga bunga Gadafi

bunga bunga Silvio, bunga bunga Gadafi

bunga bunga ay bunga, bunga bunga

AY!

let zen marry the border guards, i say,

maybe contraband will cross more smoothly

let tired uncle Bribery finally take a rest

O world, O giant counter, dance and laugh

and you too, Lithuania, bowing

in the dirt

bowing in Danish pigpens

in the stalls of fattened shopping malls

where preservatives oink and flavorings squeel

and then a billion cancer cells smack their lips

they even penetrate innocent bodies

and never repent

so let’s fish out all those sluts with nanopriests

and nanodogs: bunga bunga – domines canes...

bunga bunga – domines canes...

BOW WOW!

i want to become a shaman monster

whose tongue will crumble into a billion little tongues

that will lick up all the sluts like pollen

and drink the mead of satisfaction

AH!

go shaman go

drive the angry spirits from the innocent

with psychodelic waves

wash your laughter from the innocent HIV

ZHIVITE S MIROM: pronounce with a terrible accent

and make a Baikal seal laugh

as it readies itself to dive into the clearest

waters of the world

O world, clearest crystal, you are raped

everyday by beasts of prey

splashing their black sperm

annointing their fat with palm oil

and sticking their kilometer-long drills everywhere

drilling and drilling, drilling and drilling

until one day with no anesthetic

they will drill through the teeth 

of the sleeping apocalypse 

covered with earth’s mantle 

and then there will be a bunga bunga

but let’s not worry for now

just admire the rainbows and schooners

let the beer bottle and lotus shepherd us

so that the whole body is pierced 

by a great OM

so what if it is spoken by 

A HEAVY SIGH

^{Author’s Notes}

^{Steven Stapleton: founder and leader of the experimental music group Nurse with Wound.}

^{Huffin’ Rag Blues: an album of the aforementioned group, the gift of which I am grateful to Salias Noizas.}

^{Diana Rogerson: vocalist and wife of Steven Stapleton, also working with Nurse with Wound.}

^{Bunga bunga: a term invented in the Italian and Western European press to describe the parties and orgies of Silvio Berlusconi and Muammar Gaddafi.}

demonstrably

in the sight of our eyes

they turn magical circles

and twirl figure-eights

on desks and window glass

or with rags fiercely

gripped in their hands

they mutely proclaim

that they clean not just

the leftover stains

but our sins as well:

they wash us remotely

like professional bodyguards

they accurately press

the triggers of their sprays

and with bitter streams of fluid

they slay all the germs –

it’s as if they drive

our immoral thoughts away

and make us smile

mumbling their spells 

with disdain

wrinkling their noses

exorcising our corruption

we have seen it more than once:

how they slide into bathrooms

like apparitions

making the sad, filthy

toilets shine

hissing to themselves in their disgust

of the flatulent and

downright shitty culture

of these two-legged creations

while wanting to shout and scream

you are just waste and excrement

but their secret code won’t allow it

with friends they just exchange greetings

maybe a word or two

for the sake of the conspiracy

but with each other they gossip

stopped somewhere between

the tables of the library and cafeteria

– a public place in principle –

it’s their unwritten agreement

like an open witches’ sabbath

though we all know

they reach into every corner

unlock all the cabinets

find the stains of passion

and drama left by lovers: 

they sniff out the scents

file them away in secret archives

read the love-letters tossed

into trash cans

even if these are torn up

but most important are their brushes

which seem just like ordinary tools

but it’s worth noticing

how carefully they look after them

how respectfully they touch the handles

sometimes picking at something we can’t even see

– it’s not just

a handle but a great antenna

with all the most sensitive gear

perfectly attuned to

the wifi of our unconscious minds

if they so much as sense something interesting

they click a secret button

and read off everything they need

or when they get home

they stick the usb into the computer

munching on some late-night snack

staring at the screen

chuckling away

for we are to them

the sitcom that never ends

i need to somehow yap it all out,

stutter, regurgitate, speak about

how i don’t fit into my family

how i’m flogged with whips of fire

by my amazon

and I don’t always know what for

how i squirm

like an idiot worm

slobbering over the furniture

how i go from pain to pain

how i slither from love to love

wanting to kiss everyone

like some hopelessly kind samurai

a drunken dog in a way

better to be a bad poet

and a good father, my son

better to be a rough poet

and a gentle father, my daughter

forgive me that sometimes

i can’t find room in our cage of bones

raving like an allergic man

whose skin is a sick unsuppressable cynic

dancing with chairs unto madness

embracing sofas

speaking to the undersides of tables

i sneak into shadows as you ride home

like a bat out of hell, my amazon

I hide in my imagination

à la deviantART de Bernard Cornelis

weakened unto horror

deranged to the roots

i try to walk through walls

so that no one hears

so that no one sees

then Fratres bangs into my ears –

give me hope

and calm strength, Arvo Pärt –

in front of my eyes – Egon Schiele’s ghosts –

the world tears, and needles don’t sew

but poke and poke and poke

i want to be a hard cliff face, my son

i want to be a clear well, my daughter

i want to be your beloved, my amazon

less whipped

less prone to tear

i don’t know what to be in this meat grinder of love:

the tenderness of ground meat for burgers

that you will push away

or scraps of meat for beef stroganoff

for which you will go wild

forgive me that i am almost all yours

understand that i am truly

more than all yours

every cell in your body turns me on

my amazon

your every blow kills me

my love

are you not sorry for the death of love?

is love’s death sweet to you?

thank god i’ve got the gift of resurrection

something i picked out at the shrine

thank god i am immortal

because i’m crazy weak

better to be a weak poet

and a strong father, my son

better to be a screaming poet

and a listening father, my daughter

i want to be screaming, ground up

with you profaned, my amazon

annointed by your saliva

blessed by your kisses

buried in your fury

renewed in your smile

because you and i are one

because you and i are in this meat grinder of love

that snarls like the wolf’s insides

it is worth being happy after all

that we don’t look at each other

like vegetarians

the marsh marigolds have bloomed – i am your animal

the heart dives into the snow – i am your animal

the thighs of everyday life grip so tight – i am your animal

and it’s tight between the drawers too – i am your animal

the family is a comfy mental clinic – i am your animal

you caress me and jump away – i am your animal

a blue bump rises between us – i am your animal

festering from your reproofs – i am your animal

a damper on our desire – i am your animal

in quiet prayer on the pew – i am your animal

when my wallet is under the weather – i am your animal

neither drunk nor an angel – i am your animal

even as a eunuch – i am your animal

smelling of weakness – i am your animal

even if you turned me in to the pawnshop – i am your animal

blubbering like a babe – i am your animal

on the floor with a wet rag – i am your animal

when you sink me into hopelessness – i am your animal

bubbling up IN YOU – i am your animal

dissolving like sugar IN YOU – i am your animal

when you cut yourself and lick – i am your animal

you feel – the sweetness of your blood 

unsuppressable i hoot

squack steal off to marginal lands

wandering with fears apprehensions

cowering

and i always meet your black

glossy feathers 

corvus corax

i soar along with coffins

thousands of coffins

riding their ends like Scythian steeds

over the Pontic steppe

solitary on a thousand powerful steeds

or i sail them like ships

over the lakes of Dzūkija

a solitary dark silhouette

over the deep lakes

or lie in them like beds 

in the halls of Beynac castle

whispering to haughty duchesses

with perfumed lungs

it’s you who will croak them up

corvus corax

an unsuppressable wanderer

with bulging orange eyes

i kiss the darkness

and smack into the light

whose bony fists

knock on my strange –

to put it mildly – visions

which hiccup and twitch and moan

better – the darkness 

corvus corax

the frightful darkness

that swallows me

and swallowing consoles

saying i’m not the damndest

i’m a watchman of the city of travelling coffins

with raggedy clothes

and shabby thoughts

from which garbage dumps grow

inside me

through which you rumage 

corvus corax

through which you constantly rummage 

wanting me to insuppressibly 

scream out

all my schadenfreude

my lack of love

my injustices to the weak

and my betrayals 

so that i would spill the sweat of shame

like some kind of sulphuric acid bath

but you know quite well – it’s all in vain

corvus corax

if i admit everything i become sedentary

like the man of sorrows hanging in the churchyard

like a wandering flea under the fur of one dog

like the doldrums smelling of sweet perfume

i am burned by what i don’t confess

and it becomes a fuel that fills me

for my wanderings with the colony

through the endless reaches of night

don’t you know – only death

will give the gift of confession

corvus corax

one night my entire armada of coffins

will settle on a lake in Dzūkija

– on Big Lake –

with big bitterns

as sentries –

and there will reign such silence

that with the echo of my last

heartbeats

you will hold

your breath out of respect

and then your beak

will save my body

building a nest from my bones

you won’t be able to believe

how hollow they are –

like yours

corvus corax

the wind 

will whistle through them 

with the voices of all the birds

pouring ceaseless secrets

into your ear

you’ll nod your head along

stripping me to the last little bone

and then make the sign of the cross 

with your powerful beak

you are the only one

i trust

corvus corax

i want relief

so badly –

even if it comes afterwards

my black priest

^{Author’s notes:}

^{Corvus Corax: the common raven}

^{Big Lake: another name for Daugų lake, which really is big}

there to the east, my son,

where the gunpowder sun rises

blacker than a black dog

angrier than a dog with a black throat

where the black sun of misery rises

hearts abide in basements

where they have more light 

a little boy

wades through the ruins of his home

looking for his mom

he believes so hard that he’ll find her

that he even forgets to cry

he will not find his father

far away, in a crater like a grave

lying there neither dead nor alive

dreaming of his son

eating potato-pancakes

with no apprehension that his beloved 

struck down by the devil’s scourge, stares into nowhere

and the little boy

wades through the shards of his home

looking for his mom, looking so hard

that he even forgets to cry

someone here does not want

us to live, my son

sometimes it seems that way

seems as if they want to drive us out

turn us into ruins

then stand on top of the pile and roar –

a cloud hangs over us

maybe not so visible

but always whispering

sputtering

because those tepid creatures

breathing charcoal fumes

are always conferring

you see, not everyone drinks

the pills pushed on them 

from which fear hatches

as if from eggs

then comes giddiness

and rage and the shaking of fists

all for nothing

however, not all of us are screwed

by invisible screws

into their somber factory walls

so we will not retreat, my son

because our place will be taken by grayer ones

and where the gray ones come, said a certain pair of brothers

the black ones quickly follow 

we’ll hold the line, my son

we’ll shoot back with whatever we can:

the nails we use for the walls of our shed

on which we hang our tools,

the peas that flourish so beautifully

in our garden,

and the letters from newly discovered books:

they will be our shields

we’ll crawl through garden troughs like trenches

we’ll pray to the sun, moon and the pear tree

we’ll rattle incantations

rat-tat-tat let the ones looking for each other cry

when they finally find each other

rat-tat-tat let the father return from the trenches

to find his son

rat-tat-tat let the sun in the east shake off its ashes

rat-tat-tat let potatoes sprout in those trenches

hey, potato-pancakes, we’ll cry

hey, potato-pancakes, they’ll cry

hey, potato-pancakes, thin and crispy

hey, potato-pancakes, fat and undercooked

hey, it’s all the same to us, they’re divine

hey, they’re equally divinely good

we’ll stuff ourselves for the future and go for a snooze

snoring louder than armored cars

and the earth will turn, turning in dizzy delight

among the fields of potatoes in bloom

and then we will face the final fight –

a rather quiet one, rather calm, kind of funny –

with the potato-beetles from Colorado

such an intense thaw

waters with such deep teeth

they even gnawed through graves

and having palms so strong

they lifted coffins out of the earth 

and crushed them 

releasing the recently buried 

into the city’s rivers:

dozens of calm, majestic corpses

began to swim through the streams

like gondolas

turning into side-streets

diving through doorways

calling on courtyards

with their eyes closed

they swam into stores

and bought nothing

sometimes just barely

rubbing shoulders

hips heads

without fuss or fighting

gossip or caress

calm and proud

like boats stuffed with bones

they sailed their own way

through unheeded traffic signs

or still blinking lights

calm and proud

liberated by the waters

from dark narrow rooms

they swam and they swam

like beds escaped from home

dressed in the dark suits of sleep

their strange pajamas

on which mice and rats

roused by waters

had already clambered

angry and ruffled

for it hadn’t been time 

to run from basements yet

into the great outdoors

but given a minute’s rest

they sat calmly

lifting their haughty heads

as if struck with the thought:

it’s time to see the world after all

time to see the wider world –

“we are sick of

those same old holes and burrows 

the same food

those same old snores and screams 

from the other sides of ceilings and walls

those nose-numbing farts

so now, how splendid it is 

that this flood is upon us

or fuck-all we wouldn’t 

have gone out at all”

                      ^{Sidabro lakiūtė,}

                      ^Sidabro.

1.

As if one is invited,

one is called

as if the vectors of windrows 

point north

and the thoughts of the earth awaken

so that you know 

what actions to take.

A thread freezes and breaks in the cold –

the stalk of a nascent moon.

2.

I am tired 

of holding my tongue,

everything must be said,

quickly,

while the seed is sown –

magic words

enchant the earth

and you can’t

prevent life

as your palms enclose roots

lifting everything 

up

until I am cleansed by my own abnegation

until fear-filled eyes put me to the test.

3.

Protect us from the rain

that promises more

than we need,

give us enough mouths

if you set the harvest upon us

through the fields

I know you are my mother,

that my legs are stuck in you

for ages,

and to break away 

promises only

another turning towards you

I know that we love you

not just for 

your ear for our prayers,

your gift of the harvest,

but how you don’t hesitate to feed

the mouth that disrespects you,

that fails to understand

the what and from where

of life –

your unconditionality 

is the most perfect form of truth.

Let there be heaven for us

through rain.

4.

In the cold, thread freezes and breaks –

the cord connecting the earth

with the pink moon of morning –

a shield 

protecting us –

born naked

every evening.

the steppes have grown 

into fossilized footsteps of their memory

with feet

habituated to stirrups

from the time of their grandparents’ birth –

forty sons

of Omeldesh

left

forty pairs 

of heroic footprints here

from the time of my grandparents’ birth –

a fall

down to soil

from heaven’s clouds

from the first outburst of the world

whose ritual 

is repeated every spring

the trees are sowing 

autumn warriors now

and remind us

of time past,

one year, one month

when one father sewed his seed

into forty women

here –

Vilnius holds

the steppe and singing time

like the world’s

thin cobweb 

cut 

off

by a suburban bus

that leaves us

wandering 

from mosque

to Soviet store

it already seems

as if time never sang

to us here before

yet everything is connected

once again

by a dark-haired girl 

who runs out trailing 

long braids down the street.

^{for G. Ž.}

I.

A box zither in your hands

as if embroidering

as if sewing

where only in the threading

does reality

sounds.

II.

Perhaps you could embroider the grave

with eyes

and paths

and life

and make audible 

the invisible sounds of home

like doors closing

and the slowing

of the sought-for speed of life

while sewing the fates of soldiers

if I had to fight 

I would know what to sew

on your shoulders

on your throbbing vein

wrapped in muslin shawls

and who maintains peace in the world

why is the surface land so wide

where dogs have not seen

dug-outs

I kiss you

rest in peace –

the last bullet is now sewn in

and the path fated by stitching

III.

Mother’s face – 

the laced window 

          of the porch

where the world is born

through the curtain’s pattern,

down the sauna’s path,

sometimes returned to me –

traces of former homes,

trenches in the forest – signs

of mortal discharge:

this space balanced

between life and death,

home and sauna,

now and tomorrow,

between I am still here

and

it doesn’t hurt anymore.

1. (Glove)

Five fences

one door

a gate –

       The Milky

          The Damp

                The Sharp

let the waning moon not rise

let the dew swim along sources

and wash 

my eyes

all-healing hands –

five fences

one door

the ends of the city

in my hands

Fish End

Ruthenian End

Dead End

and Sharp End

Vilnia waters

in my veins

and fish

five fences

one door.

2. Fish Scales

They brush their hair with fish bones

They brush their hair, they bury their hair

Swim, hair, through the Danube

Where my love scoops up water

Scoops up water, waters his horse

Straw-colored horse, golden saddle

The waters of Vilnia

in my blood

we brush them

along their currents

with fish bone combs

and there –

the sharp dawn gates

street blades

suburb sharpness

the ends of the city –

Fish End

Ruthenian End

Dead End

and Sharp End

I lead them by the reins

over a glass square

riding a straw-colored horse

through the sharp suburb of day

through the market of grain and horses

through dew

gathered under the lindens of Lindenhill

dripping

dripping

dripping a stream

there run

the waters

  of the Kaukysa

and also of the stream 

where you can see

Double-Backed Hill

3.

Dominican –

Dogs of the Lord Street

to the Flea Market.

The gates –

    The Red

            and Black gates

The Lower

         The Devil’s

                   The Hungarians’

gates –

      The Broken.

4.

What are your hands for?

to gather linden blossoms

I don’t need hands any more

to embrace you

I don’t need a body

to cuddle with you

but do our bodies need us anymore?

do our hands need homes anymore?

with what to stitch a scar?

with what to cut a thread?

I have all my voices

fingers and feeling –

even what I love 

does not belong to me

not even myself

we are simply here.

we are simply here.

^{If you don’t see your mother in all things,}

^{What does it matter that you take a higher form?}

^{– Milarepa}

For women, children, and the victims of war 

and other “justified” cruelties of the world

How does mother’s emptiness look

when there is no one to nurse

no one’s hand to hold

no shirts to patch or sew

to wait for and return to?

Who then is my mother

can it be that field of earth

sowed with the tears of bullets

a grave dug up 

by an animal

by a human

by time?

Though time does not actually exist

it is an illusion

a waking dream

There remain only two creations of nature

two suspects of nature

those two –

tread the sand of ancient cemeteries

there remains a grave –

a mark

of life, as of illness –

mortally ill

having died

who is that mother?

who is that child?

is it just that

which doesn’t actually exist?

what we wait for in the name of time?

who is the mother and who is this child?

who is that animal

drinking blood as if tears

pretending it is a fight for faith

earth

  the sand of old cemeteries

 welfare?

and why does it feel so wrong?

can faith be a beast

playing with a babe unto death

while the mother watches?

can faith be that beast

who allows one to enter a woman without love

even if washed a hundred times?

what is that terrible faith

leaving only the first letter

between a man and a monster

not leaving the soul

where it is with the body hurting

when you feel it like an open wound?

woman

carrying a burden

it is your day

it is your day going around

and under the sun.

                Literature doesn’t depict women shaving their legs.
                (from a lecture on literary theory)

I. RAZOR BLADE

a puppy licks the woman’s calves
gnaws with sharp little teeth
the bone overgrown with grass
leaving a red rash
on the other side
of skin

a cat sleeps in the woman’s underarm
occasionally plucking at hairs
the woman, framed by nylon, foam
face towels and a realm of shadows
paints a portrait of someone similar to herself
(while the little jars of paint quietly wane)
the bathroom changes the woman
the clock strikes
the mirror nods
– now you can go.
returned home, the woman
washes off the salts of sweat
chases away the eye’s shadows
removes the lips’ gloss
in the loneliest of rooms
she releases the water, the body herded all day,
the cat and the dog
to graze in the grass


II. RAZOR BLADE

a scythe, plucking the calf’s clovers
a vacuum cleaner sucking up the downy hairs
a rowboat, its oars scraping the surface of spreading veins

a skeleton with a scythe, “from dust to dust”, Greek rivers
of the underworld –
to shave one’s legs – almost to die –
death is a woman
who shaves her armpits and legs

it waves no scythe but a razor
turning people into leg wax
singing joyously:

I’m your Venus! I’m your fire, at your desire!

– no problem, I say, no problem,
this spring is so madly green,
blooming so much that even my womb
has sprouted weeds and buds
like the trees
the starlight of the operating room is so bright
I have but one wish falling
into consciousness’ boggy blank – – –
then I suddenly breathe the air again,
and the final vision before opening my eyes:
the blooming almond tree of our garden

– how do you feel?
– I dreamt of spring, I answer
still tangled in the threads of narcotics,
wound by ivies of drainage tubes, my soul
dripping back into my body from the IV
– no problem, I say, no problem
only the continuing pain in my scraped out womb
only life spreading more sharply outside
and the louder tick of the clocks

for Olga

grasses shoot through hands, airplanes into shoulder blades,
a host of hosts

we sit, the two of us
encircled

by gravestones like the crossed arms
of austere monks
under a cowl of sky –
the Bernardines

duchess, is it far to Petushki?
beyond the river, down Polotsk Street
by Saint Anne’s lurking Gothic skeletons
and all those saints

only that!
or a few burning shots
somewhere, a bonfire,
in brackets –
our histories
slink by
like a snail on a leaf
leaving a trail of ooze
a river

the snail a paintbrush
the snail a pen
slowly, slowly –
word by word, stroke by stroke,
the windfall fruit, the melting wax of chestnut trees –
the chronicles of Vilnius, advances, retreats,
lay out our history’s trail of ooze

My dog prays at night
to the dog god
and wags his tail during the day,
only his sad eyes give him away –
he knows everything,
he knows
and not only about Old Yeller’s death.

I dream of how,
together, we will do
all those doggy things,
though he would probably prefer
to down a pint or two with me
and when our heads start to spin, he’d say:
– I’m so bored of my doggy life,
my black fur, even the dog god
who is probably a human dream –
humans imagine everything,
including our dogged ignorance of them

This city is too small to hide in:
you always end up meeting
all of those you want to most –
and all of those you don’t...

Most often at the mall:
there’s so many of them, huge and anonymous
but you still find yourself hiding behind the laundry detergents
(a subtle sign of the soul’s immaculation).

They say it’s best to hide in plain sight
so I position myself next to objectified words
and verbalized people –
there where you can find me most easily
where I have a name, surname, personal ID,
such and such a weight on a neat table of numbers,
a plastic cup of coffee, cigarettes which
we share with our brothers in solitude,
sending them around in a rolling dance...

This city is too small to hide in
and too big to be found.

his lips remind me of
an unhusked sunflower seed
their taste is the same:
salty, a bit bitter
his lips are opening shells of seed

when my tongue caresses his ear
I remember Van Gogh
and think of what would be,
what would happen, if I bit –

I don’t want to return
his body
I’ll leave yellow blossoms as change
black seeds

what would grow if I were to sow those lips like seed?

All Italian cities are feminine – this is grammar’s decree
the peninsula-boot taps its high heel and agrees

cities – mothers rock their daughter, civilization
cities – lovers sunbathe, leaning their pretty legs on the Apennines
cities – wives clatter pots in the kitchen, rub basil, gently slice the mozzarella, boiling pasta
cities – sisters wait for brothers, trying to out-scream the Sirenscities – beloveds
cities – daughters
cities – orphaned girls
cities – abandoned women:
Roma, Genova, Firenze, Venezia, Udine,
Bologna, Pisa, Milano, Verona, Ravenna

Italian cities are women
Italian women are cities

the first task was to name,
to find out what we call
those blooms of
violet color

then sit in a little cafe
shaded from the Mediterranean sun
by an arbor enlaced with them

put a cup on the page
my pen
spill coffee
lean a used bike
fifty euro
on the fence

in my favorite place
piazza San Giacomo
paved by the Romans
to touch my tongue
to the already melting gelato

sundays climbing the castle hill
to sharpen my view of the mountains,
seeing the streets enshrouded below with fog,
imagining my city there
hundreds of miles away
hundreds of weeks later
sitting in a frozen East European
auditorium
reading D’Annunzio
I remember this bloom

mama, what happened here?
I ask and ask, already, one might say, grown up

rarely do I climb on a stool anymore to reach for something high

now I reach for other things, for example,
higher education –
so that I could still boast of something to my parents,
so that my relatives would be more forgiving: this one, after all, has a higher degree

mama, what happened here?
since childhood, she said, I was crazed,
always trying to comprehend what happens when you ascend

even now, I scrape my knees
choosing the wrong way
collecting black and blue marks like a child
smearing my hands with ink

this one writes and writes – what can we do? she has a higher degree
they don’t have much to boast of, my parents
in front of my relatives

mama, what happened here?
I don’t know why I wanted to be, like a boy, not a hairdresser,
but an astronaut

and then it began: earrings, climbing through windows,
staying away from home, friends, beer – I felt like I had set foot on the moon

a little later: poems about moonlight
and the search for an elevated moment – like Mačernis, our visionary

and yet I never reached a higher aerobatics
and remain
very much afraid
of heights

it’s not hard to detect
a counterfeit person
there’s nothing to see
when you hold him against the light
he doesn’t have water-marks
in which strange fishes swim
his holograms are imprecise
the moon has no effect upon him
for he has no ebb and flow
his letters are all too apparent
when you brush him against your lips
these types try to pay with themselves
in the kiosks of our reality
that brim with all kinds of shit
and behind their little windows
woman perch with cratered faces
starched lives
their hands are not from this reality
and they feel no difference at all
so they take those people in
and pull them out again
for change
that’s why we need to pile up bonfires
surround ourselves with highway lights
street lamps and bulbs
windmills of turning light
so that when we look at one another
everything will be clear

I hadn’t considered submarine
trains until
I came upon the hidden tracks

leading straight into the sea

then I began to think about
the hermetic quality of trains
and the speed at which they fly

I began to consider how their precusors
travelled on those same tracks
and what the smoke of a steam-engine
looks like swirling through

the inner side of water

I began to think about pretty fishes
swimming beyond steamed-up windows
about pretty eyes gazing through the glass

about giant turtles
run over by the trains

about undiscovered aquatic plants
blooming between the rails

about suicides underwater
lying on the tracks
with air tanks tied down by rags

smoking their last train light

I thought it would be fun
to travel with connections

and disembark at some submarine
station to await another train

that travels a deeper route

yet here I sit on the tracks
leading straight into the sea
like a suicide

I smoke the sunset’s light
rolled up into darkening hills
and I observe how in the waves
the trains occasionally
raise their rusty heads

and look around to see if anyone sees

before taking a breath and diving down deep

When I met some old men
on trampled gravel

tossing metal balls

I didn’t even begin to suspect
that I was one of those balls

rolling with difficulty
within delimited bounds

attempting to get as close
as possible to a smaller one

but I try not to roll
when released from the hand

and to resist a motion
which I never chose

fighting and demolishing

as a metal ball

uninhabited buildings
insensate neighborhoods

I fly right through
the boney walls of the body
with all its smoky windows

crumbling into
small seeds of glass

naively believing
that in my place

gardens will propagate
with floating trees

and with fountains
and colorful fish

silently praying that in my stead
there will not sprout

skyscrapers made of glass

to confuse similar sounding words
can mean that one morning in a hurry
you tie on not a neck-tie but a road-tie
on which all sorts of vague vagabonds gather
sticking out their thumbs for non-existent routes
they’ll smoke while waiting and stub their cigs
all over your laundered shirt
your collar will grow dark with ashes
the most beautiful cars will fly through you
washed waxed and burnished
packed with the saddest faces
from out the windows
they’ll throw single-use cups at you
brimming with boiling emptiness
brakes will squeak as truck drivers stop
to purchase all the women
from the dim brothels of your memory
and you will come home like it’s nothing to hang
in your closet the criss-crossed shirt of your soul
next to the dusty and littered road-tie
you’ll watch the traffic flow all night
seeing the blinking lights of passing cars
through the cracks of the closet door
you’ll listen to how the breaks squeak and squeak
how the cars and trucks pull to a stop
never knowing where they carry
what has long not been yours anymore

if i were really a sailor
you would see me off at the harbor
just as in romantic films
you would stand with a flowery dress
pinned with the harpoons of fog
blooming with ambiguous pain
you would wave a white handkerchief
until i couldn’t manage to make out
your embroidered initials
in the corner of the receding port
whose unexpected rain
washes out the teary eye
if i really were a sailor
you would wait for me to return
with unbelievable stories
about sea-monsters
and concrete whales
blowing white smoke
over my rocking life
the one we spoke about
with virtual carrier pigeons
then you would stand on the shore and see
how the ship rips through mist
to dock at the side of your heart
how i walk towards you
with a uniform of lightning storms
brimming with lost birds
and into your hands i would press
an uninhabited isle

let’s drink up the cities countries
and superheroes with twist-off swords
held within the test-tubes of reality
let’s down in one draught
the swords longer than ourselves
arranged in mini-bars of skulls
let’s drink the thermometers
of the hottest day of summer
when there is no air to breathe
let’s drink thermometers from hospitals
in which fevered bodies
fill them with bonfires and sunsets
let’s drink right-triangles
pyramids and circumferences
projectors and calipers
geographical lengths widths compasses
vectors and all possible distances
no matter how much they divide people
who must keep drinking one another
let’s drink academic ranks
and sudden turns in life
boiling in the pots of the quotidian
become now shelters for geysers
let’s drink generals lieutenants captains
cabins full of rum and warships
in which loss and bombs mature
let’s drink tassels and gold medals
from which widows of war smelt
crowns for their tears
so that society would understand
how expensive is their sadness and pain
let’s drink fermenting ashes
flowing from fighter planes and memories
of the lives of the mentally damaged
flowing from the scars of burnt out things
from the carbonized bones of trenches
let’s drink all the rivers and lakes
the shining mirrors of puddles
clogged with the shells of clouds
in which drunken homeless people
rinsed the opera houses of dusty mouths
with forgotten organs
that couldn’t grind the gums of the world
let’s drink the stages of hearing loss
so that we could finally hear each other
let’s drink the stages of burn victims
and not burn each other anymore
let’s drink the percentages that define
how many times you have to be
multiplied by your self
because you don’t have to be multiplied
because you alone are enough on this earth
and will, stage by stage, regardless
die of thirst

they are shaking down the Indian woman
at the airport, riffling through her suitcase

which is filled with the slough of winds
caught in the clipped mane of a horse

and with the souls of ancestors
flying in the fragments of flame

a bonfire burns in her luggage
where a single wigwams stands

with several trees exploding with buds
and hammocks tied in between

they tell her you can’t take
a burning bonfire on board

nor the exploding trees of course

a dripping salty fog
gathers in her face

juicy cocoa leaves
ripen in her pocket

her suitcase contains a few scalps
that have not yet managed to dry

her suitcase is full of
wild horses and knives

and small bones made
into neck ornaments

and three small pipes
with feathers tied

several dried stars rolled up
into the skin of the night

dried buffalo meat rolled up
into treated skin of the same

that meat cannot recall itself
as a single body anymore

I cannot recall myself
as a single body anymore

I am all rolled up
into the shreds of my skin
decorated with
screeching bones

and with a peace pipe
and rusting tomahawks
with bonfires set to go out

in the basin of my ribs

my scalp is drying out
turned up to the light
deep, dark skulls desiccate

the Indian dances a rain dance
and the airplanes don’t take off
her name is connected to elk
and she sheds her antlers next

she pours the wings of planes
into bottles of fog
she guards against the deadly
machine gun salvos of birds

the Indian waves to me
from a black stallion of rain

she runs over the runway
knitted by tines of rain

taking with her the feverish
bays of an inner compass

in which coordinates no longer spawn

I am bursting out
with sweat

I tremble and shake
in this airport

they are shaking me out
on the runway
of madness

I shake and I shiver

while someone carries me
by the handle

and leaves me

in the department

for lost luggage

There are days when it’s so hard –
so vain – to swallow even a gulp,

Days when I lack the strength to be dazzled
by the fragrance of flowers leaning towards you.

All of it exists for a moment to remain,
as when a bee flies by with advice:
one, two, three – open your eyes!

And you see the taut, shining
strings of being –

quivering, diaphanous threads
stretching up high from every
animate thing.

Later, there will be more
long days...

(But some gifts are too large
to be nicely wrapped.)

He travels a lot.

Every night it seems
that the rented room
urges him to take
all seven roads.

There is, though,
a Bible and a mini bar:

Two ways to grasp at
tomorrow.

Once, we were two stalks of bent-grass
growing side by side.
A girl walked by and stopped to pick you
to be her wild berry skewer.

And who could imagine
such bone-chilling longing
in a grass blade
that sways in the breeze?

When I awoke I had
been given fleet feet
in order to catch up with you.

I had strong hands with which
to embrace you tightly
when we would finally meet.

I learned human speech
in order to explain
how much I had missed you.

I suffered through all
the childhood illnesses
so that everything impure in me
would flow out through feverish sweat.

As if in surrender, one morning,
I allowed myself to be dressed
in a fresh nightshirt.

White, white.
Like the snow that covers everything,
where not one cat or building super
has managed to leave a mark.

I gazed on the face of forgetfulness
that morning through the window.

My fever gone,
completely healthy,
I wanted to play.

I stretched out my hands to my dolls –
wanting more of them
and new.

I never remembered the dream
about bent grass
until today.

This year I moved
for the fifth time in my life.
It’s a building that once belonged to a convent
to which a board is attached
naming the Righteous Among the Nations.
More than a few Jews were hidden
and saved between these walls.

Friends said,
“Oh, how peaceful it is here, but
how much fear these walls have known!”

In reply, I answered,
“But how much courage permeates this space,
and the gratitude of all the lives saved!”

Yesterday, I had tea
with my elderly neighbor.
A closet in her bedroom.
A mirror in the closet.
It’s edges have blackened from
the humidity of human sighs.
Breathing in hope, breathing out fear.
One after the other in equal measure.
No one could know how
that dark history would end.

There is no threat to my life.
I am well fed, healthy. No one persecutes me.
Uniformed men do not march in the streets.

It is love that swiftly quivers under my skin.
I breathe in hope and breathe out fear.
Both in equal measure.

The dying bee flew
through the window.

It rolled around on its back
as if having fun.

Twitching legs:
little segments, claws,
and hairs all aquiver.

It sent all possible signs
to my heart –
asking to be put
out of misery.

I stood and watched.
Feckless.

I felt its pain –
more and more.
Feckless.

Finally, I took
a heavy book
in my hands.

Too late.
Its struggle came to an end.

Gentle guilt
wafted over me
as its soul flew by.

I laid the husk
onto a peony throne.
Until the wind comes
to say goodbye.

In the Old Town house where
my grandmother lived between
the wars and my father was born –

under the loft in which they starved,
a trendy restaurant has set up shop.

I attend the opening, standing with
pretentiously prepared food in my mouth
and a strange feeling of guilt in my belly.

for only the ceiling separates this space
from the one in which she left her note.

Lifting a glass with a banded hand,
I celebrate life
for both of us.

Even a catfish has a home.
Even a catfish has a mom,

And a grannie,
And a doggie,
And a kitty,
Even, a grand-daddy.
The catfish goes to school,
And sings a happy
Catfish song

About his pretty catfish home,
About his loving catfish mom.

The lake is wide
As a pancake dish.
Inside there lives
A common tench fish.

The tench fish
Likes to dream,
Having a wish
To fly, it seems,

To stream up high,
To sing in the sky,
To wave its fins, bye-bye!

So, if you see
The tench
Pulling a piano
And a bench,

You’ll soon hear his music cry
Way up high in the sky.
And you’ll know, it’s for spring
That he likes to sing.

The little airplane flies along.
The pilot has been sitting so long.
He holds the wheel with all his might,
And swats pesky flies out of his sight.

These flies are real deadbeats –
They fly without buying a seat!

The lake froze over,
And the fish feel hunger.
How can they stay alive?
What will they do to survive?
Make a fire in the water?
Instead they got together,
And set off for Madagascar.
They fly – flapping
Fins and singing
Fishy songs –
The perch
The roach
The bass
All come along
What a pleasant bunch
Showing such sass.

Oh, trouble,
Trouble,
Trouble –
Said the old man with a cane.
If he didn’t have this trouble,
then he wouldn’t need his cane.

We bought a horse for him to ride.
It has a hide
As black as night,
And like the stars
Its eyes shine bright.
It sports a flowing mane
that billows like a flame.

The old man rides that horse
And its mane streams on his course.
As the mane streams on his course,
The little bells, they ring perforce!

Ring-a-ling,
The bells they sing,
And the old man?
He took wing…

At grandmother’s
A cow grazes
In the grass.

You won’t believe it –
You’ll want to perceive it –
But I saw it with my own eyes,
And wrote it down for all time:

The cow chews green hay
But white milk it gives away.
So, where does the green go?
Perhaps it turns into toads,

Crocodiles, string beans?
Or maybe, into green
Green dreams?

Under an oak tree
There stands a little house,
And in the yard set free,
A doggy runs with glee.

Inside the heated home,
There sits a little gnome
Whose fingers leave tiny traces
On paper’s empty spaces.

The little gnome writes
Pleasant little poems,
And asks you to recite
A few of them, if you like.

The fly buzzes
buzz buzz buzz
I carry my kids in a wagon
It’s hard for me to go on
With these rambum-bum-bunctious ones.

Will you help her utter
Without any stutter,
Rambunctious, little ones?

The spruce has a spiky braid.
A meadow has a green grass blade.
The cow has a motley hide.
A jacket has sleeves on the side.

A child has a pretty name.
A soldier has, for country,
An undying flame.

A rat has a tail,
And a country
Garden – a flowery trail.

You have me and mommy,
And your favorite jamies.

So, get comfy in your bedroom nook,
And I’ll read you your favorite book.

About the spruce’s spiky braid,
About the green grass blade…

i have read you closely
over the years

your slim wrinkles
and capillaries
agape

in the darkness to me
like a malleable emery cloth

in the darkness

we, malleable, merge
as one month folds
into another

I tried to grasp you
I stared at your faces
but was never really looking
for the secrets they contain—
I was searching for mine:
whether something connects us
a thread, a cord, a tie
whether we are touched
by the same finger
whether we picked up
the black receiver in time
whether the spark pierced us
the light
when you know
it is given to you
the curtain parts
deservedly
certainly, it is deserved
those snares
that knowing
the dependence
and sweet impatience
it is deserved
reflected in every face
that same derangement
wonder
the coy audacity

haughtiness

a lone man walks the park’s paths
he strides with ease
dissecting the body of spring
wanting to know why, and forgetting what for

veined hands, sunken cheeks
sometimes he knows what he wants, especially today

the metal he grips in his pocket is still cold
his shoes are made of finely worked leather
there is some cash and a few cards in his wallet
on one of them, he is smiling today

he walks on the lawn trimmed for the first time this year
the scent is so strong that even his tobacco-dulled nose can smell it
he wants to figure out the reason why spring dies
maybe even write a novel

he bends down and drives a knife into the ground with all his might

the cuts, drawing blood, are almost perfectly straight
he sticks his hand inside and searches, and searches
until he pulls out a small blue car
the same one that he once lost as a child

from my windows i can see
the trolley bus wires
take people away

electricity sparks and
dies

pupils narrow
and expand

blood flows to my temples

and a buck restlessly raises
his head

to listen for the unheard murmur
of the night he just drank

the computer says – we’ve arrived
it’s generally not very talkative, but has been jabbering
for hours now about the pruning of fruit trees
it says – we have reached our journey’s goal

my toes are numb
i climb out of the spaceship
and look around, gathering samples for scientists –
i walk about a room identical to my own
nothing lives for light years all around
there are no curtains
it’s quietly snowing outside
garlands glitter in windows across the street
children push and shove on the sidewalk

nothing but cosmic loneliness and stone

sitting next to you i can smell
the wounds under your clothes

magnolia blossoms
pushing through your skin

i was planning to cook an omelet
i broke one egg
then another
and in the third i found a grimy boy

sitting there, parentless, alone
in a shopping mall
with a small box at his side

i looked around to see if anyone saw
then continued to prepare
breakfast

the moon is a pill
with a groove
down the middle

anger is a pill
with a groove
down the middle

Mindaugas Bridge is a pill
with a groove
down the middle

summer is a pill
with a groove
down the middle

drought in Africa
that wipes away
the lives of 500 thousand children
is a pill
with a groove
down the middle

a beloved woman is a pill
with a groove
down the middle

a cop striking the protestors’ dog
is a pill
with a groove
down the middle

to give up one’s seat on the bus
is a pill
with a groove
down the middle

to sing from joy
having buried one’s self
is a pill
with a groove
down the middle

silence is a pill
with a groove
down the middle

drunken time lies
in the groove
and babbles

never ask
who cut this groove
who dug this day for us
who nailed a twitching bird
to its teeth
BREAK IT

swallow one half
and the other –
opening the bird’s lid with both hands
insert the pill and close

then you will finally
see –

drops of blood
streaking
over the day’s teeth

someday, all my friends will die
my relatives and loved ones too
my enemies will die and all my neighbors
the passers-by whom i once met on the street
will vanish from the surface of the earth

my classmates and colleagues
teachers professors co-workers
will die

all the people will breathe their last
with whom i wore
for reasons unknown
the same uniform of time
though i never fought
in any of its battles

birds who once flew
above my head held high
will die and the dogs i used to hear howl
on spine-chilling nights outside the city
will grow silent for all eternity

coltsfoot will still grow along the fence
tired grapes will rest on arbors
but no one will call me by name
and i myself will not be

but then
carefully
head slightly cocked
i’ll watch the strange dogs
grapes and coltsfoot

and then
for the first time
i’ll really see the flight of birds

and the couple hurrying by
will scroll
their eyes
along the bench
on which i sit

and they will know
that i see
the flight of birds
differently

and that
i am
those things i don’t know
the dogs the grapes
and the coltsfoot

an old writer looks at me with disgust
and squeezes some words out through his teeth:
who can stop you from writing what you want?
we must understand that his times were those of censorship
and we now live in a greenhouse like some kind of tomatoes

who can stop you from writing what you want?
asks the fish with bulging eyes in the unseen stream of time
who can stop you from writing what you want?
wonder aloud Mickey Mouse and Mr. Jesus
holding hands in the orifice of dreams
in which i drown did drown and will drown

who can stop you from writing what you want?
ask the clams and seashells the waves gulls and seaweed
the drowned ship’s captains and the innocent maidens –
in a decade they’ll give toasts as they drink each other’s blood
by the monument to Anderson’s mermaid or some other hotel

who can stop you from writing what you want?
uneasily stammers the glass in the windows of block apartments
with clouds drifting by

i turn to them all and say –
you can all stop me and so can
the red in a cluster of rowan berries

i saw angels with automatic rifles in their hands
staring sadly at the floor in airports and stations

waiting

i saw eight-year-olds sent by their parents
running up to human rights activists
shouting – give us back the rainbow –

giggling

i saw men who thought they were real men
and women who thought they were real women
saying in greeting, instead of a name –
i am so and so’s woman –

i saw emptied villages, forests felled
dammed rivers and steeples of small towns

in the mirror

Books are my
paths
and garden

my shelter
and clinic

clutching their sentences
I gaze at the greenery
on the other side

                      – the bars of your lines
                          are dense

I husk
the pills of poems

smooth
like stones
by the Black Sea

- - - - - - - - 

but no—
I also want

I crave to be
one of those

riding
in armoured hexameter
harnessed to a chariot

gripping the reins
and a spear

shouting

flying like mad

into the stony backs
of the gods

one day, by the dumpster, i saw an abandoned stuffed bird
i saw it and forgot, but it didn’t forget me, it even began to stalk me –
wherever and whenever i would go, whomever i would meet, i saw the ragged bird

at first, i pretended not to see it
let it show itself, what do i care – it neither chirps nor pecks at me

but eventually, it grew rude – appearing not only in public places –
among students, listeners, pedestrians –
but showing up among friends, perching even on my loved ones’ heads

so i tried to make nice, asking – what are you doing here and what do you want?
but the stuffed thing just squatted there – silent
and my father, on whose head it eventually perched, only looked at me inquiringly
dad – i whispered – there’s a bird on your head!
but he just waived his hand, you know – big deal

from that time on, i began to see the stuffed creature in my dreams –
no escape – i hardly slept, i barely ate, i barely was –
and i would keep seeing it – always frozen in the same pose, mute, frayed,
though it began to seem to me that it was smiling – the stuffed bird was mocking me
so i finally snatched it up and threw it with all my strength at the wall, only, it turned out,
that wasn’t the wall, but a mirror.

that was the first time i saw a bird fly
in a mirror

Winter’s dog
licks my hand. Snow
and stones. Heads
of children glow
in windows. Pipes
have burst, a tree
has split, steam billows
as pearly light
touches glass. All states—
uncertain. Time is
a wind from the sea
that beats, blows, burns.
I needed this salt,
your skin, my chapped lips
warmed beneath your palm—

a clean life.

i will ride
the blazing bus in the dark
through the station
of insomniac bums
past the Soviet suburbs
of trenches, embrasures
and pill-boxes

i will ride
quietly smouldering in
an aquarium of flame
past tenement rows
through the dregs of darkness
eyeballs and teeth
shining white

i will watch
how the city closes up
into the fist of a flower
how its sandy
underground roots
stir and seek

i will ride
the blazing bus

farther
deeper

into the horrible
hospitality of nature
a damp refuge
of purling moss

i will ride
to try on wet
cold clothing

to lie
face-up
in an echoing spire

to burn out

For Edgaras

To begin with, you have to spit on the ground for a long time, earnestly, with clean, white spume. Next, bite and chew, bite and chew. Then toss together what you like. A refuge of crumbs, a cabin from clay, a shelter of sticks and straw. Spit-smear it like a cake. Scratch out some openings, a flue. Invite friends and relatives. Raise a ruckus for three days, four nights. Go out to the porch early in the morning, in bare feet, and look: some stare at fog, some at the clouds, some at the highway – then drive everybody out. Bring home a little mother, breed a whole brood, multiply until the get doesn’t fit. Then baptise them all, raise them, marry them, drive them out of the house.
Later, paste up the openings, leaving only the flue and a key around your neck, some logs, the domestic beast. When the animal croaks, lock the doors, take a bottle, go out to the porch and sway on the swing for a long time. Until it freezes.

So many girls with highlighted hair
folding their underwear
to the drone of washing machines
neon
and the TV news

Stealthily, I watch
them perform the ritual
baskets full of underwear
with the lingering scent of flesh

So serious
so pretty
and so focused these girls
who don't know me at all
bending over their brimming baskets

A foreign language
foreign bodies
and foreign me
quickly stuffing
his rags
into the washing machine's throat

His chest tightening
alone
and completely naked
the Lithuanian poet

In the city, quarantine
and mourning, everyone
waits for snow.

on the facades, and
in the streets––
an indelible hideousness.

witches have multiplied.
they publish glitzy
books
about themselves.

shamans in the gateways
peddle amulets,
whose spells
have long gone stale.

Belarus, Poland––
burning fences
everywhere.

overturned trucks
with the contraband
of winter.

meat is sold
by the road,
virtually free.

animals have emigrated,
along with the connoisseurs
of sacred script,
and any woman
who could walk.

only men
with fishing poles
and flags,
rocks
in their bosoms––

everyone
in one square,
so that it would be easier
to take them up
into heaven
and lock them up
until they sober.

in the window
of the facing house,
in the kitchen,
a light burns.

naked death
rummages through
the refrigerator.

it’s her
yellow jackboots
that shine
when she walks
the streets.

she notices me
and nods.
see you soon.

I saw fog
flood lakes
hanging islands in the air

my lake
is flooded
my islands
hung high
as in Swift

– you understand
how everything tapers:
visits
embraces
teeth and hair––

the fog will rise to your eyes
and you'll lose your lover’s scent
even though you flew
like a moth to that flame

drinking will discolour
your tongue
as wit turns viscous
and eloquence stutters

– still, you can always grope
with dull fingers
to close the clasps of oblivion