Kerry Shawn Keys 

Translator

And so I live with cobwebs and ficuses,
dictionaries, comic strips, and a heart
which taps at the outskirts of night

I live with parcels and emails,
Prussia and Žvėrynas, moonshine and wine
When the air gets colder, the breathing slower

In dreams I talk with statues and poets
whom I like and whom I cannot stand
clearly pronouncing the consonants

I cut my nails, repair the shower,
confess and overlook in silence, drive the car
because nobody suggested I do so.

Outside in patches of melting snow
I observe a hare sitting in a copse
and let him into my consciousness

I jump I jump, strike something, I freeze –
How humid it is all around
How steamy above the earth

Covered with space, rarely seen,
listening to the ever-stronger beat of my heart

An elevator, murmuring quietly,
Lifts us into a sky of books.
Eyes closed, you twist your hair around your finger:
Slumber is a soft and warm cocoon.
It will tear, when you step into the labyrinth of shelves.
When you hang your I.D. around your neck.

In the nearby prison’s yellow cages, they read the script
Another way, with the whole body. On Iron Wolf Street
The cars race, competing toward success.
Here only twilight, hours on end, twilight…
At lunch you’ll drink juice from a wine glass.
The pungence sticking to the corner of your lips.

You’ll wander down the aisles, not even searching
For the beginning or end of the letters.
As if saying goodbye, you’ll touch the spines of the books.
For you know, how one waits for a sign. Just a stirring.
How on understanding, everything shines.
How the shelves are endless.

The door opens onto the dim corridor.
But my electricity
Has grazed your hair.
Not moving, not paying any attention,
You stand and drink your image,
Which duplicates itself in the elevator’s mirrors.

Ich war alt wie ein Rauch
                            Johannes Bobrowski


once again I pace around the photos on the piano
they receive me without the least resistance

colors shadings fading lines
camber like a drop from the tap

the bedding’s cooled down   scum on the milk
sirens late at night – an  ambulance or factory

your body stirs in the stuffy atmosphere
somewhere far away in another quarter

styrofoam rubs against the windowpane

don’t you feel the taste of dusk    won’t you go
not knowing where   will you bring

the bridge of Palanga or not

in the eighth room back amid the dancing legs
wearing shoes from the eighties  I find what I wasn’t looking for

on the parquet a fallen drop of blood
so round thick innocent

I lean down and lick it, stunned

when you’re dead you lie on your bac spitting up worms
– one hell of a good time! (my grandfather, God rest his soul)   

Children’s pantyhose over the head – the ears,
woolen socks pulled over slippers –
dirty rabbit feet
they like programs for children
maybe that’s why I wear all this when escorting
a procession of limping grannies in the sky
tired by the time we’ve reached the mason’s shop
they form a queue and slide
and slide down small wooden chutes
giggling, the slimmest one
gets stuck crosswise
so the others jump over, handbags spill
baked apples and briar pipes,
Liz’s booklet – she used to scribble
there of the first snow
and her aching back - and now
I open and read: “my headscarf
is thin, my ears freezing cold, moles
mussed up my braids, and Marion’s
flannels (the one who got stuck) are snug.
It’s soft for her, lying here now!”

He is renting a flat behind the highway in the 80s.

He sleeps under the threadbare snowflakes of the nappy blankets
                                           which once snowed on the seaside dunes.

The shelves of the cupboard are weighted down with monitors, processors,
                                           floppies, and hard discs.
 
His body is lead-like, behind the eyelids only an occasional
                                           swish of turbid eyeballs.

Rows of numbers, flashes, multiple and commanding movements:
                                           these are chips whispering in the dark.

Overloaded, discordant, infected with viruses, they suffer a cruel slavery.
 
Every second in this city they are touched by the hands of barbarians.

Only you can save us, Vygis, says the Mother Board, cut a window to freedom.

Only you, because people don’t understand anymore what you are saying, why you
                                           suddenly turn off, throw down the receiver.         

Your languages are different from one another.

Come to us, and you will be the most pliant, most perfect algorithm!

In the system, which never freezes, where there’s no weariness,
                                           hunger, pornographic sites!

Where only thought-about possibilities appear, where there’re all colors and speeds, Vygis,
                                           we will be together till the end!

Above the bluff, the orange meter of the moon is flagging.
                                           On the benches the places will soon be taken  

By the eaters of sunflower seeds, and construction workers shouting to their wives,
                                           wives with dish-water hands.

Wires will swing and spark when the trolleybuses peep out from the end station.

A hard-boiled egg waits for you in the kitchen with its cracked walls, empty,
                                           not a component in sight.

I‘ll hatch out if you‘ll be mine
Inoculation against rage
A few stabs
And I‘m calm
Flexible parallels
Everything is parallel
Even going separate ways is parallel
The mirror licks off just
One layer
The rest we‘ll roll up in scrolls
Inscribe the dates
In a year we‘ll color them
Tear apart those stuck together
When we write down we remember
When we write down
Speak louder please, try
The glass, it‘ll make a mike
It‘s better in winter over the lake
Stars strung on rushes
Crackling under the feet, we get cold
Trampling on the squealing full moon
We‘re finding cupping glasses
We‘ll heat them, a lot of cups,
A lot of backs for safe sailing.

Petrified cities are silent for ages

The eternal movement of love
A glimpse through a window
The eternal step over the threshold
A word sticking out of half – opened lips

Eternal pride and poverty
Rain hanging over the thirsty earth
And every morning the same sweeper
Loiters around idly
With a broom in his hand

But he from another kingdom

Empty and deep
The kingdom
Cold heavy
Continually diminishing
Cramped and emetic
The kingdom
One wants to say
Nobody’s - -
- - - -
- -
Ours

The smiles and heaps of food
Were torn by an alien look
We’ll stitch that photo up
With red silk thread
Tick tick tick the clocks
Will sputter
While the needle eats through the paper
While lips nibble at the fog
sipping the street through the windows
sleek like an earthworm
I take a drag, you take a drag
Both of us shrivel into
Cockscombed tiny boxes
In your box the chirping
In mine the red thread.
We lie serenely, our cockscombs
Licking seaweed from the carpet

My sweetheart clips his toenails
On the cultural weekly.
When nobody’s watching, I’ll lick
The scissor blades – maybe there’s
A speck of dust left somewhere.
Cutting my tongue deeper
I’ll mix the blood with the dust
And mould a small child.

I’ll put him in a matchbox
Lined with shreds cut
From the armpits
Of my sweetheart’s shirt.
Let the odor intoxicate.
Let the knees of passing women buckle.

From the sink, the bathtub,
The bedsheets,
I’ll collect every little hair.
Such hair he’ll have
Carrying woman’s palms
Buried inside.

When my sweetheart sneezes, I’ll dry
His handkerchiefs on the radiator
Diligently scraping off the remnants
For making teeth – carving,
Then polishing with lemon peels
(they’ll flash at girls when he grows up)

Yo!  Wind tore off the door.
Ah, a car, in snow.

Blue evening light,
beginning of Winter.

No letter for a long time, fine.
I can’t find words---they’re somewhere under the table.

Have you seen a nail grow.
A sheet of paper crumple and tear.

Here!  I’m here wrapped in sticky tape,
crucified on an accordion,
here I’m breathing do not return.

They don’t know anything
They say the world without end
The sun hums lazily and
Mottled birds take wing
Splashing sunbeams with their breasts
Not even remembering
If they saw anything or felt at least a shadow
They say the earth and dreams and chants are pure

Meek glances glide over the sky
Fingers mount to lips
They all huddle closer to each other
Three living and a dozen dead

I know what you are coming for Mom
that’s why
the door’s unlocked all night
the light’s not out it pokes
its coarse snout
closer

That’s why there’s a country road
along which only you
along which only you’d walk and walk
even before cockcrow when hoarfrost
grabs the legs

I know it’s your hired
elegant aching fingers
making the bed
buttoning the shirt
later on tapping
on the windowsill

I’m also waiting
finally we will top – dress
the silence with words

-Why, sonny, why?  
What got into your head?

-I’ll manage myself, Mom.

Childish hunting of witches.
As every night we all stand
under a shower of quartz – half naked, young,
almost satisfied,
still steaming with the remains of dreams:
those, woken from war, smell of sour earth;
those from the swing of love have the flush of trembling hands;
limp and limpid – those who tasted death…
You can recognise them, but of what to accuse them,
when the finger of time points constantly
to standards –
white standards
repeat: no guilty, no guilty…

evil is beautiful
intoxication is beautiful evil is
beautiful

a pale fatigue rests
on the cheeks
of sleeping girls

the armpits of an overcrowded trolley
enclose them like a thicket
of sweating rafters

the words of the trolley lay down
on the rafters like rattling roofing tiles

the viscous winds of trolley lungs
penetrate the tiles

pale entangled girls are sleeping
while at each stop their home melts more and more

tightly embracing pallid herbs

l’herbes mauvaises
fleures du mal

after work
the drivers become gardeners
weeding out
white roots
flinging them into the night
into the black soil of the bus stops

Truck Driver’s Wife  In the morning only a leather cap on the shelf.
Driver At first I was really moving---and thought I might turn over.
Truck Driver’s Wife  I’m surrounded by cats again. Yarn chokes my neck.
Driver  Bremen. Sleet. Dreaming of borderguards.
Truck Driver’s Wife  Oh, I’m sick. Even looking out the window doesn’t help.
Driver  Oblivious, I press the front of the truck, your breast.
Truck Driver’s Wife  It’s not contagious, but it’s deadly.
Mother already carries out the rubbish, buys the food.
Driver I will bring you the milk of Europe, and you’ll be cured.
Truck Driver’s Wife  Christmas. Outside the window
somebody shouts, „Desdemona, I will make you happy.“ For
me no more. I’m leaving, changing flats, name,
nationality....
Driver Done. Turning on the headlights, pressing the
steering wheel, like I can shorten the way. I feel there
are only a few minutes left. Will I be on time. On time?

The road happened to be boggy.
Cars drove by, splashing mud and light.
Below us loomed the blue city of mercury.
Tin and water rusted in its twilight.
We sat down to rest, shook dust
from our sandals, ate bacon and bread.

Me perched on a roadside post.
Tomas on his suitcase.
Marija--- reclining sideways(it is not yet begun, Lord---
she’s curled like a snail).

From the squares and taverns
the rumble of demons.

Refreshed we rose, spread the banner,
and singing our first hymns, started to descend into the valley.