Birdish

Wizardry and gloom of empty halls
Of school corridors at Christmastime…
Blizzard brooded at the train depot
Hour passed - entire town was white.
Halls tonight will fill up with playgoers
Schools in January with students
My heart glinting in tact with the ramps
With the lights of disappearing trains..
Stronger is the symphony of lights
Weaker are the daily runs, grow rote
Now she sees the path that leads the summer -
Swallow that’s imprinted in the snow.
Blood no longer circulates, it fissures.
Simply because blood does not exist.
Blizzard. Blizzard. Blizzard-blizzard-blizzard.
And the Light that won’t surrender still.

A blaze is brighter than a hearth.
A cavern is deeper than eyes.
A thunderstorm fiercer than cries.
And winds are much faster than birds.

The caverns of fervor, the blazes!
The downpours, tornadoes in spring!
But try out your love after passion.
But try out your love in the still.

Your love will turn round as a hearth.
As the soft flicker of warm eyes.
As a clumsy and random tear.
A bird, that calls us from the sky.

He lived on the fifth floor
of an old flat.
She lived on the first floor
of the same building.
In their school years, he frequently
descended down to her.
In her school years, she frequently
ran up to meet him.
For an eraser or for help
with a math problem.
But then one day they grew up -
and they fell in love.
And with each other, not with someone
somewhere somehow.
And with that staircase in their flat,
a marvel happened:
No matter who visited whom,
they both always ascended.
For on that staircase there are no longer
downward climbs.

To reach your loved ones, you must always rise.

Those women, who are there with you for many years…
The ones who often tire, who often don’t remember.
They yearn, having traversed across the earth, it seems
To return and lay down in your rooms’ cozy care.
The old park seems to stretch. The dinners more silent.
A soft brush of a hand, a momentary smile.
But with you - by your side - she’s spent so many years.
The little trails of wrinkles, just like the years flown by.
But suddenly, by chance, a little ray will reach
And spread across your soul amidst a banal day.
You’ll notice her dozed off while watching the TV
And you just want to cry, and you just want to pray.

Do not say goodbye, say I'll see you soon.
The spider trapped in amber is practically immortal.
And we - we contain much more life than that spider.
And we know that there, behind the burning horizon
We are promised new meetings in the post-amber world.
So let us wink with a smile: "Later! Bye!"

We were lucky in life: we listened to the lapping of lakes,
Took in the odors of our loved ones, responded to intoxicated words, watched, as people wandered through cities.
And accepted, without sensation,
The light fluffs of years and the mounds of age.
But all that flies over our heads, will come to fall at our feet.

Our bodies-in golden embroidered sarcophaguses,
in peaceful graveyards, in mountain crevices,
torn up in wars,
they, just like our souls, were born for happiness
to meet over and over again with our loved ones
inside of the amber and out.

White lotus flowers
Open in the sun:
The palms of my loved one.

Not a haiku.
Dragonflies on the lotuses
Are my lips.

Dragonflies on the lotuses
Are flutes brought to lips.
I am mixing my metaphors.

And only the music,
Only this melody,
That's all there is.

She cried in the midst of summer.
You didn't need to bumblebee's intrusion,
or his sun-filled secrets,
or his low-flying fusion.
And from bud onto bud, it had flown
just a tiny golden saxophone.

She cried at night, in autumn,
so much that the downpour seemed arid.
A fragile train at a crevice,
it crumbled apart and it scattered
across the nearby fields and yards
A tambourine's echo to the drenched worlds.

She cried on a winter morning.
Salt of tears glided down as snow.
Froze the hands, the eyes, and the tusks.
Moon and sun, both in the sky showed.
But I heard it: behind the snow mound,
of coming blizzards whistled the oboe's sound.

She cried in the spring as well.
I remember an evening so bright, so gigantic.
Maybe it's better to get buried again
in affairs, chirrups, and the flowers on branches?
It all pulses, just like a trombone:
the lighthouses, the anemone, the voices tones.

Go on, catch all the seasons, enjoy life as it goes!
Tell me, why are you crying, my love?

Without water, the earth is dry.
From water, the fire flees.
The water is disturbed by air.

Air will either blow up or blow out a fire
Air, like wind, will scurry across the hairs of the earth.
And sometimes, it will even make water quiver.

To fall in love with fire is to burn in passion.
To fall in love with earth is to satisfy the body.
To fall in love with water is to float and become enlightened.
To fall in love with air is to soar and swirl
with a cool breeze,
with an empty wallet,
like a fool, like a fool
sometimes blowing fires up and out
sometimes playing with the hairs of the earth,
sometimes making water quiver.

Oh what an ancient wave!
Above it, wandering of the stars
The full moon howls
at its own reflection.
A prehistoric instinct
drives everyone to extremities.
And all that may occur tonight
transforms into intimacy.
Just like a murky pirate ship,
I will slip into you from shadows.
We will not make a single sound.
Intertwining silently, like vines.
But all the lights that fill the night -
the lighthouses, the ferry boats -
will lift their snouts and sound their horns
flowing into the moonlight's weather.
Again, silence. Only a hum
of two voices: the wind and water .
But then a soft, "Are you asleep?"
will whirl the world around again.

We will reflect in the moonlight.
We know what fills it up tonight.

Out the window, the wind's floating slowly, like a bird.
The warm, light days smile at us in the dark.
So, all music's begun and has ended with Bach,
and its sounds have never made contact with earth.

Aftertaste. Inhale-exhale. Overwhelming of stars.
Through the dozing of cicadas the far off bells ring.
Softly, music has risen, touching mountains with snow.
Touched the water and rooms with the moon like a string.

In these rooms (inhale-exhale) people cling to each other
naked shadows of night, more fragile than any string.
Nearby, music lay down with the fugue of white sheets,
Dawn, collapsed to the floor from our dismal dreams.

The pole vibrates, the net tatters,
we see somebody's face grin.
Beer, dancing girls, wonderful things
The little ball falls through the ring.

Just like that, we will return many times.
Through the net of years we will soar.
Causing vibrations, a ludicrous tatter,
we'll fall once again to floor.

We are picked up by somebody's arms,
and again - we will spring up and fly.
Jumps through new lives are a cure for boredom,
athletic and active is our paradise.

We're subject to mockery if we compare lives.
But what if? But what if we did?
Whoever spoke first about water through fingers?
The little ball falls through the ring.

My life hangs upon a lone white wispy hair
But right out the window, but not far out there
the sky of the nighttime is scattered in notes.
No whimpers – let it sound as a vibrant chord
My very last breath.

It's often easier to empathize with sorrow than with joy
For we don't always know how to feel joy for others
But I once saw two lovers in a city park
And they inspired me to write this simple poem.

Dusk fell. Snow timid, like a youthful voice
Striking a match on faces, a light wind fled the land
Suddenly her snowy hair escaped from under her hat
And he sentimentally put it back in its place.

They didn't look at each other - they looked under their feet
With a soft ballad they floated from the depths of the ages
On the branch, like small angels, three bullfinches perched
I asked them for happiness for this elderly pair.

Maybe it is a flower of spring
moistened with the dew of the dawn.
Maybe it is an autumn leaf,
moistened with the last thunderstorm.
Maybe it is a flower of spring
straining on all petals towards the sky.
Maybe it is an autumn leaf,
stretching out on the winds as it flies.

(With a light movement, like a gull into water,
to enter nature.)

At a party, stuffy hall,
her eyes met with mine, that's all -
And so, lovers we became
For the duration of a gaze.
Masquerade!

Without much regret or pity
it was destined for oblivion.
That explosion for a moment
which had stunned us to a halt.
Ener'acte.

What is left? Ice in a glass.
Glimmers for our memories.
Dates that never come to pass
Unflowed water in a spring
Silly things!

The third morning in a row, I wake with a black panther in my skull.
Vessels screech, as if they were made of wood.
On my brain, a bruise; in my temples, far away trains.
Nearby grasses tremble, green like train cars.

Apathy. I see mold
on the most gourmet of dishes.
Apathy. Instead of songs,
morose beeping.
Apathy. My gaze observes,
but does not disrobe those slender legs.
Apathy. A weak stinger.
The fog of a doze on the road.

It's silly to talk about medicine.
Your kisses are hopeless in this.
My thoughts, in an isolation cell.
A moonlike landscape in my head.

The black paw of a distant train.
The drumming of black panthers.
Screeching down a thin parapet,
prisoners descend into the trap.
But still, my love, don't remove your hands.

Your birthday. Soon, the summer will come back. Tell me, how else would I have learned of that?

You're born, and soon the world erupts in flowers. Tell me, how else would I have seen this color?

You're born, and soon the birds begin to chipper Tell me, how else would I have known of trilling?

With years, your eyes grow deeper, fortified Tell me, how else would I have known of wines?

Your birthday, by your side I live. Tell me, how else would love be known to me?

And so, perhaps, we love once we are born anew? Tell me, how else would I have known of you?

To swim in the secluded northern lakes,
To lay upon a southern beach under a palm with a parrot,
Cascades of music into the canyons escape
Like a woman in the nude, life beckons:
sometimes of Renoir, sometimes of Lautrec
And you are here, right next to me,
for almost a quarter century.

Intoxicated by the western culture-soaked ocean,
to take in a stream with eastern wisdom, like a blessing.
The suites, the operas will suddenly flow off as fogs
in order to exchange their powers with the streams.
Life's call an eagle's flight in a blue hue:
hard to imagine what could be more nude.

And I, I'm happy for all these life-sustaining streams.
For long? For long. Almost a quarter century.

150 years ago, I am a Paris baker
Baking buns for Toulouse-Lautrec.
Croissants and eclairs for Zola,
Cakes for the king of ballet.
Once I baked a golden baguette
Sprinkled with cinnamon spheres.
And then went and married a singer
of the most passionate years.

150 years ago -
bohemians, come, swarm me -
Chocolate inside a croissant
Is also valid poetry!
Masterpieces on the page and upon the canvas
are the best with a sweet bun settled the stomach.

...All is written, all is sung
Lights are dim and dull.
You can order my baguettes
Through the internet.
Different age and different faces
but no more oblivion.
At the door, delivery - pizza -
But that singer is still with me
of the same passionate years.

Do not look pointlessly into my eyes
do not catch anything in them.
In them, not even emptiness can dwell.
In the kitchen out the window the tigress thunder roars,
in the living room the blizzard's artful whistle,
in the bedroom from its height, the sun scalds.

But I remember that face:
only a few days have passed
in it, there was at least the leaf fall
dreary, wet, but colorful
Stay as autumn, but stay with me!

Sit and the kitchen and remember me angry
(and immediately cleansed by the spring thunder).
Sit in the living room and remember me sad
(and immediately fragile in the frosts of winter).
Lay down in the bedroom and remember me satisfied
(and immediately summery, alcoholic, sparkling).

But in autumn, there was a leaf fall:
I distinctly remember that face!
And the multicolored leaves floated
discarded easels.
Some dried up, others rotted.
But you, you are immortal.
I feel it: to the house there again comes a chill.
Be with me!
For I breathe deeply and vainly
I only breathe by you still.

By winter, I've become a frozen comet.
The sun has withered, words have become ice.
Morose, like the sunrises of late autumn.
Like leaves of the late autumn, I am dry.

But when the sun starts blooming under its own light,
there is no point for earthlings, in vain, to fight its lure.
Just look: the comet flows further and higher in the sky
and soon it'll flow into seas as a brook.

It may be then, this little poem
is not of winter or of summer
or comets leaping from the land.
For even children comprehend,
that science says it makes no sense.
It is of how, one early evening,
you winked at me with understanding,
nuts on the sofa you were nibbling,
mischievously folding your legs.

Under the prickly rondo of blind blizzards
Under the mighty, juggling tornado
Under the whistle of words and the murmur of thoughts,
I walk.

Under the solo of the nighttime landscapes
Under the lightest breeze of female fingers
Under the one who teaches grass to sing,
I live.

Under the ones dried out by autumn winds
But that still come to sense the loved ones' tears
Ones that keep at the game of life,
I die.

The wings are unseen,
But their flutter is keen,
Like the pulsing of life,
On the winds.

Droplets of rain fall into the snow.
What now?
The scathing laugh of a distant spring
It is time for thaw.
The ones that wait for us swirl in fogs.
Welcome.
All of our deeds brood after them
In congregations.

Tonight the snow will fall again,
Life is but a knitting department.
Step after step, as if stitch after stitch,
Our multicolored karmas we knit.
Farewell, our dear fogs. Not eternally, we hope.
Please come back, do not freeze: this evening, snow will fall.

But the breathing of spring will stay as our own.
Here's the needle, the string, now the ornament's known.
To be next to your loved ones with each incarnation,
Do not hold any soul within your unforgivingness.

It's snowy and cold.
Fingers pricked all over.
Needle sparks through and through.
So what's new?

I was aboard the Titanic.
My airplane crashed in the swamps of the Everglades.
I was poisoned in the Tokyo subway.
I collided at great speed with a skyscraper.
It is simply that I do not feel like
Laying down in a suffocating grave.
I stay there, where I loved and lived-
An Eternally Dying Passenger.

Some are lucky- they are late for a ride that will end in deadlock.
Some are lucky- their automobile brakes at the crevice of a cliff.
They plead to the ropes, the cables, the wisps: keep on twisting!
But I cling to a string thinner than a nerve, I
Stay there, where I loved and lived-
An Eternally Dying Passenger.

For some, I am a ghost of the roads.
For some, I am almost a god.
But for myself, I did all that I could:
I stayed there, where I loved and lived-
A Passenger.

A conversation broken down mid-word
And nothing is emitting a reflection.
No static but no motion anymore.
The streetlight has been lingering on yellow.
A stoic wall - a frozen waterfall.
There’s no religion, but no faithlessness.
And nobody will creak the creaking door.
We’re in the future, but years in the past.
I, in this pause, wish to just freeze, to hang, to stall!
But there’s a river: from the mouth and to the source
It lives. And I cannot disrupt its flow.
And so I love you, as I loved before.

Here
the world disappears
there are only night
sounds.
Rum.
You and I, just us.
They direct themselves -
Arms.
Touch
lightly on the palm
and do not disturb
fugue.
Sound.
Clinking of the glasses.
You are playing me. I -
you.
So
so precise each sign
And the notes more sharp
than swords.
Home
Intoxicates like rum.
Who are you? Can guess
But cannot know.

Maybe it was the foam glistening
An oasis in the heat
I saw a white shark rushing past -
Carrying sails over the seas.
Maybe - just a foolish rumor
Brought by winds, but then meanwhile,
Like swarms of white-bellied sharks,
Clouds slipped swiftly through the sky.

Promises of salty skin
Promises of half-drenched hair.
Wildly, gracefully, and shark-ly
Something flickered in my lair.
I remember your body bent arcwise
I remember, just outside the glass,
Beach bent arcwise like a shark
Mimicking you and the waves.

House has drowned in the night
Just like a candle's light,
coiling, the staircase.
Wall in grasses sprouts roots
Soft ripples of the moon
deep in well's belly.
With ancient poems' lines
peace, calculated, slides
down across halls.
Do you see silhouettes
say, does the moonlight jest
with the glass of rum?
You and I, we are here,
to give comfort and cheer
to staircases that wind.
Merged now - can't pull apart
like a knife in light, we'll spark
or perhaps like a smile.

To become an extravagant baron
and wipe out all the cliches and canons:
with no care about AIDS, at the station to pick up
a wave-legged, sharp-assed slut.
And to marry her and cheat on her with
the Professor of Law's puritan wife.
You won't be veering left, but right.
So repeat this mantra again after me:
a wife is a wife, but the spring is the spring!
Nor your wife nor your lover will have any charm
and head over heels, you'll let go of your karma,
Fornication for fornication
a sexual decadence,
an exotic miracle
a banana-like trance!

Only something pierces me with a needle, like the sun.
I am standing and holding someone's arms for so long.
And my mouth and the creeks have had time to dry through.
But I cannot release someone's arms, but whose?
Why can't I see the face, I don't know
of the prostitute girl or the puritan girl
or a third one, the thirtieth, the hundred and first!
Just my pulse filling up like a singing bird's larynx.
Where there used to be gardens, now, impassable mangroves.
Every idiot preaches my free-spirited mantra.
The most baron of barons just can't understand
just whose are these arms that he's yearning to clasp?

Lock yourself in a room, do not trouble the road
All far-off countries, do not bother with your thoughts.
Betray your temple, fall in love with catacombs
Clog yourself off from life as a black artery.

But there are roads that you cannot reject.
And temples, where yourself you cannot mask.
And there's a woman, she is cooking supper
She waits for you, and needs you, only you.

In this home, there are paintings. In this home, there are flowers.
Out the window horizon and a small bit of sea.
Odes and folk epics will never enter its towers,
Down the curtains, a wave sometimes runs silently.

Drawing back at the wet, salty fabric,
Just invisible shadows at dawn,
Two stepped out just as moths in the lighthouse's white,
Glimmered fleetingly with tiny cigarette lights.

The night wavered, like Bach's symphony
Overturning concert halls.
Gradually, out of the sea
A golden turtle was crawling out.
To partake in passionate dances,
Light rays flourished from her paws.
Against her shell, against her shell,
Waves crashed heads without a pause.

The paintings withered, the flowers dried,
The home has keeled.
And those two melded, into one shell their backs collided,
Rolling above the world in one wheel.

When everything vanishes, only he survives,
Who blends in with the fire in the air:
Who at dawn from invisible waters will rise
Who all day will be soaring above in the skies,
Though the planets won't spin in his path.

But if you are alone, you can only howl at the moon.
For the sun is an act of love: in it, there must be two.

That's it. We are home. With hope they are flickering
New mountains, new oceans, new cities for us.
All this has its meaning, essential, important
When you are with me. Otherwise - it is dust.

The hedgehogs of stars and foxes of dawns
Bring all the more joy with each newest white hair
The plays and the concerts...the faces of parents
All sink deeper, deeper, into our wrinkles' lairs

And children believe us while they are still children...
But it is impossible to sweep off this bench
The wind and the sun, and the art and the poems
Your care, and your worry, your gentle caress,

Your wave from the window as I steer towards home
It's simple - I'm warm. It is simple - I love.

Now, this is it. Now, all is silent.
Now, all is all.
This night, perhaps, is just the whimsy
Of careless notes.
There are no accidents on earth,
But touch the notes
And in response, like a keen wind,
Appears your palm.
Before sound comes, the flute makes contact
with cherished lips.
Now, all the chords are flowing freely,
Streaming within.
Now, this is it. Now, all is silent.
Now, all is all.
And you and I? Perhaps a whimsy
Of careless notes.

Just three kisses in farewell:
Rapid, eager, forever…
Perhaps everyone I love
Is just wind and just water.
Wind on the water, from inside me, respond!
On a single wave, you and I belong.
In the sky - flocks fly wild.
In the ocean - they will eat.
Perhaps, everything I want
Is just water and just wind.
What to say in my last toast?
Wishing many happy years!
Perhaps, all that comes after
Is just water and just wind!
Wind on the water, from inside me, respond!
On a single wave, you and I fly off.

The snows. And the earth has no room for the snow mounds,
A hunchback.
So say farewell rarely and forgive more often
My friends.
The frost. Little icicles fly without sight,
To my soul.
So turn off your TV, go and read some poems
Of scherzo.
The blizzard. Again all the icy ballets,
Skidding stop.
So love, cling on tightly, and celebrate summer
Like wasps.
The drifting snow hurries us down earthly paths
On our bottoms.
The wings lift us up, but who is between them?
Ourselves.
The winter will stick like a white-feathered bird
To the window.
So shake off your wrinkles, and slide towards each other
A little

The thoughts have changed, the words have changed
But just two constants have remained:
I try to keep this woman safe.
I stand up to applaud the actors.

The countries, roadside signs all changed
The rivers and the mountains also
But still, I kept this woman safe
And stood up to applaud the actors.

When I'm reborn, I'll change it all.
But whether I am sunny, overcast, or rainy
I'll heed forever to two sacred oaths:
Caring for you and honoring the actors.