The Army of the Living Poets

 

Here it is- mustering is the army of the hunched Mohicans,

the thinning army of the dying from love-

grey-haired boys with lower-back pain, blood pressure and flatulence,

crooked towers of castles of love,

the wrinkled ruins of impregnable fortresses,

with ivy-twined walls, grizzled by time:

mustering is the army of the last living poets,

angry over never touched wine,

sad; gone are the sunny girls

in whose eyes- oh, how they used to see themselves! -

and gratefully they made love to them; passionately wrote them poems;

took them out to the pub with their last few pennies,

a smoke after smoke- their lips tasted tobacco and moist,

they talked of the dead poets and talked of themselves, no jealousy-

they still had all the time in the world to become great:

Greater than them we will be, boy,  but now's time for making love,

for living, for drinking up all the wine in the world,

Pour more, boy - the poet must always be drunk,

drunk with love and drunk for women, drunk with life, boy.

And outside the night does not even suspect it itself is the carnival,

it doesn't care about the poets, or anything,

it just graciously provides the precious silence,

the stars, the moon, the refuge of the hushed down coast,

the salty breeze on the girls' dry lips.

The night is the same- salt and a coast, and piles of stars,

only the poets, offended by their own mortality, are sad today:

gone are the sunny girls,

gone are the light streams and kisses.

The boys are back in the pub and make orders with their last pennies,

They've shrunk in numbers, there are only a few of them now

deprived of a guarantee for eternity-

to leave this life untimely with the aplomb

of the Great- an ineptly induced death:

and they are angry at their own never touched wine- they are alive,

the fraternity of the still living poets,

of the ones cursed to die from love,

with arteries calcified by meds, with arrhythmia,

with the unnecessary wisdom of the ones who survived their own 50s-

It's too late to become Eternal beyond this age, they say,

and then they dare to drink all the wine up.

 

 

BEFORE THE DARKNESS FALLS

 

I live behind the cabinets with ghosts,

with yellow lace - like their owners’ teeth,

I’m living there.

And in the dim eyes of the TVs,

behind the window also,

and in the slimy dusk -

I’m living everywhere.

I am the City.

My super-heavy breath has impregnated

the glass cheekbones of the facades,

the rugged edges of the lamps,

the strips of graying scars – the cemented arcades,

the houses’ bright brick flesh,

the art deco tattoos of bay-windows.

And I am wholly proudly condescended

So proudly with my bourgeois decency,

but signs - they are so obvious:

And wheezing cracked, my drunken breath

is drifting free beyond the window -

a city criminal,

my face – in streams and puddles,

in pavement swollen, jellified,

and yet – still infinitely thirsty,

I long for rain and from this longing

I put rage in capsules:

now I am the Devil who goes mad with thirst

and I am ready for the next collision -

I’m lisping in the fallen Angel’s ear:

the Death is not the trouble,

 but its eternal unexpectedness is,

and blast you - when it comes to Love,

it’s just the same (I’m telling him),

and then the twilight turns to darkness

and saves me.

 

A Pilgrim

 

She doesn't walk, she floats- a graceful galley

amongst the stands with melons and tomatoes,

in a sea of fruity froth and heaps of vegetables,

along the crates with apricots and grapes,

by isles of apples and sweet corn,

smoothly bowing over a basket with blackberries-

shiny sugary caviar-

to sniff their slick breath,

to foretell their astringent blood,

before they turn into must and foam on the tongue:

the foretaste subconsciously knows.

The way she knows they subconsciously follow her-

the looks of the men behind the stands

and the eyes of the women behind the stands avoid her,

of the big-breasted, sleep-deprived sellers of pears and plums,

matriarchs of their small stall kingdoms,

mistresses of the generals, sitting on the crates

in colourful shorts and stained t-shirts-

the matriarchs do not see her, do not notice the curve of her hip,

when she kneels to the lowest shelf with apricots,

they don't look at her bosom, where

the tints of a peeled apple

the size of a peeled apple

the taste of a peeled apple

are in contrast with her sun-kissed neck,

they fuss around, gather the troops, rearrange the arriere-garde

rustle with the plastic gonfalons and command the generals:

water sprinkle the lettuces!

strengthen the wall of melons!

sometimes she feels sorry for them, these big women and these coarse men,

but much more often she envies them-

they are a kingdom, and she is a pilgrim

and this small game is the only one

which she allows herself to play-

her petty revenge that

she always chooses the smallest melon,

and buys peaches only a few.

Maybe one day

her lips will ripen again for kisses,

and then she will dare stop,

will leave down half of the load,

but Hope she will never leave,

will bend her face over his:

his eyes will be as sparkling black grapes

or clear, fresh honey,

or translucent olives,

it doesn't matter, she will not see them anyway-

as the first kiss is always with your eyes closed;

she'd have tilted her tender neck

and would foretaste the astringent touch

for it would be summer, there'd be mellow peaches

whose sharp fuzz coarsened the tongue

and dried up the lips.

But now she's just a pilgrim,

whose unripe lips are turf and dampness

and not the kisses but the blood

under the shiny skins of the late-season cherries

is the only thing which colours them in purple.

 

 

3 a.m.

 

Men talk and talk and talk life over

and their timbres, husky from the liquor,

are spiraling amidst the cigarette smoke

towards the glowing pupils of the lamps

towards the greyness of the morning roofs

over the opaque, slightly wet curls

of the quiet girls, falling asleep

with open eyes on their shoulders,

men's eyes do not even slide along

the curves of their soft and silky profiles-

discussing life is way more important

than the white, painfully beautiful

huge comma, the interjection

of the collarbone, of the neck, of the entire

universe molded in this young flesh,

which has no place in men's monologues,

in which you'll find not even a grain of doubt

in their own dominance,

in their own men's right

Life to be generously talked about,

drunken up, consumed, rearranged,

cursed out for some triviality,

praised with some fictional bravery,

but always a right by-God's-will deserved.

Oh, they are so unbudgingly sure in their idling

over the drinks, in the smoke of the predawn,

as the quiet girls will be waiting

for the men's talk about life to be finally over,

with the hope to afterwards be loved

and the men's lips, liquory pungent,

to swallow them cravingly, frenziedly,

they'll wait, half-asleep, for time to come

to be loved in the messy sheets,

soaked with the scent of their bodies.

They don't dare to leave, they don't fall asleep,

they've leaned on the men's shoulders,

bemused by the masculine chatter,

and their wombs, tangled in knots,

chain them to the hard chairs

and their tender shoulders tremble drowsily

while they are waiting

for the men's talk and talk and talk

to be finally over.

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