"Poetry is always first!"
"Am I a lyrist? I'll know later."
The twilight
Roses
The sea
Love
Without you
"Ah, those squares of my youth!"
The memory
Romance
The rain
In the forest
"Autumn squares are musing at cloudy flax..."
The night
February
II
Shadows
"My circle is closed. I can't break away."
The fading
Dumbness
My pastime
The answer
The collapse
The marsh
The puns
The divergence
"The road of my fate hasn't finished yet..."
Once
"My soul despises its prophecy!"
III
God
The knowledge
"He was right, of course, the bishop Berkeley..."
Unbelief
Memory
The explanation
The depth
The private request
Light
Consciousness
Return
Apostle
Canoe
*
I
* * *
Poetry is always first!
And for millenniums we toil
for harmony at any cost
like tiny rigs extracting oil!
23.04.2000
* * *
Am I a lyrist? I'll know later.
What it is clear that I'm a creator.
In my great mission I ever believe,
living as I was fated to live.
As heaven, I'd like to embrace all I see,
as earth, I'd like to absorb all I seize,
while as an Ocean of language, I'd like
to re-create all the darkness and light!
7.05.2000
THE TWILIGHT
Again, the moonlit space is shining
within the dipper of the Wain...
My soul, flying up, is pining
just for the universe again.
My mind among the stars can scarce
have only its earthly sense...
My life drunk with that milky chaos
is so heavenly and immense...
30.04.2000
ROSES
The fragrance of a rose is to us
as close as our lips and hearts...
How bright the roseleaves are on the grass,
how graceful are the opening buds!
In crystal or in the glade that's so green,
the sun is scorching, or again it rains,
your sister is a captivating queen
and everywhere - always - Beauty reigns!
22.04.2000
THE SEA
We'll scarcely cross those shore and passion!
That night exists in spite of winter frost...
Then we were "losing time" - with such obsession
that we live now just off what is "lost".
The darkness was dissolving us and urging,
and the eternity seemed so young to us
when, cleaving galaxies with our hearts and merging
into abyss of silence, by the path
of dreaming, we were setting off - to roam
over those deeps, a woman - man,
like two forgetful fishes in the foam...
But to forget, what had we there, then?
22.04.2000
LOVE
In the eternal starless blissful night
how insatiable were our caresses!
How voluptuous were hyacinths' tresses
delineated with the candlelight!
The tune of love was whimsical and wild
on the primeval paths of the passion...
But you my soul, yielding to obsession,
to happiness ascended like a child.
There's a shudder of your grateful cry
in the sweet sweat of raging carnal frenzy -
and through the fragrant darkness of this fancy
time after time, our bodies fly...
8.05.2000
WITHOUT YOU
In my life, I need not a breath now
if from helplessness, I grit the teeth!
How can I without you? How?
I'm alive not "without" but "with"!
I am either a rebel alone
or a hermit or one covert glance...
"Farewell," you get out, "my own" -
and the rest is worth nothing at once!
You are absent - then whom do I owe?
What shall I be endeavoring for?
Don't leave me! Without you - so -
I can't live! That is all on that score...
30.04.2000
* * *
Ah, those squares of my youth!
That smoke rising up...
The fireworks - a marvel in sooth -
of frosty maples and scrub!
The kisses (really bygone?),
the icy lakes for us...
The pattern of two breathings on
the misted pane of bus.
The solitude in pairs at
the Ocean of night...
And that uncertainty ahead
of you that's always right.
The ringing laugh and crunching snow...
Where is it today?
Why is that old square now
so dreary and gray?
24.04.2000
THE MEMORY
Yes, that's enough for me! That's quite enough!
At present, I can no longer laugh.
Because I understand, how I missed
when I believed simple-hearted, when I kissed.
My mind tells me I surely was right!
My cruel memory kisses me every night...
6.06.2000
ROMANCE
The mutual infatuation and
you're whispering "I love you!" night by night...
Yet morning comes - and all comes to an end:
again, your eyes are silent at first light.
I don't argue - you would like to love!
But I believe my heart, not in your heat...
All that we babble by nights - that fevered stuff -
how can I make my honest heart repeat?
26.04.2000
THE RAIN
The plain is in the haze of the gray rain...
Impassable cart tracks and soggy ploughs...
Again, it drizzles here, and again...
It would be better not to leave the house.
As dreams of thy insomnia, it's thin,
a mirage of these fields of misty mould
through which I'm trudging, soaked to the skin,
recalling warmth of thine within the cold...
27.04.2000
IN THE FOREST
Only the waxen tears
of the leafage;
the rainfall of osiers
by the village;
stains of gold in the puddle,
on the sable
sheet of broom - a burst of ruddle
of a maple;
croaking of autumn crows,
a fir-fair
and the smell of rotting crowns
in the air...
13.05.2000
* * *
Autumn squares are musing at cloudy flax...
Fallen pages of life grow sear...
Maple leaves on the path are like the gold tracks
of a fiery bird that was here.
Rasping croaks of ravens are breaking the noon
and the murmur of mountain ashes...
By sunrise it had flitted away, having strewn
the light ashes of flame,
the warm ashes...
4.06.2000
THE NIGHT
Will this night have terminated
love of ours that wings
through the darkness permeated
with the smell of fading pinks?
Can this night divide my goddess
and her singer into parts -
in the unity of bodies,
lips, desires and hearts?
Evil spirits vanish here!
Once again, my fate recedes
as, in bliss, I see you near,
you narrowing your lids!
And my soul's springs well out!
And this night already shakes!
And the petals droop from drought.
And your eyes are like two lakes!
In the dead of night that hears
what I rave in your embrace
I feel only the tears
of compassion on my face...
1.06.2000
FEBRUARY
The spring sinks in the snowdrifts...
There are snowstorms every day...
However the nipping wind shifts -
through snow, I'm forcing my way.
At random, I go again...
Through hearts, snow falls... What a game!
Whom do I make for, and in vain?
Why? Where? It is all the same!
A street lamp is winking in flight...
If only stars let me sing!
Through blizzards I plod on by night -
blind with snowflakes - to my spring...
2.06.2000
*
II
SHADOWS
Shadows shudder above my way...
My dream in the darkness is dim and gray.
I whisper the name of my charming wife...
Shadows shudder above my life.
My God in the heavens was so kind!
Shadows shudder above my mind.
He gave me the happiness instead of gold...
Shadows shudder above my world.
My soul trembles... Again, I wince...
Shadows shudder above me since!
My only hope is none but God...
Shadows shudder above my word...
20.01.2000
* * *
My circle is closed. I can't break away.
The Ocean of history is stilled...
And there, in the depths of that bay,
the springs of music work its way through silt...
2.06.2000
THE FADING
All might of mine
is on the wane
and I repine
at Fate in vain,
persisting thus
when this is main...
"Alas, alas!"
I think again...
27.04.2000
DUMBNESS
I want to fix my fugitive impressions,
but I can't catch and even imagine them!
By now, I have no longer patience
to be at present such as I was then
in the days of my bold adolescence,
hot-blooded temper and decisive deeds,
my negligence in various lessons,
my inattention that my reason reads
where my life is so effervescent
while so senseless is my zealous mind...
I don't want to be again at present
so unfeeling with my heart and blind!
24.03.2000
MY PASTIME
Yes, I lose all my life
in vain,
but I cannot survive
again!
It's the same how I mend
my way
if for verses, I spend
my May.
For disasters, it's rife
to rain...
Everyone in the strife
is Cain.
And escaping this hive
(No prey!),
into "self" I must dive
today.
I am only a rent
of pain,
while today "common trend" -
disdain.
For my soul I fend
at bay,
getting out of hand,
they say...
26.11.2000
THE ANSWER
I ought to create me - and nothing else!
My only wish is to think and write!
While the necessity always tells
to make "pelf" and "lucre" today...
"That's right!"
15.01.2000
THE COLLAPSE
"Awake my brain!"
as Hamlet said...
All is in vain
that I have set.
It's not my guilt -
this common funk,
but what I've built
is now sunk...
30.10.2000
THE MARSH
I bear still my weight! Even if I'm like a felon,
and in this way to trudge, it means "to toil and moil"...
Since the vast marshland is unbounded and barren
my feet already sink into the swampy soil.
I bear still my fate! Which is untimely rare,
which is a suicidal and hopeless extreme...
The same quagmire waits around everywhere,
but I plod looking at the sun that's so dim.
I bear still my wait! Beneath, instead of ground,
the bottomless morass oozes its fetid slime...
The vapor of the bog is flickering around...
I don't waver and it is my dreadful crime!
8.04.2001
PUNS
I like to stem
the common stream
and I am stern
in fighting trim.
What is my touch
I cannot term,
but I am such -
from stem to stern!
19.05.2000
THE DIVERGENCE
Sonnet
Among the deaf my soul will recoil
from wingless trials, hurrying off to fly!
It's my requital for all my lifelong toil
upon the soil of rival grubs and fry.
Alienation is my sole foil!
From different sources, they and I arise...
They would be glad to bring me to the boil,
but in my "madness", I am always wise.
In their spirits they are on all fours -
and foist this way of life on me by force
as if I was a ruminant of rumor!
"What for?" they shout vainly, making froth...
While I prefer again to go forth,
for with my artistry, I don't wish to humor!
22.05.2000
* * *
The road of my fate hasn't finished yet,
though this way I have gone quite enough!
It's time, oh my unknown friend, to set
off from the harbor of the earthly love.
It's time - the while my soul is still light
and to get famous I have no chance -
to slip away in my discarnate flight
through clouds to the endlessness of suns.
It's time to pierce this unworldly sky
and, having cast away that brutal strife,
to soar, without rockets, very high
above what's being called by people "Life"...
26.04.2000
ONCE
Once - either by night or in broad daylight -
I'll suddenly stumble, not finding the ground,
and then a black steed will start carrying me right
into the boundless effulgent profound.
Dissolving in space, I'll be riding - aloof -
full speed through the infinite deafness and dumbness
and, like mortal dew, from under its hoof
the stars will fly up in the darkness...
26.04.2000
* * *
My soul despises its prophecy!
I'm either my calling or myth!
In life, so empty and prosy,
great loneliness awaits me.
Although my destiny's emery
abrades it relentlessly, hence
God's burning renewal of memory
gives me every purpose and sense!
What's further? I have no notion!
Forever? Without a trace?
My art is perpetual motion
till there are stars in the space!
23.04.2000
*
III
GOD
To God my self is displayed!
For life, what cannot He mean?
Here are cosmos and planet
while I am a link between.
I see the heaven everywhere,
but only this sun - to shine...
I have no God to care
but that who's the soul of mine.
2.03.2001
THE KNOWLEDGE
The theory is a safety valve
for every thinker's thirst that is not flighty...
But only through window of self
I contemplate the self of the Almighty.
Without sight, I can't believe! Say what
omniscience the Lord gives human being
if church of soul is his way to God,
his inspiration is divine-all-seeing.
While introspecting, otherworldly strong,
I am just God, and not my tale of woe!
Interpreters of wonders get it wrong,
he who has seen does not believe but know...
25.03.2001
* * *
He was right, of course, the bishop Berkeley:
cosmos is a notion of it...
Dreams will pass, be puny you, be burly;
whether you denied them, or they did.
Yet the beams of realizing pierce
all my life - to merit God's "Well done!"
and my calling's light is so fierce
that my sin of verse becomes a sun.
The external world is always scrappy
while my triumph is too tragic, but
my creation is what makes me happy,
to my art, my heart will never shut...
8.03.2001
UNBELIEF
Alas, I excelled all the anchorites vainly!
I'd like to believe, but I can't anyhow...
Instead of a gleam, I behold the valley
of Death that the Fates so simply bestow.
Your "karma" is, too, an escape in full feather,
while your shell of self is for good, I am sorry...
Just people invent God Almighty together -
to compensate helplessness of their glory.
Why do you think do I hate spending me idle?
To ape with my consciousness? Well, I declare!
The life hereafter has no requital
wherever I'll offer my grumble and prayer.
My soul depends on its dreams, let's suppose,
yet as for the only Earth, is it dear
to cosmos of burst? Is the living bead close
to this flying chaos in nature and near?
In Weltschmerz I see, omnipresent and gallant,
that Reason is a midwife of gods, and console
my part of the neuron-planet: "My talent
is one of phenomena of the World Soul!"
Me Buddha and Plato scarcely dope;
Mohammed or Christ - who's deserving attention?
For me the way out of self's shell to hope
is only there, in Heaven's dimension.
If now I have no niche for creation,
what can I derive from this cross or that crescent?
I am a born artist of my poor nation,
in which one would find no savior at present...
1.04.2001
MEMORY
Loss of self is just what you should fear
dissipating the past for a feeling!
Human being is memory here,
all the rest is a moment of living.
In your youth what is most full-blooded
if not such a spontaneous passion?
Self, meantime, in genetics is flooded
with all joy and ordeals in succession.
Be sagacious you, be empty-headed,
every step is a scrawl to the future.
Would the former impressions get faded
if "bygones" are your healer and butcher?
To your land you, even being alone,
always bear a fatal resemblance.
Streaming through both hope and groan,
Time makes you of the sand of remembrance.
And in God, everlastingly blinding,
this eternity comes into action,
realizing your cosmos as lightning
in all-seeing of your recollection...
10.04.2001
THE EXPLANATION
Sonnet
I should not say that there's any sense
in speaking Russian when Russia cannot hear.
Again, my work has no future. Hence
I go to the language of Shakespeare.
It beats me why they put me to expense
for nothing: "In your mother tongue work here!"
Rejection is a just cause of offence
at such a culture that is used to veer.
Perhaps I'd have to change as others too,
yet, anyway, I do what I must do
whoever I am, taken as a whole...
Even if in Russian, all others will talk rot,
till now, I prefer to listen to God
in the abyss of my creating soul.
11.10.2004
THE DEPTH
Cult is insipid if its spirit dies
whether the cross or crescent is salvation...
As someone's "self", God shows in this wise
through a corporeal abyss of incarnation.
You may be good or bad, it's all the same:
Life flows down, weak to hover higher,
and vanishes in soul, wild or tame,
to rise to Heaven as God's immortal fire.
Interring you in superficial fuzz,
obedience grants paradise about...
But just a seed of self in each of us
is God descending as a spark to sprout.
11.03.2001
THE PRIVATE REQUEST
Thou art not my notion, but soul!
The galaxies of brain can't go out
as long as I can see Thy sky and goal,
my voice is able to say Thy thoughts aloud!
Doomed to be son of God in word and action
(What gift and greatness would I have to mention?),
I cherish one and only connection -
with the eternal light of Thy attention.
Even if I am sophistically clever,
after I'll finish this - in Thee - creation
let me be lost, the Most High, for ever
in murmuring my last realization...
7.03.2001
LIGHT
There's a seed or word in the beginning,
in short, a spark that had become a planet...
The world turns to that spark when we are skinning
existence. How else can we explain it?
Begotten by light we are alive when seeing,
we burn in fire of this gene or quantum...
Is any concept adequate to being
that's self-realization, so wanton?
Even if to spirit, human flesh is praying,
whatever myths are our engines,
Cod's persons are His images which, playing,
our planet's consciousness imagines.
Facing the space, conceited, fear-ridden,
and placing all the cosmos at the service,
according to our own freedom
we re-create the Earth-ourselves.
With making the eternity we cope,
transforming the Almighty sooner - later...
But only the smoke of the globe
remains in hands of every liberator.
We cannot bear such a mind without
the Heavenly Host or guests from nowhere -
to shape our destinies throughout
while we search for fathomless chasms there.
We put salvation into cold storage,
yet immortality is what we covet crossly...
The universe is flashes of self-knowledge,
to be another light is not an earthly.
15.05.2001
CONSCIOUSNESS
If my fathomless chasm blinds me with heavenly dazzle,
can my spirit be cured on earth?
I'm that light and this lone soul worn to a frazzle,
I think as humankind from my birth.
Lots of ones cannot grow into my revelation:
like that depth, it is fated to gape!
I'm God's consciousness here - in its short self-creation
in that darkness, which has no shape.
In my mind, I see cosmos! Every germ and reversal
of its endless formation is mine!
Since the source of my nature is much more universal
than the being begot by my shine.
God looks down on bigots, while through my introspection
He is rising like fiery surf!
I'm the way, no mirror! I'm not vision's reflection
but discovering meaning of self!
With my flesh on my deathbed, I shall hardly condole:
I'll survive in that fire - to blaze!
Like my part of God's reason, my hypostasis-soul,
turning clarity, flames in my space...
22.04.2001
RETURN
When I'll have left the light of flesh and mind
and gone into myself, beyond my name,
whether my voice will live or go blind,
to me, perhaps, it will be all the same.
I am in fact my word - here I stood!
Yet what if there's sight behind "That's all..."
and as an image, formed by death for good,
I'll be myself completely in recall.
Futility gapes in the space of dark
and fear says, "Here's a placid place..."
But isn't the very being just a spark
to model my cosmos with creative blaze?
Be death or life, any existence can't
quench my unearthly thirst, and never could!
Maybe, this light - my calling and my heart -
is that omnipotent imagination's shoot?
A version of Universe, a dream (and no drum!),
embodied in my fate (and not in "pelf"!),
as one of souls, then I'll have become
the Lord's return to fire - to Himself...
28.02.2001
APOSTLE
I speak about verity-profound
to the despair of the rotten culture's swears
and to the savages, who brandish clubs around
above the skull of tiny Earth of theirs.
I speak - at the abyss of superstition -
to alter ego that's in this Etna here -
about human kind's enlightening mission
in the twilight of cruelty and fear.
I speak - when words are blood and people spill it -
when firstly you must come into your own...
To pagans I explain what is "God's spirit",
inscrutable to them and still unknown...
28.03.2001
CANOE
Wherever we row across God's abyss,
at sea, my canoe is alone...
The cockleshells and vast - there's nothing but this;
the rest is your fantasy's loan.
I go ashore - on the next saving lie
that seems real earth and firm ground...
Then, melting away, all the mirages die
and through their "good", I gaze round.
By commonness, now my music is rent,
through triteness, my hearing gropes...
The miry pettiness, swamping the land,
destroys all my wishes and hopes.
The continent sinks into life... And in vain
the bog teaches me froggy lessons...
To sea, I put out to wander again,
in quest of the only essence.
In thought I am sleeplessly lost - and at last
with freedom, I get self-reliance
to paddle my canoe in the middle of the vast
of Ocean of consonant silence.
My talent is still God's recalcitrant pet
and God is a prompt to my bother
which way my persistent canoe has to head -
past transience - further and further...
26.02.2001