Endarkenment. Arkadii Dragomoshchenko

      of blood and

      After a retort. Who taught them the art of direct speech? In which

      there isn’t a single

      Word about how the conifer needles clung to the shoulders,

      when they didn’t exist

      In the first place, and won’t, because what will exist

      are Parshchikov’s dirigibles,

      His flock, my diopters, addresses, telephones, and no oil at all.

      [G.T.]

Алексею М. Парщикову воскресенье, 10 мая 2009 г.

      Я не верю, что так закончилось, вообще не верю, нет.

      Там никогда ничего не заканчивается, там—море воздуха.

      Там, если ты хочешь быть с ней навсегда, ничего страшного,

      Поскольку страшного нет вообще, есть одна нищета, а в ней

      Ничего страшного нет, ничего страшней нет того, что страшно,

      Как и любовь, которая ниже всех нищих, всех ниже всего,

      Но счастье в другом, не в том, чтобы быть безумным, но

      Чтобы казаться, но быть в это же время безумным, который

      При случае скажет, что нет ничего слаще на свете быть идиотом.

      На этом закончим, потому что у всех тех, кто смотрит на нас

      Низко посаженные глаза, они великолепны в гипсе поз и речи.

      Близко посаженные глаза, длинные гипсовые рукава,

      Руки медленны, исчезают из взгляда. Легки на уходе крови и

      После реплики. Кто учил их мастерству прямой речи? В которой

      Ни слова о том, как хвоя прикипала к плечам, когда их не было

      Изначально, и не будет, поскольку будут дирижабли Парщикова

      Его стада и мои диоптрии, адреса, телефоны, и никакой нефти.

to Trofim K. Dragomoshchenko

      Is the fault really yours? Mine? They say it’s verging on spring,

      and you are as old as you’ve always been,

      and—moreover—no longer appear in my dreams.

      That last time you were saying … But what?

      What truly matters? To speak: is that not enough? or too much?

      Not a single horizon can be as distinct

      as the one charted by the stone’s fall.

      That rivers run, gathering the arterial force of space?

      Grammar doesn’t abide muteness, shards of water,

      the incision of a fish, the whooping of birds from beyond the hill at sunrise?

      Underwater scales, of course, and fins, shade, bare feet.

      And some others—like cells in a long arithmetic book.

      Soon faces will blacken from the sun. It is truly so.

      And perhaps that’s good—it’s easier in summer, in summer

      there is no need to look over one’s shoulder and even the shadows

      of non-being

      search out coolness in the bonfires of a house, melting into the walls

      on the stories

      torn apart by the roots of the nut tree, the nasturtium, the matthiola.

      Even there, where we’ve already been, where we needn’t return.

      The world is merciful. That’s why water rises as a wave, then the tide ebbs.

      There is no need to return to the cumbersome body, to press against

      the sleeping mummies of cigarettes, to stand as mica,

      among the figures of wine,

      of telluric books, staring bewildered into the zenith.

      No need to return,

      no need, during insomnia, to flee, as the child after parting

      entangles the heart with madness. You’re unreasonable,

      they tell him, “what are you doing!”—they tell him—and it

      is just like the body, its smallpox inoculations, knots of fracture,

      sunset of operatic wounds, its tattoos of inversion, some of them seeds,

      when nothing remains that is not with her, but vague letters,

      the scalpel’s exquisite glaciers, other things.

      By all accounts, in the same heap of bodies, when the time comes,

      judging by everything, you’ll no longer appear in dreams.

      It is not a question of the moon, of spring, of the time of the throat.

      Dreams decay, fall to pieces, and their gold

      flakes into flocks of flying fish, going blind over the scales of the abyss.

      Because—that’s it! I almost forgot—not to see

      you in military whites among the vitriolic crystals of lilacs.

      I parted them with my hands, gulping air, I ran

      (This is from where what will appear a millennium later).

      Not much time remained to see you there, leaning

      on the warm hood of the jeep. What could I have said

      then? How could I have understood what I don’t understand today?

      How cleanly and slantingly it wafts of gasoline,

      and women’s white dresses at the sidelines.

      Of course, water, water lilies, hot brass cartridges,

      myopia. But even without auxiliary lenses I see

      how between you and me the sky widens and widens,

      rising higher than the Himalayas.

      [G.T.]

Трофиму К. Драгомощенко

      Разве твоя в том вина? Моя? Говорят,