INDIFFERENCE

         A simple way of life I’ve learned and wise...
                           (Anna Akhmatova)

Now all that is left is -
to die to the past
and to fast-forward the future.
To the place where you sit and observe
how furniture gathers dust,
and how the brain begins
to resemble a crust
of yesterday’s bread.
And the heart knows no dread.

ON LOSS

         The art of losing isn’t hard to master...
                           (Elizabeth Bishop)

What of it if what’s left - is scattered moments and silver tongues...
If life resembles a gray smudge on the X-ray of nicotine-eaten lungs...
What if the heart is scarred and the brain grows limp...
And your reflection forms a toad or an evil imp...

What of it then...

What of it if there’s no one with whom to share your bread...
And the sobriety of knowing leads to naked dread...
Lying down with people for whom you do not care...
Embraced by them - who are just there...

What of it then...

What of it if you taste the salt - the matter of your tear...
Pain is a sure sign that you were not deceived - that you were
here...
What of it that the purest snow turns into sleet...
What frightens - is that the heart must continue its beat...

CLOSER TO NON-EXISTENCE

Don’t pay attention. Don’t pay any heed
to anything beyond this room.
Just sit there. Motionless. Or read
about someone else’s gloom.

Don’t blink or fidget. Do not jerk
if suddenly you hear a scream.
And if you must give out a quirk -
Just know: it is your neighbor’s dream.

Don’t trust in instinct. Use a double lock.
And sit, not-waiting, on the floor.
And when they come for you and knock,
don’t move. Say : “It’s a wrong door!”

If outside, avert your gaze from eyes.
When asked, do not respond. Don’t be a hero.
And when you hear that he died,
stay put. But, most of all, avoid the mirror.

BECOME INVISIBLE...

Become invisible.
Freeze in the form of a statue.
Let Time pass through your flesh - undisturbed.
A moving body is easier to fracture.
And a skull in motion begs to be crushed.

AFTER THE RUSSIANS

Ah, genderless nostalgia of the void...
In which we do not find, nor are we ever found...
In the midriff of your life, annoyed,
you stare blankly at the lack of common ground.

Ah, halfway to the phrase a sound,
that interrupts your whisper with a scream.
You thought you’d be indifferent, unbound
by dailyness, by circumstances. Dream,

dream on, my friend. You’ll also turn into a hound
who bites with its last effort onto breath.
It forms a common “Ah!” - so loud
that pain steps aside and yells for death...

WHAT FRIGHTENS...

What frightens is not the sameness,
but lack of will to describe it...
The lame attempt of words to
seek out some meaning to our existence
won’t render any to it -
nor will it take it away...
You could patch your life together moment by moment -
and still come out empty-handed
like an equal sign.
You could look in wonder at
your life’s punctured line
and evoke your memory to help you fill the distance.
You could recollect your life
instance by instance -
down to the tiniest shriek of a crow -
still - it will amount to a tired draw...

AFTER CHEKVOV

Last night I had a dream
of a Russian movie about life in the country
Nineteenth century white dresses
and the Impressionistic light
Seagulls and tears and strawberry preserves
Subtle snobbery enveloping the internal turmoil and soft passion
that is only, only released when women comb
their hair tresses in the rooms...
They squeeze their breasts, caress their thighs and moan
While men outside in the garden sit and groan
Of love that’s lost or love unconquered
Compare their feelings to the falling leaves
and are only too happy when the maid interrupts
their elastic murmur with a call for tea...

GOING HOME
       For my grandmother Gulo Baazova

Everything crumbled.
The house that you were born in
has lost its walls
to time and mildewed moisture.
Even the stars in that sky, they say,
no longer blink of desire, - but of need.
The religions, the Gods you believed in
turned out to be murderers on the loose.
And if you see a head there -
you see a noose around it.

The surrounding mountains
open their mouth agape
and pour out the sea - blue in color.
But the sky is tired of reflecting it,
and sends on the clouds.
It is a paradise, they say,
for those who cannot see beyond doubts.
It is no place for them that still know
how to pray without a word.
It is a place of a ruined past - abandoned Lord -
Blue-eyed.
Who wanders like a vagabond in His own land,
murmurs a prophecy:
“Solitary there you will stand.”

Everything shattered.
Even time has lost its meaning.
You are saddened because you
no longer desire your past.
Or, at least, that’s how it seems.
Each day happens...
Towards dawn it rips at the seams
and gives birth to another -
stripped of memory -
Life appears raw, - as it is -
And you understand that
Emptiness must be another word for now. How
do you fill the hollow?
How do you follow
along the terraces that had disappeared?
You stand still. Frozen into the ground.
And look around, - mouth agape -
without a sound...

...This is home...
And here you are...
Roaming the town.
You look like a clown
Who hoped too far
Upon a false star...

Stranger, are you trying to encounter yourself, stranger...
Larger, larger, larger than universe’s kindness is this tear painted
on a clown’s face.
For when I said “truth”, I never meant this world - capable,
perhaps - of honesty,
but never, never, - truthfulness.

Truthfulness transcends the bounds
and warms the grounds under the rays
which never shone before
under layers of stars that never blinked
under the moon that was never compared to any oval of a face...
and under a cloud from which not a drop of moisture ever dropped
under the virginal blueness which you call - the sky
under your most distant fear - an imagined lie...

And you leaf through the pages of your faith
- losing your balance -
hoping to find a word
a sign
a sigh
resurrecting you back into yourself...

But you find only grief
you find only loss
you find you’re Eve
sprawled upon the cross
of cynicism and shame

of boredom and pain
and the mustard-green moss soaks in the rain
that knocks against the dome
of your imagined home...

Everything crumbled...
People whom you loved
are no longer found
at the familiar address.
Some have scattered. Most are
lying under the cemetery’s hand-made hills.
Like you - whose only trace is the mark of the visitors’ heels.
And the bones of your palms
are unable to form a caress.

Your house is empty.
The gates are shut.
And I will pass it by.
Won’t reopen the plot
of remembered grief,
of remembered loss
If there was ever an Eve
Then she turned into moss
growing out from your grave
unmarked by a cross -
but by a single tree
atop a hand-made hill.
Now you are free -
If you still care to feel.

An un-bitten fruit
Rolls around the yard.
To the sound of the flute.
And it makes it hard
To remain untouched
By the call of the beast -
That roams around, hunched,
Through the streets of the East.
These may be only words
Spoken in vain.
But they told me that love
is the measure of pain.

The past doesn’t vanish -
It just condenses with Time
Into a slowly-built home
Of a whispered rhyme...

TALKING TO YOURSELF

If to remember anything -
Then, it is the flow of the river
beneath the crust of ice.
In a city, where -
the predominant color of eyes is gray.
And the scraped facade of a building
where a winter is whiled away
is indifferent to your shadow.
Like a soon-to-be-suicide to a loan.

If to remember anything -
it is the moan of the wind
which has nothing to say.
The rest, it turns out, - is hearsay.

If to remember anything -
it is that everything has its end.
Both - the depth of an ocean,
And that of your glass.
That your outstretched palm
won’t merge with another’s hand.
That with Time - your thoughts
will repeat and resemble grass.

If to remember anything -
it is that absence replaces sorrow.
And leaves you numb, dry-eyed.
That your yesterday is most likely
your neighbor’s tomorrow.
That all the calendars lied.

If to remember anything -
it is that at a certain age,
happiness must be feigned.
That freedom is point zero
and silencing your pain.
For if your loudest scream reaches all twelve,
the echo will be audible -
to no one but yourself.