have stared into the sun without blinking.
Can my young gaze be too heavy for you?
No one has ever stared more
tenderly or more fixedly after you…
I kiss you – across hundreds of
separating years.
1916
You throw back your head
You throw back your head, because
you are proud. And a braggart.
This February has
brought me a gay companion!
Clattering with gold pieces, and
slowly puffing out smoke, we
walk like solemn foreigners
throughout my native city.
And whose attentive hands have
touched your eyelashes, beautiful boy, and
when or how many times your
lips have been kissed
I do not ask. That dream my thirsty
spirit has conquered. Now
I can honour in you the
divine boy, ten years old!
Let us wait by the river that
rinses the coloured beads of street-lights:
I shall take you as far as the square
that has witnessed adolescent Tsars.
Whistle out your boyish
pain, your heart squeezed in your hand.
My indifferent and crazy creature –
now set free – goodbye!
1916
Where does this tenderness come from?
Where does this tenderness come from?
These are not the – first curls I
have stroked slowly – and lips I
have known are – darker than yours
as stars rise often and go out again
(where does this tenderness come from?)
so many eyes have risen and died out
in front of these eyes of mine,
and yet no such song have
I heard in the darkness of night before,
(where does this tenderness come from?):
here, on the ribs of the singer.
Where does this tenderness come from?
And what shall I do with it, young
sly singer, just passing by?
Your lashes are – longer than anyone’s.
1916
Bent with worry
Bent with worry, God
paused, to smile.
And look, there were many
holy angels with bodies of
the radiance he had
given them,
some with enormous wings and
others without any,
which is why I weep
so much
because even more than God
himself I love his fair angels.
1916
Today or tomorrow the snow will melt
Today or tomorrow the snow will melt.
You lie alone beneath an enormous fur.
Shall I pity you? Your lips
have gone dry for ever.
Your drinking is difficult, your step heavy.
Every passer-by hurries away from you.
Was it with fingers like yours that Rogozhin
clutched the kitchen knife?
And the eyes, the eyes in your face!
Two circles of charcoal, year-old circles!
Surely when you were still young your girl
lured you into a joyless house.
Far away – in the night – over asphalt – a cane.
Doors – swing open into – night – under beating wind.
Come in! Appear! Undesired guest! Into
my chamber which is – most bright!
1916
VERSES ABOUT MOSCOW
1
There are clouds – about us
and domes – about us:
over the whole of Moscow
so many hands are needed!
I lift you up like a
sapling, my best burden: for
to me you are weightless.
In this city of wonder
this peaceful city
I shall be joyful, even
shall reign, or grieve
or perhaps receive my crown:
for you are my first born!
When you fast – in Lent
do not blacken your brows
and honour the churches – these
forty times forty – go
about on foot – stride youthfully
over the whole seven of
these untrammelled hills.
Your turn will come.
You will give Moscow
with tender bitterness
to your daughter also.
As for me – unbroken sleep
and the sound of bells
in the surly dawn of
the Vagankovo cemetery.
2
Strange and beautiful brother – take this
city no hands built – out of my hands!
Church by church – all the forty times forty, and
the small pigeons also that rise over them.
Take the Spassky gate, with its flowers, where
the orthodox remove their caps, and
the chapel of stars, that refuge from evil,
where the floor is – polished by kisses.
Take from me the incomparable circle
of five cathedrals, ancient, holy friend!
I shall lead you as a guest from another
country to the Chapel of the Inadvertent Joy
where pure gold domes will begin to shine
for you, and sleepless bells will start thundering.
There the Mother of God will drop her
cloak upon you from the crimson clouds
and you will rise up filled with wonderful powers.
Then, you will not repent that you have loved me!
5
Over the city that great Peter rejected
rolls out the thunder of the bells.
A thundering surf has overturned upon
this woman you have now rejected.
I offer homage to Peter and you also,
yet above you both the bells remain
and while they thunder from that blueness, the
primacy of Moscow cannot be questioned
for all the forty times forty churches
laugh above the arrogance of Tsars.
7
There are seven hills – like seven bells
seven bells, seven bell-towers. Every
one of the forty times forty churches, and the
seven hills of bells have been numbered.
On a day of bells I was born, it was
the golden day of John the Divine.
The house was gingerbread surrounded by
wattle-fence, and small churches with gold heads.
And I loved it, I loved the first ringing,
the nuns flowing towards Mass, and
the wailing in the stone, the heat of sleeping –
the sense of a soothsayer in the neighbouring house.
Come with me, people of Moscow, all of you,
imbecile, thieving, flagellant mob!
And priest: stop my mouth up firmly
with Moscow – which is a land of bells!
8
Moscow, what a vast
hostelry is your house!
Everyone in Russia is – homeless,
we shall all make our way towards you.
With shameful brands on our backs and
knives – stuck in the tops of our boots,
for you call us in to you
however far away we are,
because for the brand of the criminal
and for every known sickness
we have our healer here,
the Child Panteleimon.
Behind a small door where
people pour in their crowds
lies the Iversky heart –
red-gold and ra
diant
and a Hallelujah floods
over the burnished fields.
Moscow soil, I bend to
kiss your breast.
1916
from INSOMNIA
2
As I love to
kiss hands, and
to name everything, I
love to open
doors!
Wide – into the night!
Pressing my head
as I listen to some
heavy step grow softer
or the wind shaking
the sleepy and sleepless
woods.
Ah, night
small rivers of water rise
and bend towards – sleep.
(I am nearly sleeping.)
Somewhere in the night a
human being is drowning.
3
In my enormous city it is – night,
as from my sleeping house I go – out,
and people think perhaps I’m a daughter or wife
but in my mind is one thought only: night.
The July wind now sweeps a way for – me.
From somewhere, some window, music though – faint.
The wind can blow until the dawn – today,
in through the fine walls of the breast rib-cage.
Black poplars, windows, filled with – light.
Music from high buildings, in my hand a flower.
Look at my steps – following – nobody.
Look at my shadow, nothing’s here of me.
The lights – are like threads of golden beads
in my mouth is the taste of the night – leaf.
Liberate me from the bonds of – day,
my friends, understand: I’m nothing but your dream.
5
Now as a guest from heaven, I
visit your country:
I have seen the vigil of the forests
and sleep in the fields.
Somewhere in the night horseshoes
have torn up the grass, and
there are cows breathing heavily in
a sleepy cowshed.
Now let me tell you sadly and
with tenderness of the
goose-watchman awake, and
the sleeping geese,
of hands immersed in dog’s wool,
grey hair – a grey dog –
and how towards six
the dawn is beginning.
6
Tonight – I am alone in the night,
a homeless and sleepless nun!
Tonight I hold all the keys to this
the only capital city
and lack of sleep guides me on my path.
You are so lovely, my dusky Kremlin!
Tonight I put my lips to the breast
of the whole round and warring earth.
Now I feel hair – like fur – standing on end:
the stifling wind blows straight into my soul.
Tonight I feel compassion for everyone,
those who are pitied, along with those who are kissed.
7
In the pine-tree, tenderly tenderly,
finely finely: something hissed.
It is a child with black
eyes that I see in my sleep.
From the fair pine-trees hot
resin drips, and in this
splendid night there are
saw-teeth going over my heart.
8
Black as – the centre of an eye, the centre, a blackness
that sucks at light. I love your vigilance
Night, first mother of songs, give me the voice to sing of you
in those fingers lies the bridle of the four winds.
Crying out, offering words of homage to you, I am
only a shell where the ocean is still sounding.
But I have looked too long into human eyes.
Reduce me now to ashes – Night, like a black sun.
9
Who sleeps at night? No one is sleeping.
In the cradle a child is screaming.
An old man sits over his death, and anyone
young enough talks to his love, breathes
into her lips, looks into her eyes.
Once asleep – who knows if we’ll wake again?
We have time, we have time, we have time to sleep!
From house to house the sharp-eyed
watchman goes with his pink lantern
and over the pillow scatters the rattle
of his loud clapper, rumbling.
Don’t sleep! Be firm! Listen, the alternative
is – everlasting sleep. Your – everlasting house!
10
Here’s another window
with more sleepless people!
Perhaps – drinking wine or
perhaps only sitting,
or maybe two lovers are
unable to part hands.
Every house has
a window like this.
A window at night: cries
of meeting or leaving.
Perhaps – there are many lights,
perhaps – only three candles.
But there is no peace in
my mind anywhere, for
in my house also, these
things are beginning:
Pray for the wakeful house,
friend, and the lit window.
1916
POEMS FOR AKHMATOVA
1
Muse of lament, you are the most beautiful of
all muses, a crazy emanation of white night:
and you have sent a black snow storm over all Russia.
We are pierced with the arrows of your cries
so that we shy like horses at the muffled
many times uttered pledge – Ah! – Anna
Akhmatova – the name is a vast sigh
and it falls into depths without name
and we wear crowns only through stamping
the same earth as you, with the same sky over us.
Whoever shares the pain of your deathly power will
lie down immortal – upon his death bed.
In my melodious town the domes are burning
and the blind wanderer praises our shining Lord.
I give you my town of many bells,
Akhmatova, and with the gift: my heart.
2
I stand head in my hands thinking how
unimportant are the traps we set for one another.
I hold my head in my hands as I sing
in this late hour, in the late dawn.
Ah how violent is this wave which has
lifted me up on to its crest: I sing
of one that is unique among us
as the moon is alone in the sky,
that has flown into my heart like a raven,
has speared into the clouds
hook-nosed, with deathly anger: even
your favour is dangerous,
for you have spread out your night
over the pure gold of my Kremlin itself
and have tightened my throat with the pleasure
of singing as if with a strap.
Yes, I am happy, the dawn never
burnt with more purity, I am
happy to give everything to you
and to go away like a beggar,
for I was the first to give you –
whose voice deep darkness! has
constricted the movement of my breathing –
the name of the Tsarskoselsky Muse.
3
I am a convict. You won’t fall behind.
You are my guard. Our fate is therefore one.
And in that emptiness that we both share
the same command to ride away is given.
And now my demeanour is calm.
And now my eyes are without guile.
Won’t you set me free, my guard, and
let me walk now, towards that pine-tree?
4
You block out everything, even the sun
at its highest, hold all the stars in your hand!
If only through – some wide open door, I
could blow like the wind to where you are,
and starting to stammer, suddenly blushing,
could lower my eyes before you
and fall quiet, in tears, as
a child sobs to receive forgiveness.
1916
POEMS FOR BLOK
1
Your name is a – bird in my hand
a piece of – ice on the tongue
one single movement of the lips.
Your name is: five signs,
a ball caught in flight, a
silver bell in the mouth
a stone, cast in a quiet pool
makes the splash of your name, and
the sound is in the clatter of
night hooves, loud as a thunderclap
or it speaks straight into my forehead,
shrill as the click of a cocked gun.