Clear Voices | Page 4

- Muse, miracle.?For me you are - torment, hell.?I don't know why, in dawn's hour,?when I was finally exhausted,?I saw your face, did not die,?and asked you for solace.?I wished us enemies: tell me why?you gave me a meadow's excess?of flowers, and a starry sky -?all the curse of your loveliness??Crueller than northern nights,?sweeter than golden wine,?brief as a gipsy girl's love,?your fearful hand on mine…?Trampling dear and holy things,?was such a fatal pleasure,?and this passion, so bitter,?was the heart's wild delight!
The Artist
In the heat of summer, and snow-dark winter,?on days of funerals, festival, marriage,?I wait for a faint, inaudible ringing?to relieve my deadly boredom.?It's here - it rises. With cold concentration,?I wait to know it, skewer it, kill it.?And, as I wait, intently,?it spins a finest thread before me.?A wind from the sea? Or miraculous birds?singing in Heaven's leaves? Time still??White blossom spilt from the May-time?apple trees? An angel goes past??An hour carries the weight of the earth.?Sound, motion and light expand.?The past sees itself in the future's glass.?There is no Now. And pity? - None.?And at the dawn of a new soul's birth,?of unknown powers, a curse -?that strikes the soul like lightning,?creative reason conquers - and kills.?And I closed in its chilly cage?the ethereal, free, gentle bird,?that wanted to take away death,?and flew down to save the soul.?Here is my cage - solid steel,?gleaming gold with the sunset fire.?Here is the bird - once all happiness,?on its swing now, singing near the glass.?Wings clipped, its songs learnt by heart.?You like to stand under my window??Pleased with the songs? But, tired of suffering,?I wait for the new - and I feel the boredom.
Marína Tsvetáeva (1892-1941)?Attempted Jealousy
What's it like with another woman -?Simpler? - a flash of the oar! -?Did the memory of me?soon fade off-shore,?like the beach of a floating island,?(in the sky - not in the sea!)?Souls, souls! You'll be sisters,?not lovers - that's what you'll be!?What's life like with an ordinary?woman? Now that you've dethroned?your idol (renounced the throne).?Without the divinity??What's your life like - occupation -?shrivelled? Getting up - what's it like??What do you pay, poor man,?for endless triviality - the price??'I'm through with hysteria, convulsions!?I'll rent a place, have done!'?What's it like with a common?woman, my chosen one??More suitable and edible -?the food? Boring? - Don't complain…?What's it like with an imitation -?you who climbed the holy Mount? A strain??What's your life like with a stranger,?a worldly soul. Well? - Is it love??Like the god's whip, does shame?not lash your head from above??What's it like - your health -?how is it? How do you sing??How do you cope, poor man,?with the festering sore of endless conscience??What's life like with a marketable?purchase? The price - terrible??What's it like with crumbling plaster of Paris?after the finest Carrara marble??(The Goddess made from stone -?and smashed to bits!)?What's your life like with one of millions,?you, who've known Lilith??Does the marketable purchase meet?your needs? Now magic's dead,?what's your life like with a mortal?woman, neither using the sixth sense??Well, swear, are you happy, then??No? What's your life like in a pit?with no depth, my love? Harder,?or just like mine with another man?
Anna Akhmátova (1889-1966)
Intimacy?In human intimacy there's a secret border:?love's being, love's passion, cannot pass -?though lips are sealed together in sacred silence,?though the heart breaks in two with longing.?And friendship too is powerless, and years?of sublime flame-filled happiness?when the soul itself is free, and has no?knowledge of slow languid sensuality.?Those who try to reach that boundary are mad,?and those who have - are filled with anguish.?Now you know why it is my heart?does not beat beneath your hand.
Immortal Love
Desolate the victories?of mysterious non-meeting,?phrases unspoken,?voiceless words.?Un-meeting glances?not knowing where to rest:?and tears alone are glad?to go on flowing.?Wild roses, ah, near Moscow?are in it! Who knows why…?and all this will be called?immortal love.
Osip Mandel′shtám (1891-1938)?St. Petersburg?We shall meet again in Petersburg,?as if it were there we buried the sun,?and speak as if for the first time?the sacred meaningless word.?In the dark velvet of the soviet night,?the velvet of the earth's emptiness,?women, blessed, sing with beloved eyes,?flowers still flower everlastingly.?The city arches like a lynx,?there's a patrol on the bridge,?an angry engine speeds through the murk?and sounds out with a cuckoo's sound.?I need no pass tonight,?I'm not afraid of the guards:?for the sacred meaningless word?I pray in the soviet night.?Amongst the theatre's soft rustling?I hear a girl's startled: 'Ah!'?And Cypris holds everlasting?roses, clasped in her soft arms.?We warm ourselves, bored, by a fire,?perhaps centuries will pass,?and women, blessed, with beloved hands,?will gather the weightless ash.?Somewhere Orphean choirs sound,?dark the beloved pupils of their eyes,?and programmes, fluttering from above,?fall to the rows of stalls, like doves.?You might as well blow out our candles then:?in the dark velvet of the world's emptiness?rounded shoulders of women, blessed, still sing,?but you'll no longer see the