(Translated in English by Shorsha Sullivan)

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Page 6

 

As long as a match stays alight. As much as you are able to see in the room that flares and fizzles out. The images holding, briefly, then fall. Some lines you manage, they vanish, another match, again. Pieces missing, empty pages, match, again. Come across an unknown word which sticks in your mind.  And where are the dwelling places of the wicked. Ask them who pass by beside you. Match, some smudged parts again of the testament, then some of his fragments, then mine. The light not lasting enough to give time to write, in the dark you can’t see if the page is blank. You write, a match, words falling on top of each other, another page, write, again a match, page blank, continue, another half-written page, read, the matches almost gone. You turn the pages by feel, finger them. Where you find written patches, you add your own beneath, you write in between. A match, read, your own together with the stranger’s, again. As if you were speaking with someone. Match, pull on the cigarette try to read under the glow. No. Match, the anguish as the objects slip away again. As I slipped away. Paths were all being guarded so that no one can get through. And thrown out now on the roads I open I shall be bound by them. Others escaped before dawn too. Without bond or limit, witnesses, precious. A special subdivision of the Peregrini is constituted by the stateless.  Who despite being free were considered.  On the road as belonging to no country. 

Last match. 

Full Moon

                                 Hung on the tree                             Dry,

the light at the window

                                                                                                                                               sorts out

the forest to the west

 

our laughter – the best medicine

 

                     to arm the last hands that                                                                  drunk

 

 

shadows                                                                                                  of high tide 

 

Suddenly drums bursting out

pick up and go don’t know where

 

and silence                                            humbles me in front of them

the early

 

tombs

 

 

you tell me I send you because

to dig

 

 

                                

at the funerals

 

here they bury them at night

 

and you wait for me to grow old                                                     within a day                              

                                                                                                    

                                                                                                     at the edges of fire

 

you met many

 

 

who plunged                                                                        their breasts                

                                                                                                                 we found

 

butter eggs in the                                       bread honey and later

  

 

 

were giving their daughters in marriage that day

And then were falling with a crash into                                                       ashes’ stalks

 

 

And in the                                                                       of twilight and a fire infolding

itself, and a brightness about it

 

mouths

 

 

Aesk – heyl – hopa (The hope of salvation is found in the wood, the demons rush out from the wood, or something like that)

 

 

For what’s missing, what I recall of that evening.

  

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Page 8

 

with cotton wool or toilet paper which crammed your mouth, soaks up your saliva, you are scarcely able to breathe. But mainly you are thirsty, this wakes you up and the glass beside you is empty. Night still but what time, you will get up to look for some water, the carriage deserted, farther back, drops on the window, you wet your hand and wet your mouth, still further back the carriage deserted, and another one, shudder, like voices that swell, a carriage of voices. They give you water. Their animals sleep at the end, they ask you questions you sit among them. You drink again. Laughter, voices querying, you would say something but you feel giddy. A piece of meat from hand to hand, you go and lie down at the side, they give you food, a bottle from hand to hand, wine, a circle further back singing, the others between the animals sleep. Dark faces, voices fraying in bitter carnival, their heads, changing animal heads, the lamb’s body ends in the head of a man with eyes shut. They take someone, a fat man, between two windows and he raises his hands, they bind him by the wrists to the bars, left right.  Head from a lamb, they put on his head the skin from its flayed head. They speak to him. He sings. Slow, disjointed song. The man’s cross dark as day breaks. They dress him in a blue garment, beside you someone was turning a torch on and off, from joy, emotion their eyes were wet. The alien joy of children, your smile with them for a while, and then as if someone had gagged you but you calm down again and breathe freely. And they were showing the livid scars on their faces, victories that had conquered the world, our faith, they were saying and our body one body in Him, you could hear them singing, and, it won’t be long until the day comes, the season will change. Around you all red. And outside along the view of the river coming up to the windows, now slower the train in its bend, and wherever they could, all together, a closing circle, the native women trying to climb aboard.

 

Lorries pouring tons of mud mounting up. Smell of the coffee, boiled in a pot, they gave you a cup, you answer their same words with your hands, you don’t know how else. From the window the river emitting light from within, blinding you. Your eyelids with all the weight. The line of the horizon is blurring. A wave spreading out of control with nowhere to cling to turning back and cascading to the expanses of snow. The workmen of a gang raising a dyke, and building. Bridges, one almost finished. Shuddering upwards out of control to the crest of the mountain.

 

Wine again. Every so often they would fill up, once they washed the eyes of the cross of the lamb that was looking around. They were feeling and singing. As if your hands were pierced. And the nails not to rust from the blood, they kept on. And something like: the crosses, the crosses ill-omened. With rhythms that made you dizzy again, in the slow whirl of the light growing stronger, in the carriage spinning round with you.

 

  

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