Daniil Kharms

SYMPHONY NO. 2

Anton Mikhailovich spat, said “yuck,” spat again, said “yuck” again, spat again, said “yuck” again, and closed the door. To hell with him. Le me tell about Ilya Pavlovich.
     Ilya Pavlovich was born in 1893 in Constantinople. When he was still a small boy, his folks moved to Petersburg, he graduated from the German School on Kirchnaya Street. Then he worked in some shop; then he did some other thing; and during the Revolution, he emigrated. To Hell with him. Let me tell about Anna Ignatievna.
     Not so easy to talk about Anna Ignatievna. Firstly, I know nothing about her, and secondly, I have just fallen of my chair, and have forgotten what I was about to tell you. So let me tell you about myself.
     I am tall, not unintelligent; I dress prudently and with taste; I don’t drink, I don’t bet on horses, but I do like ladies. And ladies don’t avoid me. They smile when I go out with them. Serafima Izmaylovna has been asking me to her place, and Zinaida Yakovlevna implied she would have liked to see me. Then there is a funny business Marina Petrovna, which I would like you to consider. Quite an ordinary thing, but a funny business still. Because of me, Marina Petrovna turned completely bald – bald like a baby’s bottom. It happened like this: I went over to visit Marina Petrovna, and bang! she lost all her hair. And that was that.

TRANSLATED BY KATIE FARRIS AND ILYA KAMINSKY

Daniil Karhms

 

What Are We To Do?

While the dolphin and the sea-horse
Played silly games together,
The ocean beat against the cliffs
And washed the cliffs with its water.
The scary water moaned and cried.
The stars shone. Years went by.

Then the horrid hour came:
I am no more, and so are you,
The sea is gone, the cliffs, the mountains,
And the stars gone, too;
Only the choir sounds out of the dead void.
And for simplicity’s sake, our wrathful God
Sprung up and blew away the dust of centuries,
And now, freed from the shackles of time
He flies alone, his own and only dearest friend.
Cold everywhere, and darkness blind.

                                Translated by Matvei Yankelevich

Ranier Marie Rilke

                    From Duino Elegy 4

O trees of life, O when are you wintering?

We are not unified. We have no instincts

like those of migratory birds. Useless, and late,

we force ourselves, suddenly, onto the wind,

and fall down to an indifferent lake.

We realise flowering and fading together.

And somewhere lions still roam. Never knowing,

as long as they have their splendour, of any weakness.

We, though, while we are intent on one thing, wholly,

feel the loss of some other. Enmity

is our neighbour. Aren’t lovers

always arriving at boundaries, each of the other,

who promised distance, hunting, and home?

And when, for the sketch of a moment,

a contrasting background is carefully prepared

so that we can see it: then this is clear

to us. We do not know the contours

of feeling, only what forms it from outside.

Who has not sat, scared, before his heart’s curtain?

It drew itself up: the scenery was of Departure.

Easy to comprehend. The familiar garden

swaying a little: then the dancer appeared.

Not him. Enough! However lightly he moves

he is in costume, and turns into a citizen,

and goes through the kitchen into his house.

I don’t want these half-completed masks,

rather the Doll. That is complete. I will

suffer its shell, its wire, its face

of mere appearance. Here. I am waiting.

Even if the lights go out, even if someone

says to me: ‘No more’ - , even if emptiness

reaches me as a grey draught of air from the stage,

even if none of my silent forefathers

sits by me any more, not one woman,

not even the boy with the brown, squinting, eyes.

I’ll still be here. One can always watch.

Ranier Maria Rilke

                    1902 portrait of Rainer Maria Rilke by Helmuth Westhoff, Rilke’s brother-in-law

Archaic Bust Of Apollo Delmore Schwartz (After Rilke)

We cannot know the indescribable face
Where the eyes like apples ripened. Even so,
His torso has a candelabra's glow,
His gaze, contained as in a mirror's grace,

Shines within it. Otherwise his breast
Would not be dazzling. Nor would you recognize
The smile that moves along his curving thighs,
There where love's strength is caught within its nest.

This stone would not be broken, but intact 
Beneath the shoulders' flowing cataract, 
Nor would it glisten like a stallion's hide,

Brimming with radiance from every side
As a star sparkles. Now it is dawn once more.
All places scrutinize you. You must be reborn.

Ranier Maria Rilke

SONNETS TO ORPHEUS II, 13

Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were
behind you, like the winter that has just gone by.
For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter
that only by wintering through it will your heart survive.

Be forever dead in Eurydice — more gladly arise
into the seamless life proclaimed in your song.
Here, in the realm of decline, among momentary days,
be the crystal cup that shattered even as it rang.

Be — and yet know the great void where all things begin,
the infinite source of your own most intense vibration,
so that, this once, you may give it your perfect assent.

To all that is used-up, and to all the muffled and dumb
creatures in the world’s full reserve, the unsayable sums,
joyfully add yourself, and cancel the count.

 

SONNETS TO ORPHEUS II, 29

Silent friend of many distances, feel
how your breath enlarges all of space.
Let your presence ring out like a bell
into the night. What feeds upon your face

grows mighty from the nourishment thus offered.
Move through transformation, out and in.
What is the deepest loss that you have suffered?
If drinking is bitter, change yourself to wine.

In this immeasurable darkness, be the power
that rounds your senses in their magic ring,
the sense of their mysterious encounter.

And if the earthly no longer knows your name,
whisper to the silent earth: I’m flowing.
To the flashing water say: I am.

                          (translation by Stephen Mitchell)

Ranier Maria Rilke

Archaischer Torso Apollos

We cannot know his legendary head

with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso

is still suffused with brilliance from inside,

like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low,

 

gleams in all its power. Otherwise

the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could

a smile run through the placid hips and thighs

to that dark center where procreation flared.

 

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced

beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders

and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur:

 

would not, from all the borders of itself,

burst like a star: for here there is no place

that does not see you. You must change your life.

 

                                Translated by Stephen Mitchell

Ranier Marie Rilke

 

Plaster Cast Torso of Apollo

TRANSLATED BY ALICE FULTON

We can infer his long since looted head

with eyes like curated hail. And that his chest

is still benumbed by empire from above,

as if a morgue, in his glare, now canonized,

fires an arctic solstice. Otherwise, the pocked tits

could not oppress you, and Victory

would not grin through smug ligaments

to reach that sperm hive where priapism lived.

Otherwise, this bust would seem impugned

by the rude graffiti, A R T, that’s spraybombed on it,

and would not slutshame like a frat boy’s tweet:

would not, from every morsel of itself

extrude a tomb: for here there is no flesh

to witness for you. You must be those eyes.

 

Ranier Marie Rilke

                                                                                            LEONID PASTERNAK, RILKE IN MOSCOW (DETAIL), 1928.

After the Fire

Early autumn morning hesitated,

Shying at newness, an emptiness behind

Scorched linden trees still crowding in around

The moorland house, now just one more wallstead

Where youngsters in a pack from god knows where

Went rip-roaring wild and yelled and wrecked.

Yet all of them fell silent when he appeared,

The son of the place, and with a long forked stick

Dragged an out of shape old can or kettle

From under hot, charred, half-consumed house-beams;

And then, like one with a doubtful tale to tell,

Turned to the others present, at great pains

To make them realise what had stood so.

For now that it was gone, it all seemed

Far stranger: more fantastical than Pharaoh.

And he was changed: as from a far-off land.

                                (translated by Seamus Heaney)

Rafael Alberti

Blue

1
Blue arrived. And its time was painted.

2
How many blues did the Mediterranean give?

3
Venus, mother of the sea of the blues.

4
The blue of the Greeks
rests, like a god, on columns.

5
The delicate, medieval blue.

6
The Virgin brought her virginal blue:
blue Mary, blue Our Lady.

7
It fell to his palette. And brought
the most secret blue from the sky.
Kneeling, he painted his blues.
Angels christened him with blue.
They appointed him: Beato Blue Angelico.

8
There are celestial palettes like wings
descended from the white of clouds.

9
The blues of Italy,
the blues of Spain,
the blues of France . . .

10
Raphael had wings.
Perugino also had wings
in order to spread his blues around.

11
When they get color from you,
indigo blue, brushes are feathers.

12
Venice of golden Titian blue.

13
Rome of Poussin blues between the pines.

14
Tintoretto blues embitter me.

15
Sulphur alcohol phosphorous Greco blue.
Toxic verdigris blue Greco.

16
On the palette of Velasquez I have
another name: I am called Guadarrama.

17
When I wander through nacreous flesh,
I am called the merry blue vein of Rubens.

                                translated by Mark Strand

Rafael Alberti

Diez Liricografias. Buenos Aires: Galeria Bonino, 1954.

The Collegiate Angels

(Ninguno comprendíamos el secreto nocturno de las pizarras)

None of us understood the secret darkness of the blackboards

Nor why the armillary sphere seemed so remote when we looked.

We only knew a circumference can be other than round

That an eclipse of the moon confuses flowers,

And advances the timing of birds.

None of us understood a thing;

Nor why our fingers were made of India ink

And afternoon closed compasses for dawn to open books.

We only knew that a straight line, if required, can be curved or broken,

And wandering stars are children ignorant of arithmetic. 

                                                (translated by A. S. Klein)

Rafael Alberti

Letter Y (1972)

‘If I was born a farmhand’

                            (Si yo nací campesino)

If I was born a farmhand,

If I was born a sailor,

Why do I have to be here,

If it’s not where I want to be?

On the finest day, city

Which I have ever sought,

The finest day – silence! –

I’ll have disappeared.

Cesar Vallejo

  with Rafael Alberti and Georgette Philippart, Madrid (1931)

Paris, October 1936

From all of this I am the only one who leaves.
From this bench I go away, from my pants,
from my great situation, from my actions,
from my number split side to side,
from all of this I am the only one who leaves.

From the Champs Elysées or as the strange
alley of the Moon makes a turn,
my death goes away, my cradle leaves,
and, surrounded by people, alone, cut loose,
my human resemblance turns around
and dispatches its shadows one by one.

And I move away from everything, since everything
remains to create my alibi:
my shoe, its eyelet, as well as its mud
and even the bend in the elbow
of my own buttoned shirt.

Cesar Vallejo

 

To My Brother Miguel in Memorium

Brother, today I sit on the brick bench of the house,

where you make a bottomless emptiness.
I remember we used to play at this hour, and mama
caressed us: "But, sons..."

Now I go hide
as before, from all evening
lectures, and I trust you not to give me away.
Through the parlor, the vestibule, the corridors.
Later, you hide, and I do not give you away.
I remember we made ourselves cry,
brother, from so much laughing.

Miguel, you went into hiding
one night in August, toward dawn,
but, instead of chuckling, you were sad.
And the twin heart of those dead evenings
grew annoyed at not finding you. And now
a shadow falls on my soul.

Listen, brother, don't be late
coming out. All right? Mama might worry.

(translated by James Wright)

Cesar Vallejo

Black stone/White stone

I shall die in Paris, in a rainstorm,
On a day I already remember.
I shall die in Paris-- it does not bother me--
Doubtless on a Thursday, like today, in autumn.

It shall be a Thursday, because today, Thursday
As I put down these lines, I have set my shoulders
To the evil. Never like today have I turned,
And headed my whole journey to the ways where I am alone.

César Vallejo is dead. They struck him,
All of them, though he did nothing to them,
They hit him hard with a stick and hard also
With the end of a rope. Witnesses are: the Thursdays,

The shoulder bones, the loneliness, the rain, and the roads... 

Cesar Vallejo

Black stone/White stone

 I will die in Paris, on a rainy day,

on some day I can already remember.
I will die in Paris–and I don’t step aside—
perhaps on a Thursday, as today is Thursday, in autumn.

It will be a Thursday, because today, Thursday, setting down
these lines, I have put my upper arm bones on
wrong, and never so much as today have I found myself
with all the road ahead of me, alone.

Cesar Vallejo is dead. Everyone beat him
although he never does anything to them;
they beat him hard with a stick and hard also

with a rope. These are the witnesses:
the Thursdays, and the bones of my arms,

the solitude, and the rain, and the roads… 

Cesar Vallejo

 Our Daily Bread 

(for Alejandro Gamboa)

Breakfast is drunk... Moist earth
Of the cemetery smells of the beloved blood.
Winter city... The biting crossing
Of a cart that appears to drag down
An emotion of fasting in chains!

I want to knock on all doors.
And ask for I don’t know whom; and then
To see the poor, and, weeping silences,
To give fragments of fresh bread to everyone.
To sack the vineyards of the rich
With two sacred hands
That a blaze of light
Set flying loose from the nails of the Cross!

Morning eyelids, don’t open! 
Give us our daily bread, 
Lord...!

All my bones are strangers;
Perhaps 1 stole them!
I come to give myself what was perhaps
Assigned to someone else;
And I think that, if I had not been born,
Some other poor fellow would be drinking this coffee!
I am an evil thief... Where shall I go?

In this cold time in which the earth 
Transcends human dust and is so sad, 
I want to knock on every door. 
And beg pardon of I don’t know whom. 
And make them slices of fresh bread 
Here, in the oven of my heart...!

                                    From The Black Messengers (1918)

Anna Akhmatova

Why Is This Age Worse

Why is this age worse than earlier ages?

In a stupor of grief and dread

have we not fingered the foulest wounds

and left them unhealed by our hands?

 

In the west the falling light still glows,

and the clustered housetops glitter in the sun,

but here Death is already chalking the doors with crosses,

and calling the ravens, and the ravens are flying in.

 

                        (Translated by Stanley Kunitz and Max Hayward)

Jorge Carrera Andrade

 WHAT THE SNAIL IS

Snail:
tiny measuring tape
with which God measures the field.

 

TORTOISE

The turtle in its yellow case
is the clock of the earth
stopped centuries ago.

Dented now it hides
among the tiny stones of time
in water’s blue cover.

Pierre Reverdy

 Late in life

I am callous
I am tender
and I have wasted my time
dreaming without sleeping
sleeping while walking
everywhere I’ve gone
I’ve found myself absent
I belong nowhere
except the void
But I carry hidden high up in my bowels
At the spot where lightning has too often struck
A heart where each word has left its mark
And where my life trickles away with the slightest movement

                                (English translation by Michael Tweed)

Fernando Pessoa/ Alberto Caeiro

From The Keeper of the Sheep

 

XVI

 

If only my life were an oxcart 

That creaks down the road in the morning, 

Very early, and returns by the same road 

To where it came from in the evening . . .

 

I wouldn’t have to have hopes, just wheels . . . 

My old age wouldn’t have wrinkles or white hair . . . 

When I was of no more use, my wheels would be removed 

And I’d end up at the bottom of a ditch, broken and 

overturned.

 

Or I’d be made into something different 

And I wouldn’t know what I’d been made into . . . 

But I’m not an oxcart, I’m different. 

But exactly how I’m different no one would ever tell me.

 

(Translated by Richard Zenith)