The Scent of Gunpowder or the Poet's Refuge

 
No introductions needed — I know you all.
You are poets of joy, and joyful poets too.
May joyous poetry flow from your pens!
Weave together rhythm upon rhythm
and build monuments to history-drunk love.
Remain submerged in the eternal honeyed moonlight
of mind and consciousness — age after age
without struggle, without hesitation, without alarm.


I do not belong to your community.
I cannot string together
beautiful words as you do.
Not that I haven't tried, of course.
But I have failed. Truly, I cannot!


When I lift my nose to the wind, I smell gunpowder. I sense
traces of spent ammunition lingering in the air.
When I try to breathe, the oxygen falls short.
Breathing freely like any healthy, normal person
is my birthright. I knew this once.
My right has been stolen from me. Why, I don't know.
I have been gasping for just one lungful of air
for many days now.


To escape this unbearable state
I went to the greenery.
Not asking for much — just
searching for one breath of fresh air.
Suddenly, with a sharp whistle, right past my left ear,
cutting wildly through the disheveled wind,
a swarm of live bullets swept by.


Frightened, I returned from there.
Coming back, I walked a little
on the beach by the sea, hoping
that perhaps sometime in the spray of waves
a handful of sweet, soothing air
might come to comfort me, even by mistake!


Dear happy poets!
You're thinking: now surely the cat's luck has run out!
You're wrong. Don't mind that I'm breaking
the flow of your thoughts.
Let it be! Listen then to what happened.
In the very moment of my blissful dream, from nowhere
a reckless torpedo surfaced!
One by one, weapons of death came charging!


When I tried to hide in the earth
I found no safe shelter anywhere.
Even going near the water, I only heard
the endless alarm bells rising from beneath the waves.


You tell me —
where else could I have gone?
You'll say: Go up close to the sky!
Spread your wings like a bird
and learn to be sublime, eye to eye with the heavens!


Stop! Please, enough!
I too am a poet, I've written some poetry.
I know where you're headed with the next line.
Listen well! Know that I've returned from there too.
You don't know what it feels like
to be wounded by the terrible blows of rockets.
You've never had to experience
the poisonous smoke of volcanoes
trapped even in the clouds. Therefore,
stay quiet
and let me speak.


Gentlemen, think a moment and tell me —
where do I go today?
I don't write love poetry, so
you've cursed me many times over the years.
Forgive me — I was never allowed
to know
what the true body of a love poem looks like!


You write. May your golden inkwells and pens flourish.
I will see love through your eyes,
I will dig into your hearts and find affection there.
In this life, my pen has not yet
spilled a single drop of ink
in which I've ever found anything but rebellion.


I have no dawn,
I have no night.
Before me there is only time.
Whatever time's mind or body might be,
from it I smell only gunpowder!