The Sound of Fleeing

 
I can see signals of a distant life, full of cunning, cleverness and mischief
In terrible calm, at that moment someone keeps hammering the frozen ice of my heart without pause.
My whole body wrapped in bandages, in this very body I will see a dark dream. I think,
I will resurrect again that smoky old contract hovering over the river.


At night I laugh and gaze at the stars, that
eternal struggle begins, rising along the riverbank,
hissing with the serpent's fury, making everything tremble,
then slowly, like a trusted friend, absorption comes and takes hold.


At the corner of my bitter, tender lips, a
long-awaited kiss will come from the moon,
the night will wake, will comfort. When doubtful eyes
go searching for faith,
debris floats into the river and stirs up chaos.
Lying in the night's lap, I think these thoughts.


My words or poems have dark color and body,
white words or poems no longer come to my throat or pen these days.
When a person goes mad,
they stare at mirrors for no reason.
Perhaps that mirror is merely a mirror,
and I too see it only as an open, smooth surface,
even tomorrow, when someone new's soul breaks
they might not look at mirrors at all,
but today, still, those who do go mad
rush toward mirrors with easy familiarity.


I'm traveling in a forgotten old train searching for wonder.
Like a sunflower
her face was wrinkled, copper-colored.
I had told her, then come. Looking into her two eyes I saw,
one bleeding red, the other wet with tears.
Lights had been lit on the street, the sidewalk was swaying,
and love fell upon us
like a curse,
and failing to chase away sorrow, it grieved;
I saw her two lips crying and crying.


We kept asking, where is the fire? Where is the fire?
We wanted to burn, truly, even a piece of coal is far freer than humans. Instead
we got a ready-made empty prison.
There we lived and shouted loudly,
bring before us the hell that burns,
don't be fooled by the anguish in its wild eyes,
it's a drunken imposter! Hearing this they asked,
now tell us, who threw you out of there?


The day of blessing has been hidden from us, yet
we have already read the scriptures out of duty,
and at the same time walked out through proper and improper alleys of pleasure-seeking.
We grew weary wandering all the paths to becoming good people
and could no longer find time to actually become good.


The room we're in, trying to warm it we make it colder still,
we sit at the train station waiting for trains, showing the wise man's harsh laughter,
though by now many know that nothing is coming today,
still we look at them with disbelieving eyes.


Lamenting in prison does no good,
if you can't escape from there, it's better to stay with a smiling face.
What happens—clever people crowd into the houses of fools,
some recently annoyed people sit in the middle of the city's main square lighting candles.
Others teach children how to bathe with their own hands.


A thin priest still speaks little today.
He says, we should cry a great deal,
we are very bad.
Hearing his words, once we knelt and wept in chorus, I remember.
We're still crying, we're still just as bad.