Poems from the poetry book „Microsphere“
Translated by Markas Aurelijus Piesinas
***
when taking the bus
i must remind the driver to drop me off
each time he asks me
what i’m doing halfway up the road
the same as you, mr. driver
in that bus shaped
like a stale loaf of bread
i will observe how yeast fills the days
with pockets of dense air
how the thick husk of the weekend
shrivels and recedes
one spore
will cover me in penicillium
that soft little beast of oblivion
that gentle fact of life
***
that baby cries
day and night
they still remember
the place that they came from
where the bare womb of the universe opens
and thought becomes flesh
they still remember their past
life as a grasshopper
the length of a hand
greener than grass
they remember the cat
that ate them in the garden
the one they’ll grow up in
running and bruising their legs
***
i’m crying in the restroom
after chopping twenty crabs’ heads off
yesterday i said
the murderer’s horror is to kill a human being
and feel nothing change inside
today i say
come try the crabs they came in fresh
i’ve just chopped their heads off with my own hands
putting a stop to twenty
pinceresque stories of the world
yesterday we were talking i said
we all feel above average
there is no average just as there is no above
i’m crying in the restroom because suddenly
doing the dishes became so horribly difficult
i can’t get ahold of the pots and pans
with my huge pincers
From the author's personal archive
advice for botanists
birds will sing
if nobody removes
the cochlea during the sensitive period
it’s good that experiments like that aren’t done anymore
and birds can be poets
trees have an internet of fungi
they use it to transmit messages to other trees
several kilometers away
when i was little i insisted that
it’s possible to step into the same river twice
because if the river is called šventoji[1]
that’s the one i’ll step in each time
later i understood
you can only meet people once
here’s some advice for botanists and florists
don’t add fruits to bouquets
they produce ethylene during the ripening process
the flowers will wilt
reflux
blood
circulating
through acid
lungs full
with saccular acid
consciousness floating
in cerebral acid
the stomach
or what’s left of it anyway
is the acid of acids
the primary cause
the medical medium said
that’s alkaline debt
use a celery ointment and you’ll be okay
the astrologist said my mars
is moving backwards we must first avoid
an apocalypse and wait for a better
placement of planets for treating the reflux
the homeopath said to dilute
the electropuncture specialist said
my gastrobioenergetical field
is distorted i should spend more
time near the microwave
the ayurvedic shmachnaba told me to
change into clean clothes and drink
tea made of sand it’ll plug
all of my holes
the exorcist said i’m being haunted but
not yet possessed so i shouldn’t
do anything
the personal transformation coach
told me to smile more in the mirror
he promised to build me a ten-step
alkalinity program
the supporter of traditional family values cried
it’s the government eating me not the acid
sadly he offered no solution
genovaitė from pabradė thinks
that acid doesn’t exist not even as a concept
she said back in her day everyone
drank from one cup ate from one bowl
they were all one and no acid even existed
your regular standard
8-years-with-honors
dead-inside doctor said
you’re not a very good person
you don’t really love yourself
your solution is poison
acid rises engulfing me
a void opens and out flies
trochilidae acidum[2]
it’s pretty
at least
***
i wish i was allergic
to gluten or cats
i’d keep asking everyone
is there any gluten or cats in that
and everyone would say wow
she’s allergic to gluten and cats
wow so interesting
and then i’d tell them how
i can’t see the family cat
or eat white bread
anymore
and this would be a huge sacrifice on my part
whenever someone would offer
me a fresh butter
croissant i’d tell them
sorry i can’t
but i’m not allergic to anything
my body is a perfect
recycling machine
my body is an unstoppable
bulldozer pushing through air
splitting the atmosphere’s
molecules
there’s a huge milling wheel
in my body
it grinds time
***
astronaut Chris Hadfield has said
that when you venture into airless space
and look in the opposite direction from earth
the darkness you see is so black
you want to poke it
when we were sailing down the underground river
in the state of New York
and our guide turned off the light
i became a bodiless speck
it felt like i had no voice
it felt like i’ve always been there
i have a dark pocket
i try to avoid that place in my mind
where the Earth is a little blue marble
the size of a pea and we are
never there
***
dedicated to Cassie Juran
let’s leave it like that
while the gray sand of the moon
still crumbles at our feet
the next stop is mars
the next stop is my childhood
home
let’s leave a long dash
here connecting the two
different versions of me
and i
i’d leave just like that she says
i’d be the first one to fly there
because there’s a great ocean
in which i’m floating
she says i’d be the first one to die
because i really don’t have a choice
1. A river in eastern Lithuania. Its name means “the sacred river” (translator’s note).
