Poems from the poetry book Blue pleasures
Translated by Rimas Užgiris
***
i just turned 29
i’ve met lots of strange people in this life
and it seems to me that we’re all aliens, even if
we all came from the same place
some aliens mourn, while others give thanks for this life
i, for example, think
an angel first brought me to the old town of vilnius
i remember seeing the city from on high
it looked just like it looks from the footage of drones
i like to draw fish and colorful birds
blue and green monsters with big shoes
i have no comprehension when all this will end
i fall in love with men who live as if enjoying life
but are actually the loneliest men on the planet
when i look at them i see myself
all those men are my reflection
they are my mirrors reflecting solitude
they sleep in beds which are almost never made
they get sick and decide not to go to the doctor
they wash dishes and cook dinner
they burn the pots
i burn the pots
and i don’t make the bed either when i’m sad
i sleep with my head under the blanket
and breathe very quietly
(when i lived with my mom she was afraid
that i’m not breathing at all in my sleep)
my friend says i sleep like a mummy
one night i was attacked by ghosts in my dream
i woke up hissing and cursing at them
i just turned 29
i’ve seen many dead colorful birds
that’s how life goes
a fragile and lonely thing
i’m sitting here now but later there won’t be anything left
not my fish nor my birds
not the monsters with big shoes
and we’ll all go to sleep in our unmade beds
when i sleep i sleep with my hands between my legs
it looks like i’m praying to my gender
half of this life is given to sleep
what the other half is for i don’t really know
but neither does
the beetle
or the stone
***
i have these roots
and when i walk they drag along behind me
ripping up the sidewalk squares and asphalt
breaking stones and old houses into two
unravelling stairs
as the architecture unravels so do i
until one root breaks off leaves me
gets stuck in a gap between narrow red houses
in the second floor of one red house
there’s a sticker of a lonely waterfall on the bathroom wall
but as the architecture unravels so do i
the sticker of the lonely waterfall unravels
everything solitary unravels
and that changes the rhythm of my heart
***
yesterday i saw a helicopter one that doesn’t fly
someone put a little stool inside
a man from congo was telling me
how hard it is to find a woman these days
they show up with a ready made list of what they need
the first line says six-pack
the second says a car
the third says money
it’s so very hard to make a connection
i told him he should mention the helicopter
someone put a little stool inside the helicopter
i have never been a man i don’t know what it means to try to find
a woman
i saw the man from congo cutting ginger
quickly and professionally
then the garlic then he squeezed a lime
he says he’ll eat all the viruses as if they were termites
the man from congo has a very small door to his room
i asked him
whether he has to kneel when he locks it
there is a sign on his door: foot massage
there is a dog named jacqui who is 17 years old
he sometimes eats from the compost pile
maybe he’s slowly composting his own body: it gives off
a strange scent
at the moment i don’t suffer anything at all
and i’ve never been a man: i don’t know how hard it is
to make a connection with a woman
i don’t have a six-pack (though i heard that a six-pack is
unnatural, that they don’t exist in nature)
i’ve never been a man
and i don’t know what an erection feels like
does it press a lot is there tension or
does it feel like nothing at all
perhaps its only visual
in the background jacques is composting his body
the man from congo pays a lot of money to a website where
you can find a woman
a few years ago while riding the trolley bus from the clinic
i heard a conversation
two old men were talking about how they sometimes still get erections
one said
“it still asks for something in the morning”
the conversation was very discreet but i could hear it
i don’t know what it means to ask for something in the morning
to speak about erections in low tones
to go to the clinic with prostrate problems
at the moment i don’t suffer anything at all
jacqui is composting his small grey body and not suffering at all
i know i’m seeing jacqui for the last time
and that makes me sad
***
i was going home and slipped on this gross and
slimy green mass
i landed on the ground so hard
there was a loud crack
turns out, my head fell off
i won’t hide it
i was pretty upset
my parents were paying for my studies and a lot of theory
was packed in there (my head)
evolutionary psychology frustrating freud
neurophysiology
mathematical formulas statistics
and sniff the rat waiting for electroshock
pixels circling the screen
i saw stars
it was winter and my head was skating along the ice until
it hit a stump
i won’t hide it
i was pretty upset about this strange chain of events
it’s a bit much, i’d say, for one person to handle in a day
my great-great-grandfather from šėta could lift up a whole horse
his son was a lot weaker
and couldn’t lift a horse but he could carry a telephone pole
on his shoulders
he put up power lines
so it goes
i can’t lift a horse
i can’t lift a telephone pole
now i don’t even want to lift my own head
it’s just easier that way
every additional weight adds up and I don’t want
that burden on my shoulders
sniff the rat received his electroshock
this was on international anti-corruption day, a friday
the city was drowning in pixels
i came home
my naive breakfast was tossing and turning in the pan
so it goes
***
i had these chest pains like my heart was hurting
the pain would come on suddenly but it wouldn’t last long
spring was in the air and i went in for a cardiogram
lots of people were suffering from seasonal allergies
and this spring
like all the others
was all about runny noses and sneezing
with dry angry nostrils
but for me it was this aching over-sensitive heart
the doctor asked me to describe my heart pain
i tried to describe my heart pain
he smiled and his eyes had this twisted look
as when men sometimes leave clothes to dry on the line
twisted like that
there’s no such heart pain, mister said the doctor
then he began to laugh out loud and i noticed that his face
had this awful asymmetry
i began to feel uncomfortable
i thought about my heart
about that pain which doesn’t exist
there was this cold blue jelly all over my chest
the nurse was sitting there sniffling and replying to
birthday greetings on facebook
three red roses stood on her desk causing me
negative associations
i wanted to tell her how frightful those roses really were
but i kept my peace out of self-respect and dignity
i continued to think about my heart
the results from my cardiogram came out in a long strip of paper
the doctor took that paper and threw it in the trash
without looking
i went home and evaluated my visit on the internet
with a single digit
there’s no such heart pain
that’s what my neighbor with ugly green shoes told me
he’s had them since his wife betrayed him
when wives betray you something happens in your brain
or so it seemed to me
and my heart began to hurt again
with a pain that doesn’t exist
there is no such heart pain
said the clerk at the tax office
when i went to get an explanation for how much i owe the state
he told me it’s not worth worrying about what isn’t happening
(and if it’s happening then it’s just in our minds)
how do you know that nothing’s happening i asked him
i can guarantee that my face at that moment looked like
a mutant dog’s
what’re you stupid? asking me things like that? he said
go look in the mirror
you look like a mutant dog
and i’m at work here so just piss off why don’t you
i didn’t find his comment about the dog insulting
i had already thought of that myself
i went home and it was still that same indeterminate spring
the taxes i owed were quite considerable and did not add
to the betterment of my health
my neighbor with green shoes was standing on the grass and crying
like a child
something really happened to his brain or so it seemed to me
my home was full of heart pain
the kind that doesn’t exist
my neighbor was still crying in the background
and if i were just a little bit more wealthy
i would buy him a new wife with white ceramic teeth
i turned on the radio
someone was reading a poem in german
i sat there with no pants on pretending to understand
