Exercising the Heart
Every morning, I tread the elliptical trainer:
a little bit of geometry, a little bit of
the laws of literature, and of course, gravitation, ontology, everything
I see, everything I feel, affects me while I tread the elliptical trainer
there, far off on the hill, stands the Missionary Monastery
and the Church of the Ascension, and further still,
the Sacred Heart of Jesus, or Visitation
Church, now on prison ground.
I tread the trainer, looking at Jesus’s big
heart entwined in barbed wire
one morning, from exactly that spot,
hot-air balloons rise into the sky, and they seem,
at a distance, to rise straight from
the churches, the monasteries –
our
prayers, what makes up our humanity, is fragile, slips
into clouds, our words, our dreams, our sufferings
are colorful balloons, empty inside, lighter than air, lighter
than the earth the Lord leaves
as He leaves us completely alone
I see this mystery while treading the trainer, jumping
from geometry to literature, I feel omitted from this vision, passed
over – somewhere between light-hearted balloons and heavy
architecture, between the soul and its salvation, forgotten, or maybe
the opposite – intentionally left on Earth
to exercise the muscles of Jesus’s heart
in case he decides to return
On Formatting
reading Natalie Goldberg’s book, I pay
special attention to her idea that it’s important
to choose what you write on, because external
things influence internal ones, a small
page can call forth small thoughts
and vice versa:
certain thoughts will be written
on a postage stamp, others on the canvas
of the sky,
Lithuanian exiles in Siberia wrote philosophical
tracts on the bark of
birches
before turning into trees themselves,
into birches, spruce, and aspen, returning
to the mythological fairy tale world,
and here I am
trying
to write with
their blood
on their bodies
trying to write
something incredibly important, something
absurdly meaningless
something about us, who remain
Trying to Be Contemporary
I met with businessmen, thinking they might buy
some piece of my body or my life, if not as an artwork, then
at least as raw material, but as if on purpose
my chip for friendly smiles got fried, and I mean
something was really wrong because the problems were just beginning:
I lost control of my right hand, spilled
coffee on the person next to me
and when I tried to get up to help, my hip cracked so loud
it seemed I was breaking in half like the Titanic,
meanwhile, the TV was showing starving children, which
interested the businessmen much more, and I
just couldn’t compete with the kids, the world’s misfortunes, I
couldn’t even cry – my Provider
disconnected my tears because they said I reached my limit
So I need some quick technical assistance if I want to get
at least a little profit
from my body or my life, I mean, I could
go for a full exchange or try pawning it, but the bank
is rejecting my proposal, saying they found a defect, something
loose inside – they say there’s a soul in there
even though no detector can pin it down:
some strange sort of virus
that our contemporary systems can’t recognize
but it looks dangerous
Double Life
Peter has a picture window
Peter gazes through the glass
He gazes at the clouds that pass
Peter pays his taxes fast
He listens to that rock and roll, although
He likes classical music no less
Before bedtime, Peter
Reads a story to his kids
He eats, works and sleeps, eager
Peter recycles, separating even the lids
Unexpectedly, Peter peters out
His body is left in a graveyard plot
Men, women, and children are left
Planes, cars, and ships are left
Accounts, loans, and companies are left
And his handling of them was deft
This Peter who simply passed away
Now wait, he was really Simon, they say
Moses’s Matches
I remember my first pair of jeans:
My cousin gave them to me, all worn out
but to me they were as beautiful as the armor of Achilles
I pick up a stone from the ground, break
a window, I look through the hole in the window, I look
through the hole in my cousin’s jeans, I see a photograph:
My mom and I, both still alive
We’re standing next to some bush
I’m holding my First Communion candle
Moses is crouching behind the bush
Sweat is running down his face
Moses is hungover: he lost God’s commandments while drunk
How to live now without commandments?
How to live now without God, without chains, without death?
Moses’s fingers are shaking, he can’t light a match, he can’t light my candle
The waters of the lake are parted:
My mom and I are running, running from the slavery of the past
Suddenly, I can’t remember the look of my legs and I can’t run
so the lake overtakes us, the road overtakes us, the past
overtakes us, death
overtakes us
My mom and I are imprisoned in the photograph whose corner is lit
by the trembling hands of Moses
God
The Demiurge
Father, casually kneading
the wax of our lives
Twelve Apostles
for all the medium format cameras, using
twelve frames, especially the Rolleiflex SL66E
A medium format camera
divides the film
into twelve frames
Twelve apostles accompany me
as I walk along with the camera
Some bring good news
some bring pain, still others
return with empty eyes
And so I stroll, accompanied
by twelve apostles, clutching
a camera whose essence is
an empty box, waiting for the light
