***
I remember
the village
in the mountain gorge
where they sold
fluffy sheep fur
together with
the mauled
paws of wolves
this is something
I just can’t explain
***
he’s from an aquarium
or at least
he’s lived in one long
turning into a plant
a stone a fish
every day he assimilates
what is slick
and dark and cold
this is how the desiccated sea
leaves us on the shore
***
it’s so hard
to find the right words
saying goodbye
as if those fifty years had never been
and that one meaningless summer
that was just a gap
between history and math
I try to wipe my fingers
clean of chalk
but they slip and slide across
the phone’s tactile screen
and the stones made smooth
by the river’s swift stream
***
I remember you
in the dawn
at the spot from which
I jump into the abyss
or when I wander through
the Carpathians
after the war
after the war you say
everything vanished
moved to the valley
or to the beyond
a stone was rolled over
the passage
people haven’t lived here
for long
where only specters appear
***
stay out of it
everyone said
war is not for you
the sword
and the shield
are not yours to hold
wait until
the young go off
to war
then you’ll drink their wine
and love their women
most will not
come back
or they’ll come back
lame
lamer even
than you
cripple
where do you think
you’re going
***
remember the dead
feel their voices in your mouth
their blood on your hands
the crumbling of time
through your fingers
that’s how year by year
and day by day it goes
with shadows on the walls
and ghosts in the courtyards
something connects us
in the barely visible
light of this darkness
these roads and these rivers
all lead us
to the same place
I need you
just a whispering
full of silence
out of longing
out of the thickening fog
that looms above the sea
***
in this city
no buses run
and people don’t hurry
to work
or to home
here no one needs
to go to the store
there’s just an elderly man
with a bike
making no attempt to hide
from bullets and shells
just a woman pushing a stroller
who don’t hear the howl
of sirens
heralding the threat
from the sky
while a thinker sits
at the window
of a burned-out house
and what is there to think about
with the war all around
but there is no war
says the boy
running down the street
the war ended
when the planes came
and we didn’t make it
to the shelter
***
when you grew up
and left home you had
the grey sky for a roof
and walls made of wind
I’ve heard this
somewhere
as if someone said it
before you
your mother keened in a hollow
your father a degenerate ghost
you found a neglected church
in the middle of the woods
an old altar
with moss and mold overgrown
and you prayed
to the image of God in the water
and then you thought
how you were never
needed by anyone ever
and how no one needs
these tired prayers
that have
neither fire nor embers
but only the grayness of ashes
for life
***
there’s nothing there
except skulls
quietly settled
into eternal sleep
neither light
nor darkness
only the earth
hard and dry
bullets rattle in your mouth
with the taste of blood
with the scent of gunpowder
there was so much of everything
now there’s just
these few rays of light
