Читать книгу Time and love. The novel in verse - George Pospelow - Страница 36

The loveable smile

of my companion.

Her portrait

in a porthole-medallion.

The blast

of a roaring sound

in the face —

a prelude of parting,

strangling embrace.

No God.

No Demon.

You.

No analog.

Memory. Anxiety.

A mute dialogue —

a melody of seconds

by the heart-bell.

Propellers.

Start.

A wave of farewell.

Out

of the humidly thick air

of Calcutta24, we escaped

to the real genuine woods.

Deep inside, we found

a tiny Buddhist temple,

a monk was sitting nearby.

The Buddhist,

former Communist,

set an English paper aside

and shared his story.

Trying to win

a mutual love,

he failed and swore

to renounce the world.

Now,

unhurried and wise,

he did overcome his passions.

Life covered him with mud —

not any longer —

he cleansed

himself from filthiness.

Life concealed the truth —

no more —

he did perceive

the Noble Eightfold Path25.

Life urged to undergo

the pain of mind —

not today —

he’s happy with the little.

It’s not he

is in the world,

but inside him

is the world

without vain efforts.

A woman’s beauty —

mysterious is its force —

being passed on me

daily has become

my internal part.

It didn’t change

my appearance,

but embellished

my thoughts, even

the secret ones.

You indulge my pride

and pretend

you take me

as I am.

Always

call me

to follow you

to the point

where I need

to jump over

my appeased head.

During the intervals

of my prostration

from obstinacy,

you reinforce

your temper-character,

and charge

the batteries of love.

Freedom of love

is not

a free love

or freedom

from love,

but a love

for freedom.

Love frees

freedom lovers —

no love is

without freedom.

The freedom in love

is the most

loved of freedoms.

Those who

the freedom loves

are free

in love.

Love is freedom.

Freedom is love.

On my way to Singapore26,

I’ve ventured to see Bangkok27.

So, I walk among Buddhas,

chrysanthemums, smiles, and canals.

With a family and a suite,

decorated with precious stones,

the King sails nearby on a galley.

He observes, it’s a lot or not,

two hundred years of the House.

An obsolete Siamese antiquity,

he breaks into a smile,

waves goodbye by his hand.

An exceedingly rare performance,

but if you’d rather not,

I have my Queen,

and the anniversary,

it’s a lot or not,

ten times less.

Sure, I’ll decorate

my love from head to toe:

the stones are cheap,

rubies – if not lazy —

dig them out of the ground.

I bought a lot of them

and decorations, like potatoes,

the King made me angry.

Only my diplomatic passport

helped me transcend the Customs.

The hollow hearts

of Don Juan

shared out in vain

with Donnas Annas

didn’t save a wanderer

from the eternal solitude.

One heart,

brimful with its own

and reciprocal love,

will assuage and heat up

with a home warmth,

even in travels.

In destiny —

it is a reason and

luck,

in love —

the feast for my

eyes,

in poetry —

more uncreated

poems,

in balance —

so useful intuition,

patience.

My life,

all they

are you!

The Orient is a subtle tool,

so, love is a coil of rules.

The balance of actions, feelings —

you set this honest stuff

in motion, scolding me

for my next mistake.

Love blooms in the present,

invigorates the sleeping past,

fears the yoke of the future.

Devaluing

the words of vows,

every tender touch

and the look of kind eyes

speak love and care.

What’s gone is gone,

but the reciprocal love

is the need

of today

and tomorrow,

and after…

She loves,

I am loved —

thanks for the gift.

He loves,

I am loved —

thanks for it.

Love,

and love in return —

nothing is happier.

I love you in you,

resembling and imitating no one,

always utterly new.

Love is truly finer

than its cheap comparisons

to the luminaries,

diamonds,

gold.

Why then your body,

a tiny bit of the Moon,

so mat-snow-white,

so cryptic thrilling

is its coloring,

transforms a night bed

into a moonlit couch?

Well, moonbeam. Really.

Not only my eyes and heart

keep our moments together

in their memory —

the cells of my body,

emotions of the nerves store

your light mental imagery.

They all kept a diary

when we were together.

After having had fallen

in love with the captive,

they did not let her go

out of their embrace.

Fifty trillion bits —

a mosaic mind of the cells —

get together in a second

generating your double,

and they like to do it often.

Familiar sounds of the tide.

A gull brings an image

compression – the elegant hands,

the hands of my passion,

whiter than a white dove

lighter than a poplar down.

“No, no, tenderer,”

the thoughts come aloud.

“Loves no more. Cheer up,”

says a tidal wave.

“She doesn’t need you,”

repeats the other wave.

The third one: “Dive.

We will caress, whirl

and bring to the deep.

You will discover our

world without minutes,

without weep.”

“Don’t drivel, waves.

Sweeter are our homes.

She loves me.

Not you – her hands

will give the warmth.”

A blunder occurs in spirits:

frown and scowl are debits.

I recall your smile and again

I’m prompt, supple, no brain.

A fool is unhappy in happiness.

A sage is happy with the little.

A man who owns-protects

his wife’s wit non-altered,

her beauty after the altar,

is a foolish sage, never falters.

The thirst dried up

my sincere heart.

I gulp you —

the recurring to life —

from the spring

of your scarlet lips,

and cannot slake.

A pert desire

pierced you with light,

lit up your face,

drew away from

the immediate work,

turned your eyes

and arms to me,

forgot all about

who usually started

an amorous ceremonial.

On the oceanic coast of Orissa29

are dozens of gigantic turtles —

seven-foot their shells.

You, lying on the shell,

become a human-amphibian.

On the next one,

you assume the pose of Lakshmi

standing on the heavenly turtle.

In response, I depict the second

incarnation of Vishnu into a turtle.

The ocean monsters

bear the jokes,

not moving in any way.

We decide to arrange

a racing

on top of the Mesozoic beasts

but advance, clearly,

at a turtle’s pace.

This makes us bored.

We drive them to the ocean,

and there the turtles acquire

the knack of pearl divers,

in a flash, vanish in the depth.

What’s beauty?

New forms

of music and art creations,

giving spice

to ear and eye stimulation?

She, not pretty,

but unvicious,

pure in the heart?

Or she – angelic

appearance, devilish part?

A one day

flower’s smile

increasing the joy four-fold?

A Californian sequoia

four millennia old?

Now recall

someone or something

the most beautiful for you.

Isn’t it undeniably

the best of all views?

The Earth’s salt and fruit,

air’s beginning of beginnings,

water’s flesh and blood,

fire’s a sacred place

are in the just only

baked bread which

your hands had set

on our family table —

a warm kindness of peace.

Time automatically

throws out of its memory

obsolete episodes,

from relations —

obsolete feelings,

but never love.

The entire range of feelings,

the electricity in our blood,

which fire our love,

will repeat themselves

in the two to come:

their flare will give the light

off to the sky and the Earth,

to the hearts of those

who are there in-between.

Our love will pass on the other

two in a relay race, but

Heaven knows when.

We asked an unfettered wind:

“In love, what’s merry?”

Content, it responds:

“To kiss in the wind, misery.”

Solving the equation of a dialog,

you multiply a mystery

of a heart-to-heart talk —

a flight and a whirl of thoughts,

an innate ability to inspire —

by a gift to comprehend

and the virtue of been loved.

Love in separation,

elation in sorrow

lightly winnow

the curves of melancholy —

flute sounds,

words’ sorrow.

You can’t and don’t

depart your love:

the fun of masquerade

is a poor bravado:

you dare try reloading

or suppress emotions.

If you can’t stand it,

if your chest is whining,

you’ll see the way

and call the cranes

to stop the tremor.

The cranes trumpeted,

forgetting the rule,

kept ex- and inhalation,

reduced the cry of fun.

The hearty cranes

saved from thorns.

How to believe in people

if not needed by people,

if unjustly turned down,

rejected, torn down?

Alone is hard in trouble,

vicious misery-trouble.

Broken is the sail of faith,

torn into shreds is the faith.

I felt the oldness despair,

a man’s highest despair —

almost over is the lifetime,

useless was the lifetime.

A minute lasts oblivion,

just shrink into oblivion,

find repose in wine…

This choice is not mine.

I need your eyes in the blue —

smiling fancily in the blue —

in them, to see the answer,

desperately needed answer,

What is next? Give up?

Shrink? Get used? Give up?

Or get a life – and be,

to win despair and be!

She has a wise zest:

goes her way,

lives her mind,

is acceptable to all.

Intuition, intelligence, memory

serve the mistress turning on

at the right moment

and inspiring the face.

These features differ her

strikingly from other women.

Even after the altar, her spirit

of beauty does not go out.