Untitled

Дата: 23-02-2009 | 15:27:26

"Bird" is a part of speech
Derived from the word "bard,"
Thinks a songstress--wrongly;
But only wrong by a third.

She simply does not see
This aethereal charm:
That anyone who chants my songs
Changes into my double.

Envelope me, sky,
From your five cardinal points--
All that is real is aerial,
All that is visual is a pealing.

The voice is getting nude--
Somehow the hollowness inside
The bracelets of the larynx
Shakes free for vocal flight.

So, having breathed out an oriel
And a random hurricane,
It could throw into the air an aria--
Like change in coins to a crowd...

Speech that's inside-out
Is waiting in acoustics that wobble,
With hair to her shoulders
And a smile that is not horizontal.

***

When a bee revamps the metaphysic
Of a soul under lock and key--
Shoulder blades out of synch--this is an intangible CD
Avid to be music.
When outcast faces--wrinkled zincfoil
Vizors--ache, plastic bags take wing
Above the street like rippling
Puddles released from gravity.
But one of them--the widest,
Patched with scotch tape or a bandaid,
Does not buzz, does not burst into the air:
It hangs--sprawling--from a wall,
Like a human creature crucified.

Перевод с русского Реджинальда Гиббонса и Ильи Кутика