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Poetry Readings: Desist, desist

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Poetry Readings: Night descended on us with a chill
Tomas Venclova Poet
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Here's another poem from the same period, it's about... it's in fact a love poem, about my coming to Moscow, where I experienced a lot, where I can no longer find, so to speak, my old acquaintances or the old places which I used to frequent. And all that's left to a person are only words, as it were writing, only poetry.

 

Night descended on us with a chill.

The low-roofed and soot-blackened archways

Looked onto ten stations as well

As ten parks, or more, sunk in November –

That settlement, circle, or zone

Where on the blind brickhouse wanders

A moving one-hundred watt beam:

In the labyrinth, mentor and escort.

 

Temporarily we make our home

In the kingdom of Ariadne and Minos.

Because of the fog and the gloom

For hours not a single plane takes off.

Every day again all trains are jammed—

How much space, how much air and unhappiness.

So those prisoners who returned home

Sometimes longed for the eye of the cell-guard.

 

Like a debt repaid to the void

Some familiar places stood opened:

I repeated inside my head: "bus,

University, monument, island."

I said: 'Tomorrow I'll go,

I'll go or at least I'll try to.'

And along the hither world's brow

My soul hurried on into limbo.

 

Old addresses grew suddenly near.

The alphabet changed form and meaning.

Voices grew faint and dead, I could hear,

Unable to find us two in either

This house's locked-up, empty cell

Where the paintings don't recognize me,

Nor in dreams, nor in heaven, nor even

Dante's second circle of hell.

 

Thus time is stopped; to be exact,

One ceases existence gradually.

It's just that each year, in effect,

You hear the phone ring more remotely,

And memory, day after day,

Shifts diameter like a compass

Till the past's a straight line on the page,

First pretending to turn into distance.

 

What you hear and see, I can't tell,

In reality chipped from reality.

The paved banks of Acheron withheld

The unfelt swell. Each nullity

Is separate, all on its own.

And the world lives its life without us.

There exist, in the end, alone

Dead silence and the nine muses.

 

Where the capital slowly revolves,

And the snow's games make us weary,

Where the fog hides all objects' selves,

Thank God for the dictionary.

In the kingdom where a friend's hand

Will never hurry to help you,

The void or the supreme power

Sends the angel – rhythm and language.

 

I ask not one moment's respite,

Neither death, nor forgiveness for sinning

– Only leave the primordial drumming

Over stone and the ice of the night.

 

The English language translation of this poem has been published by permission © Bloodaxe Books (www.bloodaxebooks.com).

Dabar dar vienas eilėraštis iš to paties laikotarpio, jis apie, tai yra faktiškai meilės eilėraštis, kaip atvykstu į Maskvą, kurioje nemažai pergyvenau, neberandu jau, taip sakant, nei senų pažinčių, nei senų vietų, kuriose lankydavausi. Ir lieka žmogui tiktai žodžiai, tik, taip sakant, tiktai rašymas, tik poezija.

 

Sutema pasitiko šalčiu:

Už kresnų pajuodavusių arkų

Išryškėjo gal dešimt stočių

Ir keliolika lapkričio parkų –

Ta gyvenvietė ar skritulys,

Kur ant aklino mūro nukrinta

Šimtavatis klaidus spindulys,

Palydėdamas į labirintą.

 

Ariadnės ir Mino valda

Pravarti neilgoms įkurtuvėms:

Dėl miglos kelinta valanda

Nepakyla nė vienas lėktuvas.

Kaip kas dieną, pilni traukiniai –

Kiek platybės, kiek oro ir vargo!

Taip namo grįždami kaliniai

Kitados pasigesdavo sargo.

 

Lyg erdvės sugrąžinta skola,

Atsivėrė pažįstamos vietos.

Aš kartojau: “Paminklas, sala,

Autobusas, universitetas."

Aš sakiau: “Išvažiuosiu rytoj,

Išvažiuosiu ar bent pasistengsiu."

Ir gyvųjų pasaulio riboj

Mano siela skubėjo j tamsą.

 

Priartėjo seni adresai,

Raidės pakeitė formą ir prasmę.

Aš klausiausi, kaip nyksta balsai,

Neįstengdamas mudviejų rasti

Nei tuščiam užrakintam bute,

Kur paveikslai manęs nepažįsta,

Nei sapnuos, nei dangaus karalystėj,

Nei antrajame Dantės rate.

 

Taip sustabdomas laikas; tiksliau –

Ne iš karto atprantama būti,

Tik, sakytum, kasmet iš toliau

Išgirsti telefono skambutį,

Tik diena iš dienos atmintis

Keičia skersmenį tarsi skriestuvas,

Kol į tiesę pavirs praeitis,

Pradžioje apsimetus atstumais.

 

Nežinau, ką girdi ir matai

Atkirstoj nuo tikrovės tikrovėj.

Išgrįsti Acherono krantai

Atsispyrė nejuntamai srovei.

Kiekviena nebūtis – atskira,

Ir pasaulis gyvuoja be mūsų,

Ir, teisybę pasakius, tėra

Tyluma ir devynetas mūzų.

 

Ten, kur sostinė sukas ratu

Ir išvargina sniego žaidimas,

Kur migla neišduoda daiktų,

Ačiū Dievui, dar esti žodynas.

Viešpatijoj, kur draugo ranka

Niekados nesuskubs į pagalbą,

Tuštuma ar aukščiausia jėga

Siunčia angelą – ritmą ir kalbą.

 

Neprašau nei trumpos užmaršties,

Nei mirties, nei kaltės atleidimo,

Bet palik pirmapradį gaudimą

Virš akmens ir ledinės nakties.

Born in 1937, Tomas Venclova is a Lithuanian scholar, poet, author and translator of literature. He was educated at Vilnius University and later at Tartu University. As an active participant in the dissident movement he was deprived of Soviet citizenship in 1977 and had to emigrate. Between 1977 and 1980 he lectured at University of California, Berkeley, where he became friends with the Polish poet Czesław Miłosz, who was a professor of Slavic Languages and Literature at the school, as well as the Russian poet Joseph Brodsky. He is currently a full professor at Yale University.

Listeners: Andrzej Wolski

Film director and documentary maker, Andrzej Wolski has made around 40 films since 1982 for French television, the BBC, TVP and other TV networks. He specializes in portraits and in historical films. Films that he has directed or written the screenplay for include Kultura, which he co-directed with Agnieszka Holland, and KOR which presents the history of the Worker’s Defence Committee as told by its members. Andrzej Wolski has received many awards for his work, including the UNESCO Grand Prix at the Festival du Film d’Art.

Tags: love poem, poetry, poetry readings

Duration: 3 minutes, 36 seconds

Date story recorded: May/June 2011

Date story went live: 20 March 2012