By Uladzimir Niakliaeu
Translation: John Farndon, Jenya Mironava
***
Excerpt from the long poem THE WAR THAT DOES NOT EXIST
Sunrise over Tokyo. Lights along Broadway.
Coffee smells in Paris. And Istanbul’s baklava.
Floating over the ground
In the last peaceful days
Before the last world war ever.
In Monaco’s palace, Mendelssohn’s bridal march plays,
Balls are still held, and half the world parties,
Wine’s swallowed sweetly, yet
On the lips sourly stays –
In the last summer, before the last war of history.
The Pope in the Vatican prays for peace ardently.
Like sails over Al-Haram’s mosque, the salahs now soar.
The Nile flows through Cairo, as it flowed eternally –
But already the water is reddening on the shore.
A hush over Kreva, the woods burst with strawberries,
As high over the Castle bombers roar on relentlessly –
And like books falling from shelves, they shed all their berries:
Shakespeare with Dante, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky.
So many prophets! All talk of the end. Of going down.
Isaiah, Obadiah. Delphi’s Oracle. Baba Vanga.
So Detroit is dancing the last foxtrot in town,
And Argentina’s getting ready for the last tango.
In the market in Busan, silver scales are gleaming –
But the catch won’t be netted by trawlers tomorrow,
The new Flying Dutchman, the cruiser Moscow’s
steaming
Onward into the Eastern Sea now…
Metalically
Glistening submarines, where whales swam eternally
Along age-old routes, with grey dolphins playing…
Oracles from Delphi! This you didn’t foresee!
Nor did Isaiah ever prophesy
The blood of Ukraine!
You can only foretell this when you go insane
And when stepping beyond the horizon you see
How Russian death will cavort upon Ukraine’s
Dark cemetery
Dust covers the pyramids of Egypt eternally.
The inscription’s worn away on Theban tombs:
„Reap what you sow!“ – like grave ash rising slowly
Children and grandchildren, who’ll never leave the womb.
And in restaurants, bars, pubs and cabarets,
Where courtesan Europe’s still singing and playing,
BREAK! Intermission. Horror grips the courtesan:
In her arms the Mother of God is dying.
1-9.07.2022, Krakow
***
Homeland
Love, hope and faith at least
May pass by, but not destiny.
I am in a trap again, like a beast,
That time has set up for me.
I’ve gnawed away my bloody paw,
But I can’t gnaw away all the pain.
It’s caught me where I weep once more:
And the pain makes me howl out again.
Nowhere can I find salvation –
I’ve completely snapped, as tendons strain,
The chains of love and hope with tension.
Yet the chains of my Homeland remain.
I have borne them through all my pain,
And so familiar they’ve grown,
As if they are not captive chains,
But a true talisman of my own.
They’re chafing my neck ‚til it’s bleeding,
They drag through all my destiny,
And all I can hear is my howling –
And my eyes brim with tears constantly.
I can run in the fog, and no matter where,
I’m held by my chain-talisman:
„You can’t flee yourself! You’re in a snare!
Your paw is caught, wherever you run!
Wherever you go, blood keeps you at home,
In the land to which you owe so dearly!”
Homeland’s chimeras, and all its phantoms
Vibrate through this chain restlessly.
I believe in those phantoms and chimeras!
Though all the pain shrieked: “Don’t believe!
You can say an animal is truly bestial,
If it remains an untamed beast!
If it has neither served, nor been owned
By anyone! For money – or just so!..”
In delirium, dreams and visions sewn
I bit into my Homeland’s throat!
In a rough bed of rags and scraps –
In my own dear children’s cot!
In each other’s arms we mortally rasped,
Embracing as our blood ran out!
And all its judges rushed upon me,
And its executioners – on me alone!
Ripping my chest mercilessly
Clinging to this heart of mine.
We’ve terrified ourselves already –
Two beasts with just a single heart…
But our dreams stay dreams surely,
Our chain remains a chain apart.
It’s pulling us always to reminiscence,
To cradles, graves, ruins of yore,
To a ghostly phantom of romance –
A chained dog of Homeland,
I licked its bloody paw.
29.02.2024, Wrocław, Poland