Five Prose Poems
by Aleksey Porvin
THE BRIDGE
Soldiers cross the bridge, pilings tremble, passing the rhythm to the water. Now the fish can be silent rhythmically, hoping that their silence will coincide with the pulsing of distant stars, that the great power of resonance will enter this world, splitting fishermen into atoms. We have hopes in common with fish. Crossing the border, we call upon our silence, that force that will change everything for the better. Some of us lose their strength and freeze in place like pillars or pilings, then a bridge of light arches above their heads as if to remind them that the power of poetry is not exhausted. Here, where silence comes into contact with silence, a bridge is a unit of thinking as well as a prerequisite for philosophical generalizations, but the soldiers empty their heads like pots of lunch brew and we hear the tinkle of ammunition, like the ringing of dinner spoons. This rhythm is stronger and louder than all the rest, and we have no doubt which one to obey.
AT ATTENTION
Shell casings looking like a squadron of caterpillars standing at attention, their uniform brass shine has been smoothed, there are no creases or dents on it, everything is clean and tidy. Not the slightest attempt to move – they are waiting for an order. What leaves had to be eaten and digested into gunpowder in their smooth stomachs? We know what kind of leaves, and from which tree, and our whole life is non-stop walking there, its trunk was created by centuries-old conversations about justice, its branches go to heights where the eye does not reach, and it is from such branches that the poles are made for banners. But our business is simple – to catch butterflies, but not the way, God forbid, Nabokov or Nodier caught them. Our goal is to prevent any butterfly from reaching the target, that’s why we pin them right to our hearts. Checking every time that the words have acquired enough of the pins’ properties, we send them to sewing shops and factories – where the working people – and no one but them – will evaluate everything correctly, despite the ever-increasing noise of leaves.
AUTUMN
The statues of gods in the park are packed in wood, recalling the memorials to military glory exported by the British from Afghanistan. “The best way to remove oneself from the environment has yet to be discovered,” radio waves of poor metaphysics report, but the fabric breathes in marble “you can’t get out of my darkness,” as if reminding a memorable object it has already been captured by memory, and covering its tracks is useless. Gods, gods, soon invisible troops will take you away, too, leaving salty footsteps in the eyesight of every citizen, and what will we do then, counting the days like bullets – brass sunrise, leaden sunset – unobtrusive ringing of metal in our pockets: we tell the patrols that these are not bullets, nor coins, these are small fragments of the temple bell, flattened under the tracks of tanks. Where did the state emblem on these pieces of metal come from? Oh, this is not a state emblem, or rather, it is a symbol of a non-existent state with a soul fluttering on the flag.
TRANSLATORS
Mines accumulate dust, store it up like resentment, so that one day they can cry it out in a language difficult to translate into human speech. All knowledge of translation is dying in a far-off fire, but we keep trying. “Ask the birch, the river, the explosion that has taken root deep in the heart, beg for the right words, like the children beg for bread from the border guards” – where does such advice lead to? The crumbs smell like brass, the crust smells like lead and steel – everything repeats the structure of the bullet, even this old man with a metal core instead of words. He worked all his life in the mine, pumped dust out of it with his lungs so there would be less resentment in the ground, and now he has nothing to say when he looks at the omnipresent flame. And we go and look for the right words for the translation, which in fact never ended, but our job is to soften speech, to curb its sharp stone corners, break its dried crust so that it does not scratch the throat of the future and the past when they sit down to eat up the local landscape.
SOLDIERS
Tin soldiers enter the meltdown as if it were their new barracks: here is the flame (a new bed), here is the flame (bread), here is the flame (an order). A child’s hand sends them farther into oblivion, tin splashes on his palm – a life-long burn will heal with words, regrets, losses, grass, but as long as the battle lasts, it matters no more than sand it throws up. Keep trying, sand – you will find that you are imitating a bird in flight. We will give you a voice, and not that silent blood that was shed into you. When you fall, you sprinkle indefatigable flames, you will save the last division from turning into a flaming puddle that cannot reflect the sky, but the children's faces, who will capture them? There is no more entertainment left in these parts – all you can do is turn everything into puddles of flame poured through the veins, and listen to birdsong from those beaks beyond our control, which intercept any radio wave long before it arrives in our hearts.
Photo cover by Julia Dragan