Ilya Krieger
Translated by Alex Cigale
A house is not a house unless it is inhabited.
K. Marx
In forests, in deep blue forests,
In the house, assembled out of pine trunks,
In the house, assembled out of forest shadows,
In the house, assembled out of the night's silence,
In the house darkening and dozing,
Where whispers remain, where whispers stroll on the ceiling,
Where there are clipped wings, where there is honey and milk,
Where there are hushed sobs, where ivy covers the ceiling beams,
Where time stands still, where motion is outside only, not here,
In the house made of rain and fog,
In the house that stands over trampled stars,
In the house, assembled out of trunks of pines,
In the house, assembled from the forest's gloaming,
In the house, assembled from night's silence,
In the house, assembled out of viscous dreams,
In the house, where a part of me has securely settled,
For that house - is the end-all and be-all,
He who spends a night in the house, which I, fortuitously, vacated,
He will not continue on his path unaltered,
He will die and be reborn, his friends will not recognize him,
A part of him will remain there, within the walls of the house,
In the forests, in deep blue forests,
In the house, assembled from trunks of pines,
In the house, assembled out of the forest's dimness,
In the house, assembled out of the night's silence.
Determination of the apportionment of time
Lemma
crawling on the water-logged sapropel
swimming on the surface of the water
swimming in the thick of the water
rest on the protruding parts of plants
stillness on the surface of the water
the soul is eternal
which is what needed to be proved
* * *
there are no unread messages
there are no upcoming appointments
there are no tasks
there is no time
for it is said
do not mix sedatives with alcohol
* * *
... Don't expose me, your steed, to frost.
magnetic fields
beyond the event horizon
twinned roadways
receding to the north
unpaved back roads
it is unsafe to travel into fog at night
colorful ribbons sunny hillocks
a cold mountain spring
coins shimmer on the bottom
along the bottom a rolling pale sky
the frosty air flights cancelled
* * *
falling sickness
mind honor and conscience
Socrates Callimachus and Mohammed suffered from it
and I
am still able
to sic on the enemy the infected gophers
and poison the wells
I remember
Jonah's fish
Crenicichla lepidota
and the episcope's Oxyrhynchus
the carapace
the star
the chain
a nail
a male member
precisely corresponding
to objects in existence among us
on the Tarpeian cliff
I grow
the bones elongate
the ligaments tear with a crunch
I advance