Trafika Europe 13 - Russian Ballet

Eleven poems

From THE UNDERGROUND GRAMOPHONE

From the native country, with a flash of fire, The groom will come flying, And in the land they’ll start longing for him, To curse the living. In the homelands they’ll start up music Of a quietish kind, Unpostponable, like an itch under the skin Beneath a needle.

It’s all right, say, my darling, That your eyes, once clear, Have both closed up. It’s nothing, say, my poor thing, That your former beautiful features Have been changed.

That the underground many-fruited Watery element stood a while

311