Vladas Braziūnas

bow down: each is holy who has a shadow soul or ghost: happy – lifted by death his experience – pilgrim traveling sand creeping on dunes – the advice of the precipice sores don’t ache: language like flasks, the homunculus always more depraved with the elegiac grass flute Munk already like lukewarm tea hackneyed by epigons having squeezed out a shout – ameliorated Leta the skiff floats off with the oars of an elegiac distych there, where Ararat’s high forehead does not wait she is purchased, she is Allah’s, the invisible merchant’s deluge is canceled – that evening tear in the portal of evening , having stepped on the serpent, live tribes, midnight festival’s silent reeds bow down: each is holy who has a shadow sinks and sinks and sinks into living sand

the water, full of holes, murmurs in thirsty sprays as if autumn still scanned a name forgotten in frost hardship’s stepbrothers scarred willows climb the hill turn over cloud clusters and the windrows of hell and at the foot of the hill the well may or may not still wait only the redhead’s aching fingers draw the iron closer only the dulled convulsion of frost pulls the trigger and illuminates the road with tracer bullets strangers all your sellers of your black souls spring is late and autumn still rages in the mountain spring aching sweet life of flood waters freezes in the veins of my scarred adopted brothers a living flow a hoary faith – remains

I would like to write in the empty spaces of my drawings the margins of my symphonies on my cathedrals’ walls pediments, altars, pulpits my sermons would be marketable to deaf mutes most of all I would like to write on our developing skin on our thighs and hips on our gurgling stomach and in fact that’s how I write only the prepositions aren’t the ones sometimes and the declensions

they agonized in their own language they prayed under their own oak tree their maidens wept without tears they like my hair died one by one gray ashes encrusted swollen buds their bodies were left in peace by kites and bald hyenas staked into their hearts in peace rest their war slaves and gods and their hanging nooses

dried oceans raged and tangled with shadows of ravaged houses, wild rivers leaving their banks gushed through meadows soaked with clouds, through pastures dying God was terrified was laid up exhausted by wind and uncertainty in which of the world’s waters the spirit will flame or disappear, hissing like steel for which worm will blossom a bride will open, the plum of innocence will swell the olive tree will blossom, the lilac the dahlia will pierce the dragon and locusts will fly with them the conversation will be short the language of voracious shadows

flutes and wells, panpipes and a shouting wind papyruses, dead writings moldy along the edges an unfamiliar land, a hunting falcon on the arm gullible, but God’s son, tears sharp as splinters stairs, hanging in the air, crusted with years and dust freedom and resistance, the bullet that struck the bullet

we are now at least four: our souls and their two tired friends, two bodies desired and cursed, and sung about but exactly as unfamiliar – like us

where is that beautiful memory with linden-blossom lips the kneeling wind in the plowed fields, the seller of rain the north’s waxwing gathers red tears hard sorrowful sorrows, its sharp ashberry beak drinks the illness of water on the lungs without a response the air is so refreshing, as if there is a sanatorium here don’t uproot me from the brushwood, so ugly in the tenancy, once the snow melts, I tremble with the smallest sound the cemetery is clear, pleasant, Izidorius scatters winter seed Marija prays for the man, an Angel blows the trumpet these three myths would suffice completely if I remembered walking down the road, if I could endure

ragged lilies under the window, on them a small bug red and shimmering your blue four-winged steed boiling water, icy wind, staggering around the fire, last year’s scandals hiss, the year before last’s quarrels dewed meadows, ticks suck the world’s blood eyes barely open you hear how in you or in the brook babble hungry mice that escaped from the dying city not a crumb remains, nothing remains of childish love, only tangled lines, unclear feelings, the letter from Troy

your mountains are too slippery, licked by clouds but, thank God, not too beautiful that swanfeathered cloud’s kitsch mirage of white churches a not-too-beautiful deer near the lake drinking moonlight thank God also not too beautiful not more beautiful than your soul