Vladas Braziūnas

the old man bowed to the earth and did not say anything more a ladybird looked for a path in the ditch between breasts a cranberry got filled with blood and was ripening to a golden apple he slaughtered and skinned a completely black bull, burned its entrails, bones and meat to save the Sembian from Poles he killed, singled and cleaned, cut the teats and into the sea, he repeated, how he lay down and got up, brothers elected him god, the old man bowed to the earth and he was deprived of speech the world is touching, uncertain like wrinkles of the beloved

there is a person who has risen from the crowd, a ship, sunk in sad thoughts, the death of long grief is valid, the decline of the kingdom, disgraced by Tarquinius’ son ichthyophagists’ presents, a mouse, a frog and a bird, fire arrows, Smuglevičius and Vilnius watercolours, reports in paitings, a possibility to change the course of history and to give freedom to the Utopian peasant, the frog, the mouse of the manor, to give him Goliath’s power, a Scythian helmet, or an Ethiopian bow: when one is flying – shoot, you have chosen: the white chessmen begin and perish, the steed’s neck is soft like the pike’s belly, embrace in the background of a crowd, the choice is an eye and a nostril, soaked with sand and brown blood, Radvila’s wife like a midget, only her slipped out breast feeds the dream kite from a goblet, St Gaetano of the Trinitarians, multiply the bread Pranciškus Smuglevičius (Franciszek Smugliewicz; 1745–1807) – a painter and professor of art. Radvila (Radziwiłł; Radivilus, Radivillus) – a member of an influential noble family.

you just came, asked my mum, if I am at home, and the dream ended, like all dreams, meetings and lives and untimely, always crossing at one question, since my mother is no more, I am less and less, and the answer is known mum continues asking who has been there, I get confused, blush and awake, the world goes round its axis – the frail figure at the end of the corridor, who still sees me through the reflection in the window I write my first poem for you during a geometry lesson, in the grey autumn background, my heart is jumping with joy, four and a half stanzas of sheer commonplaces, so stinging, that I would give everything for my darling, the princess of my dreams; I failed to say a word, though saw her so many times, the day seems oppressive and lessons eternal, and the eternal alarm: all shelters are closed

i everyone can utter I and be right, I, so and so, promise, I love, I am deceived, what i have spoken, felt, what lies i told – i did not lie about one thing, that i am I, a boundless monosyllable that started up at night and seemed to feel there was something lacking; and what is lacking? Feeling just like that i shall never be right: i am I, not you, even when you have stolen me and are dreaming now, when your hot breast is heaving, lips are trembling, you have already uttered, letting me loose, and why not me? and you? and all the rest? you splitting, when one tries to clear it up, the world allows us to address it: YOU, world, the Almighty Lord, and rain, and a high-school girl are equally deceived: YOU are everything i can collect you glance by glance and spread like a heap of scattered manuscripts, and every word – fire, bliss, pronoun – will be the doorless home for you to enter and to settle in. to leave, to stay, you are not a photo, not the past, not a recollection, even not the pain alive in me, this blossom here, not yet open, a waking storm – not you, but YOU he HE is that what remains from us, a glance breaks away from a glance, a number from a memorial HE am coming back hunched, downhearted and the running bird that has drunk from a kiss – it is me HE hushes and darkens, and starts guiltily hearing a word, the third everywhere and always, he disappears at midday, what you have is no comfort, it is not he, runaway, almost worthless, he is not who sings and dances and whom, the invisible, you desire to shelter in your soul – you and me, but HE only breaks away from us and tingles, and irritates eyes, simply permeates the dream and crushes it into grating gravel and thrusts a sooty mirror towards me we WE is the pretend both of us, we pretend to accept everything and say WE, i and someone else, you and someone else are senseless, crumbs, not to mention everything, if without us the slow watch has never said WE to the fast watch, but my sleeplessness says with your dozing lips: we, invisible, we, inaccessible, our breath is we and children, unlike us, our eyes take some things to heart, but they do not see how we part, hurry, lock the door, retire into ourselves, where we shall never have to pretend that we accept everything into the world of the holy dual number