Craig Goodworth, Rope-Horse detail (found rope and steel), 2010
опавшие листья липы в парке,
точно желтый скелет борзой,
покрытый лаком, каждая косточка плюсневая.
полоски ребер, как бракованные детали рояля,
и воображение наделяет
плотью,
обмазывает красной глиной, сетью тягучих вен.
натягивает короткую черную шерсть, как рейтузы с начесом,
приращивает острые уши на сухожилиях,
вставляет глаза.
соединяет зрительные нервы со зрителем и гончая
чернозема вскидывается, и тут же заваливается на бок.
в легких вместо воздуха – остатки дождя
с каштаном и монетой,
легкая судорога ветра, мышцы еще не разработаны,
сердце жесткое, как новенькая клизма.
а тварь творения
с черным блестящим отчаянием смотрит на меня,
не в силах подняться и побежать,
унюхать кролика. ничего, я подожду.
я тебя наполню сознанием,
красным утерянным сандаликом с налипшими песком.
я здесь надолго – в этой осени.
сколопендры берез ползут по небу,
троллейбусихи в ярких пятнах рекламы.
я буду тебе папой и мамой.
вот так достаю из небытия
из теплой сумки кенгуру не идею, но нечто иное:
ушастая, прозрачная, как цепь бензопилы, в машинном масле.
здравствуй, говорю, я тебя оживлю.
вот пень спиленного дуба и кольца внутри светлы –
со стороны, точно зародыш младенца в разрезе древесном,
и призрак шевелит губами, как нога тапками,
формирует слова, что-то хочет мне сказать…
да, я волшебник.
и пусть нет у меня власти над миром,
прямой и грубой, как хотел бы мой живот, мой кошелек.
но, когда записываю в уме формулы звезды и песка, бурьяна,
высасываю из дырочки яйца птенца,
происходит оцифровывание бытия для Бога.
человечество – больное дерево, ветки трухлявы,
точно кости изъеденные туберкулезом, но можешь не прятаться,
я чувствую тебя,
мерцающий фиолетовый зверь вселенной.
с желто-красным оскалом ночного Макдональдса,
млечного пути,
засохшего сыра старушки с пуделем в мышеловке сквера.
смертные снаружи, внесмертные внутри.
я – та причина, по которой нас всех стоит спасти,
или просто не есть,
не удалять с компьютера.
The Greyhound of Black Earth
Fallen leaves of a linden tree in the park
look like a yellow skeleton of a greyhound,
where every bone is lacquered. My imagination gives it some flesh and
a net of ropy veins, pulls on short black fur, like leggings,
adds pointed ears and tendons, embeds eyes, connects optic nerves,
and the hound of black earth jumps up, but falls over right away.
It has the remains of rain and a coin in its lungs, instead of the air.
A slight cramp of the wind, and it moves,
but the muscles are not ready yet,
and the creature stares at me in black shiny despair,
unable to get up and run, unable to smell a rabbit, but it’s okay,
I’ll wait, I’ll fill you with mind, with a lost baby sandal smeared in dirty sand.
This autumn is here for the long run. The scolopendras of birches
keep crawling across the sky, trolleybuses
in bright patches of advertisements on their sides
keep sliding past. I’ll be your dad and your mom, greyhound of black earth.
This way I’ll take from the warm kangaroo’s pouch of nonexistence
not an idea, but something else: a big-eared, semi-transparent like
the chain of a chainsaw, greyhound.
There is a stump of a sawed-off oak tree;
the rings are so light and so clearly seen,
and their pattern looks like a human embryo in a wooden womb.
The spirit moves its lips; it wants to say something. Yes, I’m a magician.
I don’t have any straight and rude power over the world,
which my stomach or my wallet would prefer,
but when I am writing down the formulae of a star and sand, of grass,
I digitize the reality for God.
You can come out of hiding, shimmering purple animal of the universe,
I can feel you, I can see you in the red and yellow grin of the night McDonalds,
in the old woman walking her poodle who
looks like a piece of dry cheese in the mousetrap of the park.
We are mortal just on the outside, but extra-mortal inside –
I am the reason why all of us should be saved, not eaten,
or at least not removed from the divine computer.
___________________
Dmitry Blizniuk
Review by Massimo Fantuzzi
A story of a difficult birth and strange creation is narrated in this truly visceral piece. Drop by drop, limb by limb, the poet assembles together his own personal and loyal servant.
I digitize the reality for God: by the God-given power of the mind (and divine computer) a creature has been made, an idea has come to life taking a physical shape; however feeble and ineffective in its first endeavours, the figure of a greyhound emerges to a life of its own.
Moving is the poet’s response to the frustration of seeing his creation unable to succeed in its first timid steps and failing, unable to smell a rabbit, in the purpose of its very existence; only unconditional love, patience and parental understanding will keep the illusion alive, for himself and for us: we must be thankful to him for this lesson.
Such a man has a double existence: he may suffer misery, and be overwhelmed by disappointments; yet, when he has retired into himself, he will be like a celestial spirit that has a halo around him, within whose circle no grief or folly ventures. (Mary Shelley, Frankenstein.)
Review by Jared Pearce
Our senses can, on the one hand, lead us astray, as they do the speaker in this poem, mistaking leaves for a dog, and the lovely image of a dog appearing as a mousetrap’s cheese. What’s even more delightful is how being led astray can then, on the other hand, lead to larger ideas of creation, of power, of how a central nervous system or a central processing unit can act as a builder of the cosmos; if we’re not gods creating, then what are we?
Review by John Morrison
There is such disarming charm to this poem, how transparent and casual our speaker is as catalyst, making the poetry happen. Right away, the imagined greyhound becomes corporeal, but imagination is work, and the joy of this poem is following along with the seemingly causal act of seeing and creating. So much rises out of the speaker’s address to creatures of the poem. I’m won over by lines like, “I’ll be your dad and your mom, greyhound of black earth,” and “You can come out of hiding, shimmering purple animal of the universe.” What fun, and what vision when, for example, the rings of an oak tree stump “look like a human embryo in a wooden womb.” Fresh and powerful!
Review by Alan Gold
My God. All these things I’ve been sniffing at in recent years. The Matrix. Westworld. 3 D printing of human organs. The news that that they are selling lab-grown chicken nuggets in Singapore. The sucking black hole of massive multiplayer roleplayer games. And the latest crazes in physics—that we are holograms derived from data encoded on the two dimensional surface. Or that the odds are overwhelming that we live inside a computer simulation. All of this, and tied together with the ancient metaphor of God breathing life into His mudpuppets. The notion that the “extra-mortal within us” is driven to create life that will create life that will create life (it’s turtles all the way down)! From my own little spot in the Mandelbrot, I applaud this poem.