for the marathon dead and wounded

the beginning of this week found me on the shores of lake champlain, fielding phone calls from friends and family, worried about me and unaware that i wasn't home in boston.  thursday night, back at work in cambridge, there were endless streams of police cars, troopers, and cetera racing down mass ave., and by the morning the whole city was in lockdown.

for days, even while the identities of the bombers were completely unknown to the public or myself, i was thinking about my first days in moscow, almost ten years ago.  it seemed as if a suicide bomber was killing himself every other day, in the subways, in red square, taking theaters hostage.  the facades of buildings downtown were draped in bandages.  there were huge holes ripped in the roads.  the wailing of the women on the news broadcasts became all-too familiar.  widows with names not-so-different from the brothers tsarnaev and maps of the caucasus were indelibly impressed on my mind.  i was barely a man, and this was my visceral (as opposed to historical) introduction to terrorism.  i had been in oklahoma city after the murrah building was destroyed and new york after the trade centers fell, but those had been six years apart, in remote cities.  there was the news, and then the aftermath.  in moscow i was walking past these scenes again every day.  i returned there regularly, and every time there had been another incident.

in russian, they call it ter-act for short.
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.
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for the marathon dead and wounded

mid april

passing manchester

the cherries have

no stones

washing their wings

in the river

wind

not nearly

as material as

those bald

merrimack pylons

i am the maculate

receipt

of bestial capital

and care

barely thirty

but i can already

feel the worms

between my legs

the black mold

fastened

to my bones

and in my memory

it was

the same hour

as the cherries

the finish line

burst into flower

notes from behind the bar, and cetera

my first funicular was on the coast of italy, off-scene, in the milk train doesn't stop here anymore, a vehicle for escaping the dogs down the mountain, for the witch of capri to climb the mountain, a way to and from the oubliettes.

my second funicular was the real thing, which pulled me up montmartre in the last year of the last century to the travertine-on-gypsum sacre-coeur

the mount vesuvius funicular, constructed on an active volcano in 1880, was destroyed several times by lava flow and tremors before being left for dead in 1944, with all the war relics of those axised years.

i was looking for a name for a certain kind of car, italian and analogous to a sidecar, for a hotpink cocktail with grappa alla ruta.

the original sidecar came from paris in the first world war, the invention of an american army officer, named after his main mode of transport to and from the bar (with his designated driver on the motorcycle) where he would have them mixed.  i imagine a bar at the top of mount vesuvius where they would make me this:

vesuvius funicular

2 oz rue grappa
1 oz fresh lemon juice
1 oz sugar syrup
sprig dill
egg white

shake dry, then with ice.  double strain, served up, with a splash of peychaud's bitters on top of the settled foam.

a poem in search of an answer

martin earl
i'm reaching out to you
the only way i can
imagining
gathering all my poems into
a pink onion petal

an inch of snow
melts off the roof
each day
and ices the morning steps
paused there like someone
waiting for a train

porcelain saucer
for an ashtray
under a little flower pot
to gather rain
out on the porch
or not

there are brighter stars than this

last april, i learned about viktor kulle when i was asked to translate some of his work by an editor of a journal on the occasion of his fiftieth birthday. as i was reading through work he had published in russian journals, i came across a fabulous cri de coeur called 'stella polaris.'

there are thousands of things written about each visible star in the night sky, but this one arranged itself around several precursors in my mind. itself being an elegy for a woman haunting kulle, who may not even be dead, as in joseph's elegy for marina basmanova. a counterpoint to h.d.'s 'stars wheel in purple.'

in december, i was out on the steps in my new place late at night after rain, looking down behind the houses on the other side of the road where i could see the still waters of chandler pond. i'd had a fight with masha and was smoking a cigarette to calm down.  i'd just read a.r. ammons'  'hardweed path going.'  i came in after masha was asleep to write a culmination poem.
.
.
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'stars wheel in purple'
h.d.

stars wheel in purple, yours is not so rare
as hesperus, not yet so great a star
as bright aldeboran or sirius,
nor yet the stained and brilliant one of war;

stars turn in purple, glorious to the sight;
yours is not so gracious as the pleiads are
nor as orion's sapphires, luminous;

yet disenchanted, cold, imperious face,
when all the others blighted, reel and fall,
your star, steel-set, keeps lone and frigid tryst
to freighted ships, baffled in wind and blast.
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.
.
'elegy'
(after joseph brodsky)

the bar hasn't changed , sweetheart
the crap painted on the walls is the same
the prices haven't change--but has the wine aged?
i don't believe it's any better, any worse
there's no progres, and it's good there isn't

a pilot on the postal route, single and
fallen-angelic, is drowning in his vodka
while fiddles stir the spirits for old times' sake
maidenwhite roofs loom beyond the window
and a bell calls out--it's dark already

you lied, but why: and why can't my ear
distinguish between that and the truth anymore
wanting some new sound--unavailable to you
weird, silent words that might only be
pronounced in your voice, like they used to
.
.
.
'stella polaris'
viktor kulle

the first time
she came to me
darkness in the flesh
and looked me in the eye

and said--i'm not going
anywhere, where would i?
now she's a star
i took her light

but could barely
carry on...
what moves
the satellites

pulled me along, too
i put my soul in neutral...
the oxygen
i'd stolen

into my black ribs--
an amplitude of the senses
the lungs' panting
to their rank ejaculation--i want you

no matter who
i sleep with bile replaces
their stirring dew
dew you and i could hardly

expect to drink now
two mouths pressed into one
less likely here at least
than then and there

the fur on his face
helps keep out the cold
a hunt is happening
somewhere in the clouds

heaven's horn blows
he hears the hounds
and the trembling ball of chase
races down his hole

he dare not speak
a single word
but makes a silent prayer
an underground, an orphan's prayer

lord, shut up my throat
let me lay with
anyone, anything at all
but not--with love
.
.
.
'polestar'

a jo-reet is a bird...
i go out on the stoop
and try to listen to the water
going down to the pond
and the water passing over
try organizing strings of white breath
into something useful
i smoke a cigarette
to hear
the paper burning
i'm of two minds about the
wind
the honey
and the foxhole
about the
hunt
the fowler and the foxer
the ground nests of the marshbirds
the cormorant
in the birch tree
i call them mine
because i made them
the blue scars
up and down
the body
but i don't know who
or whose
any of it is
or where it came from
rain water trying
to find its way home
up or down
i can't sleep
am i fox
or hound
looking for the foxhole
pawing
the ground
under the poem
or bear
and beholden to no one

white stork

no. 63--the irkutsk-minsk express. 3-hour wait at the station, olympic coverage on t.v.--scull, kayak, canoe, javelin, basketball, handball, sprint, shotput, rhythmic gymnastics. today's food--hard-boiled egg, half a slice of bread (a russian specialty) w/cheese and butter, black tea, pepsi light, coconut cookie, 2 litres of water. 7 straight days of sun, sunscreen everyday, still burnt. read my books--molloy, malone dies, the unnameable, and the solitudes.  i bought a russian gq, mila kunis on the cover, 81 rubles.  bought a cup of dry chicken soup for tomorrow's lunch--35 r. 600 r. left. no music. i'll turn my phone off after calling masha from the train. 76 hours to n. novgorod. time to let my skin rest, to edit. in my pocket one bag of tea, enough for three mornings.  i might have lost weight.  i want to get home with 500 rubles.

baikal--an island of buryats, butterflies, and cows.  impossibly clean air and water. daily excursions.  no roads, but paths through the dry grass beat out across the hills by abused russian vans. changing weather, fresh winds, brief rains. 8 days. two nights of bad dreams. bad russian food twice a day--i eat exactly half of each meal, then light training in my cabin.  4 beds, 1 table, a bucket, electricity, me. no mattresses. outhouses. the toilet paper is stolen every day by noon. my belongings--handtowel, toiletries, 3 changes of clothes, light rain coat, pocket knife, books, pean and paper. 4.000 rubles spending money. my purchases--1 hour at the banya with kozel beer (550 r.), pack of marlboros (60 r.), boatride to the islands (650 r.), sundries. unforeseen expense--bus from irkutsk to olkhon (600 r.), supposed to be included.

leave in the evening, reach novosibirsk next evening. past cheremkhova, the river enisei. milena markovna kunis left the village of chernovtsy for l.a. in the middle of her second year of school. she got her first role in a commercial before she could speak fluent english. she's starring as the wicked witch of the west in sam raimi's upcoming oz prequel, filmed in detroit for tax reasons. kevin spacey is riffing on the childhood of evgeny petrov, co-author of the academy-award winning russian remake of 12 angry men. there are new russian bands to discover in a fashion shoot--the retuses, brandenberg, everything is made in china.

pistachios and water while waiting in omsk in the rain. ekaterinburg in the early hours. wake up, wash at the sink, under arms, face, brush my teeth, deodorize, d&g light blue pour homme swath from the magazine, push-ups, sit-ups on my berth in the dark.

no desire to speak to anyone for three days. no privacy or masturbation. i plan to shave my beard, shower, do laundry. i stand and look out the window, sit and read, lie down and toss. i hear a baby cry and want to cry, take the photo from my wallet, write until my pen dies--almost home...



just a heads up on a couple little russian projects i took on this year:

an early draft of a translation of self-diagnosed poete maudit, viktor kulle, on-line for little star,

and my review of stolen air, a new, and atrocious, version of mandelstam in english--by ilya kaminsky and christian wiman.