Фанаты валят с трибун,
Поминая отца игрока,
Повиснув на сетке ограды,
Вопя, как обезьяны, что надо!
А Джимми Пирсолл28 —
Тот распадался почти всю
Карьеру, на части,
А однажды проснулся в августе —
И завыл на весь
Номер отеля,
В одном из многих, —
Безрадостных.
«…All things are interrelated. As above, so below. We are fragments of an unutterable whole. Meaning is always in search of itself…»
…All things are interrelated. As above, so below. We are fragments of an unutterable whole. Meaning is always in search of itself.
– Charles Simic, «Street-Corner Theology».
«…Все взаимосвязано. Как наверху, так и внизу. Мы фрагменты неразделимого целого. И смысл жизни всегда в поиске себя…»
…Все взаимосвязано. Как наверху, так и внизу. Мы фрагменты неразделимого целого. И смысл жизни всегда в поиске себя.
Чарльз Симик29, «Теология на углу улицы»
As Above, So Below
On my last day of work Donny called
to say he was not going to make it to his
psychiatrist appointment even though he
was only one El stop away.
The problem, he said, was people thought
he wanted to push them all off the platform,
but he knew they, actually, wanted to push
him in front of one of these express trains
screaming past the wooden platform
between locals.
*
The upstairs neighbors said their girl
practices for active shooters in school
by running into the bathroom and standing
on the toilet so her shoes aren’t visible
under the stall door.
*
The shell grows, following the laws of sacred
geometry when left untouched.
The hive destroyed, the bees followed the queen to
the trunk of a 1996 Chevy Cavalier.
The plants in my office curl toward the sun and
every week I move the chopsticks holding the jade
upright, struggling to create some order
during a cancelled hour.
*
There’s a yellow-curbed strip of garden outside my window
where Hector the building engineer took two bunnies from
an orange bucket and released them into the dirt
between the sidewalk and the street as he didn’t want
to soak them while watering.
A magic trick – I hadn’t noticed him scoop them
up in the first place.
*
After finishing a conspiracy theory poem about how
the federal government killed a famous athlete’s father
to protect the price of another historical sports figure’s
baseball card, I ran into the same man who illuminated
those links, the racist plots of 3 AM talk radio and the
manifest class system which keeps the invisible hand
feeding the devil.
On the El platform, the man and his girlfriend introduced
themselves politely in case I had forgotten. I had to prove
I remembered where they lived after he, released by the state,
finished his Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity adjudication and
upon his return to the world, the opulence of the cereal aisle
provoked a panic attack and a demand to return to the unit.
Proud we all remembered each others’ names,
they, somewhat disappointed, told me I should be
driving a Porsche, not riding the train.
*
Anxiety is the gap between the way things are
and the way we want them to be.
The tip of the iceberg is the only known quantity
and all symptoms are an effort
to keep us alive.
Как наверху, так и внизу
В последний рабочий день, мне позвонил Донни
И сказал – не пойдет к психиатру более,
Хотя тот в остановке от него.
Они думали, признался Дон мне, что он хотел их сбросить с платформы,
Но он-то знал, что это они хотели его под поезд оформить.
Сосед сверху сказал, что их дочь
Учится при школьной стрельбе не медлить,
Ходит в душ и в туалет, так,
Чтобы обувь в щель не заметили.
Раковина