“From nowhere with love, the eleventh of March...” Joseph Brodsky
Out of nowhere with love, the eleventh of March,
dear, respected, sweetheart, but it doesn’t matter
even who, for the devil's face, speaking
frankly, I can’t remember, not yours, but
and no one's faithful friend greets you from one
from five continents, supported by cowboys.
I loved you more than the angels and myself,
and so further now
from you than from both of them.
Far away, late at night, in the valley, at the very bottom,
in a town covered in snow up to the door handle,
squirming on the sheets at night,
as not stated below, at least
I fluff up my pillow with a humming “you”
behind the mountains, which have no end,
in the dark your whole body features
Analysis of Brodsky’s poem “From Nowhere with Love, on the Eleventh of March...”
Brodsky worked on the “Part of Speech” cycle from 1975 to 1976, while in exile in the USA. In it, the poet developed the idea expressed as part of his Nobel lecture - a person is not capable of life outside the elements of his native language.
According to Ekaterina Semenova, a researcher of Brodsky’s work, “Part of Speech” is an example of “a new variety of Russian poem of the twentieth century.” The cycle has a dedication, an introduction and an epilogue, although they are not formally highlighted. All poems are written in the same size, they have twelve lines (except for the first). The dedication is “From nowhere with love, on the eleventh of March...”. The work tells about the beloved of the lyrical hero. The first line is a reworking of the clichés of the epistolary genre. What usually appears at the end in letters, Joseph Alexandrovich puts at the beginning. The spatial coordinate is immediately indicated - “from nowhere”. The poet gives her a number of characteristics, including “in a town covered with snow up to the door handle,” “in a sleeping valley, at the very bottom,” “beyond seas that have no end.” The place in which the lyrical hero is located is removed from the real world. Please note that Brodsky talks about five continents, although there are six on Earth. It is clear that by the continent supported by cowboys, he means North America. The hero of the poem cannot boast of his closeness to the world of God: “and therefore is further from you now than from both of them [the angels and the Lord].” He is expelled from everywhere, everywhere he feels like a stranger. It is likely that “out of nowhere” is a very real place, but the lyrical hero is not able to fully accept it. For him, reality is embodied only by a pillow and a sheet. Brodsky also set the time coordinate - “the eleventh of March”. Joseph Aleksandrovich refers readers to Gogol’s story “Notes of a Madman” (1834). In it, one of the letters of a minor St. Petersburg official Poprishchin is dated March 86.
The lyrical hero begins the story in a sublime, excited tone, as if he is trying to express all the emotions overwhelming him at once. The reader gets a little lost and confused from such an abundance of information. Then he is given a short break. The lines lengthen, as if homogeneous members are strung together with beads on a thread. The tone becomes calmer and more measured. In the finale everything returns to normal. The last four lines are characterized by the same heightened degree of emotion as the first. The main emotion expressed in the poem is despair from loneliness and unhappy love. It drives the lyrical hero to a state of madness. It is not for nothing that there is an allusion to “Notes of a Madman.” The final words also indicate mental illness:
...in the darkness your whole body features,
repeating like a crazy mirror.
Literary critics often accused Brodsky’s lyrics of coldness, monotony, and inhumanity. Even the most ardent opponent of Joseph Alexandrovich would be hard-pressed to describe the poem “From Nowhere with Love, on the Eleventh of March...” with similar words. This work contains pain, live emotions, and sincere feelings.
... and if you look at our girls or young people, at the way they are dressed, and it’s not even about rags, this is a crime of the system - and not a political crime, but an anthropological crime, a crime against the species. And this makes a very strong impression. Well, never mind, don't talk about it.
- But why? What else can we talk about if not this?
- This is not worth talking about, and do you know why? Then my friend arrived, I met him at the airport, and he immediately began to tell me, right away, about the latest injustices to which he was subjected at the Writers' Union. I explained it at the airport in every detail. I tell him, listen, this looks like a memoir at best, it doesn’t look like a story. He says: "Why?" “Yes, it’s very simple,” I say, “By telling, you seem to lengthen the reality of what happened to you, and this should not be done. If this happens and it cannot be avoided, okay, it can be experienced, but at the same time, in no case should it be kept in the dictionary, in conversation. That is, you cannot add an additional dimension to this.” He says: “I can’t do this. I can’t help but pay attention to people, even if they are bad.” I say: “Oh-oh-oh, this is a domestic training that we all went through.” He says: “What do you suggest?” I say: “But there is another option. To rush through it without paying attention, that is, to immediately forget about it.” He says: “I can’t do this, I can’t ignore it.”
“You don’t remember well, maybe.” He really can't.
- I know he can't. I tell him, “I know you can’t, but maybe by not paying attention, not talking about it, and behaving in such a way that you won’t talk about it later, you will do more good for yourself, and for them too. Because when a person knows that he is a scoundrel, and knows that he is mocking you, and knows that this will make an impression on you, that this will remain in you for a long time and will be passed on to someone else - this, as it were, strengthens him in his position. Whereas if you're looking at him in a forced way and he knows you'll forget about him in five minutes, that might somehow move him in the other direction. In any case, here he has a chance for change, but in the first case, no.” He says: “You learned this in America.” I say: “I didn’t learn this in America, it’s always been like this.” That's why I ended up in America to a certain extent. But, on the other hand, I realized that there is some truth in this. Because this is, indeed, to a certain extent, a local view of things, that is, an American view of things.
“But this is absolutely not a Russian trait.”
- Yes, absolutely true, but still, this is more likely a human trait; perhaps we shouldn’t divide into Russian and non-Russian here, but maybe we should. But it would do well for my compatriots to learn this. This is extremely important knowledge.
— Doesn’t correspond with the circumstances, with the surrounding reality?
- Yeah... Don't give them the attention they expect.
— In our texts, the word “privacy” is usually given without translation, because it is impossible to find an equivalent. The everyday concept of “private life” in our country turns into the categories of ethics and almost heroics.
“And yet I learned this there, and not in America.” I think what my trouble was there, why everything turned out this way for me and this is how everything turned out with my mercy - this is me looking back. Because, probably, I really didn't pay attention to it. what happened with the investigation, what the investigator said, and so on, and so on, and this, of course, infuriated them enormously. I don't think that was a rational definition of choice. I also don't think it's purely a matter of temperament.
This is when you read books, and having read, you are completely unable to perceive this imposed reality and perceive it as a reality of a lower order. Then why not read books? And if it already happened, what have you already read? Haha. And this is the only way to re-educate them. If you set such a goal at all. I behaved this way not at all based on considerations of re-education. There was just no time for that, haha. Ask your difficult questions.
— I don’t have any difficult questions.
- Should I wake the cat? A wonderful story about the awakened cat. Somewhere in the sixties in Yugoslavia, some lady, either a Labor member or a Conservative, basically from parliament, came to see my friend. He was enormously inspired. It happened in winter. He didn't know how to show her his sentiments. He had his own zoo on the island where he lived, and so, to demonstrate his passion to her, he said: “Would you like me to wake up a bear for you?” It was winter. And the bear was woken up. Haha. Would you like me to wake up the cat for you?
Why are you silent? I hear. I understand everything perfectly, but I hear the following in this. We are talking to you, and I hear the fears, concerns, hopes, and insecurities of a person who grew up, just like me, in a totalitarian state. This is a country that, in general... Why did I talk about an anthropological crime... What happens in this system... That is, when you are born in it, when you live in it, and even now, when there are some kind of freedoms... it is still a consciousness of hypnotism existing reality. She begins to change before your eyes, and these changes even more hypnotize you. For this is the only reality that exists for you. And what is happening, right or wrong, you guess... Why am I talking about hypnotization, because it enslaves your consciousness... That is, any assessment that you can develop in relation to this, you give from within this system. This is still an assessment within an authoritarian system. That is, the monstrosity of this situation is that... Although, perhaps today it is a little different, for you, Lyuba personally, but in principle, no matter what you do, no matter how you spin, no matter what insights you have visited, or vice versa, no matter what abyss you descend into, these are still insights and abysses within a certain limited system. So you can't look at it from the outside, right? That is, with such a distant and wild eye. That is, that this is happening, and maybe all this, to a certain extent, is not happening? Yes? Yes? And the degrees of absence of this “no” are different. They may be different. This may be that wild look from the inside. Or maybe what I'm talking about. When it’s not “as if”, but really isn’t there. For me this is not the case. For today, because I live outside. But the fact that I exist outside these sixteen years should not be understood this way, that is, it is not... that is, besides the fact that it is a purely physical luxury, but besides the physical luxury, this continuation follows from that wild look at all this, which some in my generation had it. And what saddens me tremendously... You say, “Memory,” God forbid this happens, this happens, and I understand that we live in this, and it’s impossible to get rid of it, but the whole trick is to get rid of it. I even thought quite recently that even the most holy being, even imagine some modern Zosima, even if he is visited by revelations, some kind of insight comes. What happens as a result of this insight? He begins to think about the world, about a higher being... And this higher being and this world, and this alternative hierarchy, an alternative system of values, he will still rebuild according to the hierarchical grid in which he was raised and in which he exists. That is, if he talks about God, he will talk about him as a supreme being, as a being that is higher than the boss. That is, about what is on top. He won’t think about the fact that it might be somewhere on the side. It won't occur to him. And this is a disaster. Because this system, it constructs a person in its own image. Or a person designs himself in her likeness. I don’t know where the egg is, where the chicken is.
“It’s impossible to understand this when you’re dealing with a system that’s ingenious in its own way—it’s ideally self-reproducing, even among those who are in conscious opposition to it.” Meanwhile, the Fatherland, as always, needs prophets. And as always, there are no others, and those are far away.
- Yes, yes... self-reproduction. But why have they always pressed on all sorts of otherworldly systems of perception - Buddhism, say, Indology? Although they did not know any of this, they felt in these systems, in these versions of the worldview, a different hierarchy, a different, hierarchical structure. That's why it was persecuted and equated with opposition. That's where the sadness lies. It’s not that a person is not allowed to jump out of this net. And the fact is that, having jumped out, it immediately begins to build the same grid. In general, all our evil comes from one simple thing: when one person begins to think that he is better than another. “I am better than him” is the root of all evil. When a person puts himself above his peers.
- But this is a cosmopolitan plot, and absolutely independent of any social realities.
- Absolutely right. But it can be formalized, or it can not be formalized.
“And this problem does not only apply to humanity. There is a wonderful story by Darrell about how he released the animals from the zoo, and they all came back.
- Well, yes, absolutely right. You know, the only thing I hoped for was that at least this wasn’t in my writings. This is what you need to consolidate in yourself.
-You have your own fears...
- Fears? What are my fears? Where do you live in Leningrad?
— On Vasilyevsky Island.
- Where exactly?
— On the 19th line.
- Where on the 19th?
— Corner of 19th and Schmidt embankment.
-Where do the windows go?
— To the 19th line. From the window there is a red three-story house and a tree. You asked this question about windows. And I once thought: it’s funny, of course, but I’m scared to think that I have to leave the communal apartment and abandon this red house and the tree from the window.
- You can refuse everything. You can refuse everything.
- No. You are probably a very free person. I have nothing to be proud of. If we understand attachments as slavery, I have to agree that my essence is slave. However, if fear is understood as slavery, too.
- You know, in addition to what we said, in addition to the political system... I thought that some outlandish story happened to the Russian people. Surely my opinions on this topic are amateurish... And yet. Remember how we were taught at school... With the formation of psychology, consciousness... How were we taught? That all this developed this way - first there were nomads, then sedentary ones... That the species (humans) evolved from a nomadic way of life to a sedentary one. I think that this version of history, that it was composed by sedentary people and is therefore already painted in certain tones... But I think that everything could be the other way around. There were sedentary people, and then nomads appear, and you have to run away. Well, let's say you have a red house and a tree, you live, and then someone else appears who also liked it here. And he is younger than you, healthier, and ruins your home, and takes your place for himself. And you have to leave. So. I think that Russians switched to a sedentary lifestyle relatively recently, perhaps a millennium. And that’s why they hold on to their settled way of life. Why is a sedentary person afraid of a nomad? Not because a nomad can destroy his home. But because a nomad, as it were, compromises the idea of a horizon that exists for a sedentary person. Yes? And this, perhaps, is not so much a Russian trait as a continental, that is, European. That is, historical in some way. Because everything that exists on the continent, that is, at least up to the Urals, is strictly demarcated... The grid is the same. That is, jump, don’t jump, you’ll gallop to the next border. And what, let’s say, was wonderful for me in a certain speculative way - moving here. Because here, behind every non-bush bush, there is an ocean, and this giant ocean sigh - “So what?” The ocean that compromises all this division into squares and cells.
Why do I say that you can give up everything? Because in a sense there is more ocean and emptiness in this world than space filled with details and so on.
—Does the sight of the ocean cause you delight or horror?
- Both. Both. Yes. It's still better than everything else. I speak not as a sedentary person, but as a nomad. It so happened that at the age of 32 I suffered the Mongolian fate. And abandon this... and return to that... That is, I listen... but I listen as if from the saddle. About what the settled people have doomed themselves to and how they suffer, right? This probably happened before.
It will all end badly, of course. It will end in some big hotel. Much to the displeasure of the service staff. Haha... But these are already such... additional worries.
Just when all this happened... In 1972, on May 10th... Or, rather, when I found myself in Vienna on June 4th and my friend came to meet me from the States. He asked me: “Where are you going?” I say, “I have no idea.” This happened at the airport. He says, “How do you feel about going to Michigan State, we offer it to you.” I say: “Wonderful, I agree.”
I just realized that... Of course, I could still try... Stay in Europe, in England, in France or, best of all, in Italy. Where there was still some feeling of continuation... But I realized that there could be no continuation, that if we were to lose, then to the end. Lose everything and give up everything. Perhaps with such a final end comes a sense of infinity.
“I understand that you didn’t seem to have a choice, but at such a price - even for something priceless, but... speculative... or speculative - for me? And for me, the ocean was the biggest shock here, although before it seemed that the ocean was the same as the sea: water, sky and horizon line... But from this sensory shock, even the most unexpected and strong, you still go into what is close and understandable, into the warmth of the habits of real life. When you say “feeling of infinity”, I find it more creepy than... understandable. And it’s creepy because you don’t want to feel what you’re saying. That is, I want to understand, but I'm afraid to feel.
- You see, without history a person can still exist, but without geography... This is what I’m telling you, that you shouldn’t allow yourself to be hypnotized... by what’s happening under your nose... by what the boss says from the podium or some scumbag from Rumyantsevsky kindergarten This all happens at this point in space. In another, this no longer happens. Many people don't understand this. I remember once, while reading Hegel, I thought what a wonderful, harmonious system, here he sits, argues, and there, across the Pas de Calais, the English Channel, completely different things are happening there, and no one knows that Hegel came up with this, and another 100-200 years will pass before he is translated and it will begin to fool them...
—Will you come to visit us?
- I don’t know, I’m not able to go on a visit. A tourist. Haha.
— Why a tourist?
- Well, and by whom? Guest-tourist. This time. And... I, Lyuba, am not a pendulum. Rock back and forth. I probably won't do it. It’s just that a person moves only in one direction, Lyuba. But only. But only - from. From places, from the thought that comes to his mind, from yourself. You can't go into the same river twice. And you can’t step on the same asphalt twice. It is different with each new wave of cars. It’s my old joke that it still makes sense for a criminal to return to the scene of a crime, but it makes no sense to return to the place of love. There's nothing buried there except a dog. But it's not just that. Although in this, and in the other, and in the third. But the fact is that either simply with my personal physical movement, or simply with the movement of time - you become more and more autonomous body, you become a capsule launched into an unknown destination. And up to a certain time, the forces of gravity still act, but once you go beyond a certain limit, a different system of gravity arises - outward. And there, like at Baikonur, there is no one. You understand?
- Sorry, you couldn’t count on an equal interlocutor, and I honestly admitted everything, explaining about slavery, the Ocean, the red house with a tree under the window. In that ordinary system of gravity, which you may at least remember, there are perhaps relative values, but the force of gravity does not decrease from the awareness of their relativity.
- But in another way... Mandelstam, in one excellent article, describes the story of the first Russian embassy, in my opinion, during the reign of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich. About how they left and never returned. Mandelstam writes: “There is no return from existence to non-existence.”
- So you remembered Mandelstam, and I think... Is it really that acquisition, the state that you describe, that I call “freedom”, and you wince and correct - “the feeling of infinity”, this is “it”, which is just as concrete for you, like love or despair, but for me it is as fascinating and abstract as, say, the concept of “Universe”... But in a word, this is an existence outside the grid and hierarchy, and even the denial of hierarchy, and this is your “outside”, and even and not “anti”... is it really so specifically related to geographical location? Not just anyone, Mandelstam, whose space was not only divided into cells, but also fenced off with red flags and the number of physically accessible cells was reduced to the tragic minimum of several shelters in both forbidden capitals... How was it possible to renounce and soar there, and they were not saved? didn't make any moves from. According to the recollections of Nadezhda Yakovlevna - for hours, days, weeks - how the official looked, and what he said, and what it would mean... And the evening at the Writers' Union, and the collection, it was important, vital, it was extremely important every day, and consumed soul, and inexorably took away from poetic inspiration.
“You have never been in prison, and God willing, you never will, but a person in prison, and especially under investigation, becomes extremely superstitious. He tries to interpret everything, the most insignificant details become signs, omens. The expression on the bellhop’s face, how the bellhop pushed him, that they brought him something to eat, and so on, and so on. Dreams are extremely important. And very often everything coincides. Why is this happening? Probably, if you were not in prison, you would pay less attention to your dreams and, in general, to what comes into your field of vision. The fact that they talked about it, that it was important to them, speaks only about one thing - what place they were in. And the only thing that can add some kind of softening Christian note to this is that time still passes one way or another - no matter what you talk about: about Hegel, about parrots, or about the look on the investigator’s face. It still passes. It all depends on how you... well, organize it for yourself. If you have a choice. If there is no choice... But then you shouldn’t forget where you are. And if only from this, you are overcome by a colossal contempt for reality. I still think that Marina Tsvetaeva, she did not go into these analyzes. She had this wonderful line: “There is only one answer to your crazy world - refusal.”
... Look, there's a cat. The cat doesn't care at all whether the Memory society exists. Or the department of ideology under the Central Committee. Also, however, he is indifferent to the President of the United States, his presence or absence. How am I worse than this cat?
Out of nowhere with love, the eleventh of March,
dear, respected, dear, but no matter
even who, for the devil's face, speaking
Frankly, I don’t remember, it’s no longer yours, but
and no one's faithful friend greets you from one
from five continents, held together by cowboys,
I loved you more than the angels and myself,
and therefore further from you now than from both of them,
late at night, in a sleeping valley, at the very bottom,
in a town covered with snow up to the door handle,
wriggling on the sheets at night -
as not stated below at least -
I fluff up my pillow with a humming "you"
beyond the seas that have no end,
in the darkness your whole body features,
repeating like a crazy mirror.
Because the heel leaves marks - winter.
Freezing in wooden things in the field,
They recognize themselves at home by passers-by.
What to say in the evening about the future, if
memories in the silence of the night
about your warmth - a pass - when I fell asleep,
the body throws away from the soul
on the wall, like the shadow of a chair
a candle on the wall in the evening,
and under the tablecloth the sky pulled towards the forest
over the silo rubbed with the wing of a rook
You can’t whiten the air with prickly snow.
With the word "future" from the Russian language
the mice and the whole horde run out
nibble off a tasty morsel
memory that your cheese is full of holes.
After so many winters it doesn't matter anymore
what or who is behind the curtain,
and the unearthly “do” is heard in the brain,
but its rustling. The life that
like a gift, they don’t look into the mouth,
bares his teeth at every meeting.
Of the whole person we are left with a part
speech. Part of speech in general. Part of speech.
It’s not that I’m going crazy, but I’m tired over the summer.
You reach into the chest of drawers for a shirt, and the day is lost.
I wish winter would come quickly and take it all away -
cities, people, but first, greenery.
I will sleep without undressing or read from anyone
place someone else's book, for now the rest of the year,
like a dog running away from a blind man,
cross the asphalt in the right place. Liberty
This is when you forget the tyrant's middle name,
and the saliva in your mouth is sweeter than Shiraz halva,
and although your brain is twisted like a ram's horn,
nothing drips from the blue eye.
On the death of Zhukov
I see columns of frozen sounds,
coffin on carriage, horse croup.
The wind doesn't bring me any sounds here
Russian military crying trumpets.
I see a corpse dressed in regalia:
The fiery Zhukov leaves for death.
A warrior before whom many have fallen
walls, even though the enemy’s sword was dumber,
the brilliance of the Hannibal maneuver
reminiscent of the Volga steppes.
He ended his days in dull disgrace,
like Belisarius or Pompey.
How much soldier blood did he shed?
to a foreign land! Well, were you grieving?
Did he remember them, dying in civilian clothes?
white bed? Complete failure.
What will he answer when he meets in hell?
areas with them? "I fought."
To the just cause of Zhukov's right hands
will no longer apply in battle.
Sleep! The history of the Russian page
enough for those in the infantry ranks
boldly entered foreign capitals,
but they returned in fear to their own.
Marshal! greedy Lethe will swallow
these words are your ancestors.
Still, accept them - a pathetic contribution
to the one who saved his homeland, speaking out loud.
Beat the drum and the war flute,
whistle loudly like a bullfinch.
1974
On the death of a friend
Name, you, - because he won’t pay for the work
to get you from under a stone, - from me, anonymous,
as in the same cases: because they will erase from the stone,
and due to the fact that I am on top and, besides the stone,
too far for you to distinguish voices -
on an Aesopian hairdryer in the fatherland of white heads,
where by touch and hearing you pinned your poles
in the wet space of evil wrens and screeching barn owls;
name of the river, you, the son of the conductor's widow from
either the Holy Spirit, or raised yard dust,
the book thief, the writer of the best of odes
at A.S.’s fall into lace and at Goncharova’s feet,
the talker, the liar, the eater of small tears,
lover of Ingres, tram calls, asphodels,
white-toothed snake in the colonnade of the gendarmerie tarpaulin,
lonely heart and body of countless beds -
let it lie on you like in a big Orenburg shawl,
in our brown land, local rogue pipes and smoke,
who understood life like a bee on a hot flower,
and frozen to death in the parade of the Third Rome.
Maybe there is no better gate to Nothing in the world.
Man of the pavement, you would say that the best is not needed,
floating down the dark river in a colorless coat,
whose clasps alone saved you from falling apart.
The sullen Charon seeks in vain for the drachma in your mouth,
in vain someone blows his trumpet overhead long-drawnly.
I send you a nameless farewell bow
from unknown shores. It doesn't matter to you.
1973
From the outskirts to the center
So I visited again
this area of love, the peninsula of factories,
a paradise of workshops and an arcadia of factories,
paradise of river steamers,
I whispered again:
Here I am again in baby lari.
So I ran through Malaya Okhta again through a thousand arches.
There is a river in front of me
spread out under the coal smoke,
there's a tram behind
thundered on the bridge unharmed,
and brick fences
the gloom suddenly brightened.
Good afternoon, here we are, poor youth.
Suburban jazz welcomes us
you hear the trumpets of the suburbs,
golden dixieland
handsome, charming in black caps,
not soul and not flesh -
someone's shadow over the native gramophone,
as if your dress was suddenly thrown up by a saxophone.
In a bright red muffler
and in a raincoat in the gateways, in the front doors
you're standing in plain sight
on the bridge near the years of irrevocability,
pressing an unfinished glass of lemonade to his face,
and the expensive chimney of the plant roars behind.
Good afternoon. Well, we have a meeting.
How insubstantial are you:
there's a new sunset nearby
drives fire sheets into the distance.
How poor are you? So many years
but they rushed in vain.
Good afternoon, my youth. My God, how beautiful you are.
Over frozen hills
greyhounds rush silently,
among the red swamps
train whistles sound,
on an empty highway
disappearing in the smoke of the woodland,
taxis fly out, and the aspen trees look into the sky.
This is our winter.
The modern lantern looks with a deathly eye,
they are burning in front of me
dazzling thousands of windows.
I raise my cry,
so that he doesn’t collide with houses:
It’s our winter that can’t come back.
Not until death, no,
We won’t find her, we won’t find her.
From birth to the world
We go somewhere every day,
like someone is far away
plays great in new buildings.
We all run away. Only death alone brings us together.
This means there are no separations.
There is a huge meeting.
So, someone suddenly
in the dark he hugs you by the shoulders,
and full of darkness
and full of darkness and peace,
We are all standing together over a cold shining river.
How easy it is for us to breathe,
because it is like a plant
in someone else's life
we become light and shadow
or more than that -
because we will lose everything,
running away forever, we become death and paradise.
Here I go again
in the same bright paradise - from the stop to the left,
runs in front of me,
covering herself with her palms, new Eve,
bright red Adam
appears in the arches in the distance,
The Neva wind rings mournfully in the hanging harps.
How fast life is
in the black and white paradise of new buildings.
The snake is entwined,
and the heroic sky is silent,
ice mountain
motionless shines by the fountain,
The morning snow is swirling and the cars are flying tirelessly.
Isn't it me?
illuminated by three lanterns,
so many years in the dark
ran through the fragments of wastelands,
and the radiance of heaven
was there a swirl at the crane?
Isn't it me? Something has changed here forever.
Someone new reigns
nameless, beautiful, omnipotent,
burning over the fatherland,
dark blue light spills out,
and in the eyes of the greyhounds
the lanterns rustle - one flower at a time,
someone always walks near new houses alone.
This means there are no separations.
So it was in vain that we asked for forgiveness
from their dead.
This means there is no return for winter.
There is only one thing left:
walk on the ground without worry.
Impossible to fall behind. Overtaking is the only thing possible.
Where we are rushing
is this hell or heaven,
or simply darkness,
darkness, it's all unknown,
dear country,
a constant subject of chanting,
Isn't she love? No, it doesn't have a name.
This is eternal life:
an amazing bridge, an incessant word,
barge passing,
revival of love, killing of the past,
steamship lights
and the shine of shop windows, the ringing of distant trams,
the splash of cold water near your ever-wide trousers.
Congratulations to myself
with this early discovery, with you,
congratulations to myself
with a surprisingly bitter fate,
with this eternal river,
with this sky in the beautiful aspen trees,
with a description of the losses behind the silent crowd of shops.
Not a resident of these places,
not a dead man, but some kind of intermediary,
all alone
you shout about yourself at last:
didn't recognize anyone
mistaken, forgot, deceived,
thank God it's winter. So, I haven't returned anywhere.
Thank God it's a stranger.
I'm not blaming anyone here.
Nothing to know.
I'm walking, I'm in a hurry, I'm overtaking.
How easy it is for me now
because he didn’t break up with anyone.
Thank God that I was left on earth without a homeland.
Congratulations to myself!
No matter how many years I live, I don’t need anything.
How many years will I live?
how much will I give for a glass of lemonade?
How many times will I come back -
but I won’t come back - it’s like I’m locking the house,
how much will I give for the sadness of a brick chimney and a dog barking.
Roman elegies (1981)
Benedette Cravieri
I
Captive mahogany of a private apartment in Rome.
Under the ceiling is a dusty crystal island.
The blinds at sunset are like fish,
mixed up scales and skeleton.
Putting my bare foot on the red marble,
the body takes a step into the future - to get dressed.
If you shouted “freeze” now, I would immediately freeze,
like this city did with happiness in childhood.
The world is made of nakedness and folds.
There is more love in these latter than in faces.
Just like the tenor in the opera is so sweet,
that disappears forever into the scenes.
Looking at night, the blue pupil rinses
your lens with a tear, bringing it to sparkle.
And the moon in our heads, like an empty square:
no fountain. But from the same stone.
II
The month of frozen pendulums (in August the
only a fly in the throat of a dry decanter).
The numbers on the dials are crossed, like
air defense searchlights in search of the seraph.
A month of drawn curtains and covered chairs,
sweaty double in the mirror above the chest of drawers,
bees who have forgotten the location of the hives
and flew away to the sea to be covered in honey.
Work, stream, over the snow-white, flabby
muscle, play with a tow of gray tan marks.
For the homeless torso and the idle rake
there is nothing closer than the sight of ruins.
Yes, and they are in the broken “r” of the Jew
recognize themselves too; only salivary solution
and hold the fragments together until Time
looks around the forum with a barbaric gaze.
...............................
XII
Lean over, I'll whisper something in your ear: I
grateful for everything; for chicken cartilage
and for the chirping of scissors already cutting
I have emptiness, since it is Yours.
It's okay that it's black. Nothing that's in it
no hand, no face, no oval.
The more invisible a thing is, the more true it is,
that she once existed
on earth, and the more it is everywhere.
You were the first one this happened to, weren't you?
That's the only thing that hangs on a nail,
which is not divisible by two without a remainder.
I was in Rome. It was flooded with light. So,
as only a fragment can dream!
On my retina there is a gold penny.
Enough darkness for the entire length.
Out of nowhere with love, the eleventh of March,
dear, respected, sweetheart, but it doesn’t matter
even who, for the devil's face, speaking
frankly, I can’t remember, not yours, but
and no one's faithful friend greets you from one
from five continents, supported by cowboys.
I loved you more than the angels and myself,
and so further now
from you than from both of them.
Far away, late at night, in the valley, at the very bottom,
in a town covered in snow up to the door handle,
squirming on the sheets at night,
as not stated below, at least
I fluff up my pillow with a humming “you”
behind the mountains, which have no end,
in the dark your whole body features
repeating like a crazy mirror.
Analysis of the poem “From Nowhere with Love” by Brodsky
The poem “From Nowhere with Love” is part of the “Parts of Speech” cycle, on which Joseph Brodsky worked in exile in 1975-76. Many accused Brodsky's love poetry of deliberate, even ostentatious coldness, but this work can hardly be called such.
From the very first lines, the author turns his poem not just into a rhymed text, but refers the reader to the traditions of the epistolary genre. This adds special insight to the work. At the same time, what is usually at the end of a letter is the note “with love”, in Brodsky it turns into a kind of title. The text is an experiment, a challenge to standards. And it is with him that the entire poetic cycle begins.
The image of “out of nowhere” sounds like an indefinite, but at the same time very voluminous place that could be anywhere - “in a town covered with snow up to the door handle,” “behind the mountains, which have no end.” The lyrical hero seems to be cut off from the real world and cannot accurately determine his position in the world.
The tone of the poem is confused, as if excited. The number of words in lines is constantly changing. However, in the finale, the tone of the narrative becomes calm and measured again, and the growing sensual madness of the lyrical hero acquires some completeness. The hero, in his desperate, selfless impulse of love, reaches a point called madness - “...in the darkness, your whole body repeats your features, like a crazy mirror.”
The emotional state of the lyrical hero is also indicated by the name of the month indicated at the very beginning - “the eleventh of March”. This is an allusion to Gogol’s “Notes of a Madman,” where one of the letters was allegedly written on March 86th.
The lyrical hero goes so deeply into his feelings that he renounces faith and finds himself detached from everything at once - both from the object of his love and from “himself” (God). This poem has everything - pain, alienation, loneliness, and a whole tangle of sincere feelings, beautiful and at the same time destructive.
Joseph Alexandrovich Brodsky is rightfully considered one of the most prominent poetic figures of the 20th century. His works are innovative both in terms of the depth of meaning and in the issue of accepted norms of versification and language in general. Diversity, mixing of genres, soulful metaphors - all this makes Brodsky’s poetry unforgettable and original.
