Стихи и эссе

As rustics in a ring-dance pantomime
The Knight at some lone cross-roads of his quest?

Uncle Henry

When the Flyin’ Scot [138]
fills for shootin’, I go southward,
wisin’ after coffee, leavin’
Lady Starkie.

Weady for some fun,
visit yearly Wome, Damascus,
in Mowocco look for fwesh a —
— musin’ places.

Where I’ll find a fwend,
don’t you know, a charmin’ creature,
like a Gweek God and devoted:
how delicious!

All they have they bwing,
Abdul, Nino, Manfwed, Kosta:
here’s to women for they bear such
lovely kiddies!

Adolescence

'He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside the still waters.'

(King James Bible, Psalms 23:2) [139]

By landscape reminded once of his mother's figure
The mountain heights he remembers get bigger and bigger
With the finest of mapping pens he fondly traces
All the family names on the familiar places.

In a green pasture straying, he walks by still waters;
Surely a swan he seems to earth's unwise daughters,
Bending a beautiful head, worshipping not lying,
'Dear' the dear beak in the dear concha crying.

Under the trees the summer bands were playing;
'Dear boy, be brave as these roots', he heard them saying:
Carries the good news gladly to a world in danger,
Is ready to argue, he smiles, with any stranger.

And yet this prophet, homing the day is ended,
Receives odd welcome from the country he so defended:
The band roars 'Coward, Coward', in his human fever,
The giantess shuffles near, cries 'Deceiver'.

Are You There?

Each lover has some theory of his own
About the difference between the ache
Of being with his love, and being alone:

Why what, when dreaming, is dear flesh and bone
That really stirs the senses, when awake,
Appears a simulacrum of his own.

Narcissus disbelieves in the unknown;
He cannot join his image in the lake
So long as he assumes he is alone.

The child, the waterfall, the fire, the stone,
Are always up to mischief, though, and take
The universe for granted as their own.

The elderly, like Proust, are always prone
To think of love as a subjective fake;