Two Poems

Sunt aliquid manes*

(from Propertius IV, 7 and after a translation into Russian by Grigory Dashevsky)

Those manes are not nothing, death does spare something:
the wan ghost-runner
outpaces the crematorium fire

I’ll tell you what I saw:
how Cynthia came and lay on my bunk
Cynthia who was cremated only a few days ago
                                            beyond the busy ring road.

I was thinking about her funeral,
I was falling asleep and
grieving the winter
that had fallen
                       over the narrow country of my berth.

The same hair she had at death
and the same eyes; her dress was singed on the seam;
the fire had touched her favourite ring of beryl
and the waters of Lethe had partly dissolved her face.

She sighed and spoke,
wringing her thin hands:

‘You fucker, I feel sorry for anyone who believes you –

Sleeping so sweetly
I bet you even forgot
those rooms we had in that dive
even the window sill
worn by the fire escape ladder:
remember how I’d let myself drop the last few feet
onto your shoulders?

Or how our love found its perch
on the sides of roads, in parks
where our breastbones grated against each other
and our bodies warmed the grass under your coat.

So much for your silent Southern oaths
The North wind blew our lies into tatters.
I closed my eyes
and no one even noticed.
I could have stayed another day
if you’d only shouted, hey, wait!

… oh well, too late.

But afterwards
I don’t suppose anyone saw you doubled up,
the collar of your best suit moist
with tears?
Couldn’t be bothered to go out of town?
You could at least have asked the hearse
to pass your place
Couldn’t even manage a cheap bunch of hyacinths
to lay where my ash was scattered.

That lackey – they should brand his face
And the cook – press a white hot iron on her soft belly
I never realised that wine was cloudy with poison!
Heat that iron enough
and even cunning Noma will crack
and reveal the foul substance she used.

That new girl you’ve found yourself –
only a while ago she was giving anatomy lessons
nightly, on her own body,
and now she’s trailing her gold-fringed skirt
                                                      along the street

If any maid lets slip that I was more beautiful
or visits my
little grave plaque, lays a flower or two,
then she’ll be strung up by the hair
and whipped, however old or young.

I won’t go on, though god knows you deserve it
after all I reigned supreme,
queen of the country of your poems.

I swear by the Fates’ songs (seeing as
                           they’re always on the same theme)

and may that three-headed police dog hunt me down deathside
and may the hissing viper enwreathe my bones
if I lie:
I loved you, and you alone.

Listen, you want to hear what it’s like over there:
that foul river of ours divides us,
on one bank the faithless, on the other the true
and they put you in different boats.
In one, that calculating whore Clytemnestra,
and the other one schlepping from Crete
her wooden cow-shaped frame.

So anyway I’m on the other boat, for the good people.
Now do you believe me?
The hull is draped with flowers, garlands
and a blessed cool air touches us
touches the Elysian roses.

There’s a whole crowd of us, so I’m not bored
we dance in turbans, to rattles and strings.
Hey, guess what, I met Andromeda and Hypermestre
after all, they were faithful to their spouses,
and they told me their tales.

Andromeda speaks, poor thing:
See these bruises on my wrists?
My mother handcuffed me to the cliff
And it was a sheer ice wall.

And Hypermestre says:
I couldn’t go along with what my sister wanted
she was desperate, it was horrific
I couldn’t do it, and that was that.

We mourned there
beyond the grave
our living love
but still I kept silent about your treachery.

I must go soon. But I have some orders for you –
that is, if you’re not too crazed by fucking her
to listen.

Firstly: Madam. She’s getting on a bit
so look after her – after all, she was discretion
itself. Could have talked, but she pitied you.

Next: I don’t want my best girl
holding up a mirror to your bitch
and having to pretend she likes what she sees.

Most of all: your poems,
the ones to me, burn them:
you’ve done enough swaggering on my account.

Lastly:
the cemetery, where the river Anio
washes the apple blossom downstream, where the ivory
of Hercules’ oratory shines pale

(but first pull up the ivy
its tough tendrils have bound
my soft bones)

I want you to knock an inscription into my headstone
a good one, worthy but short
one a passing traveller might stop to read:

Here, the ash
of golden Cynthia, her ghost
embraced by the river –
Anio, her host.

And don’t make fun of this, your dream:
it has come to you through the gate of honesty
and dreams that flit through that passage are true.

At night, we wander, each to her own
at night our shadows are released from the zone
and even the three-headed hound is set loose.
But now the day breaks and I must return
to the chill marshes of Lethe –
that’s the rules.

And the ferryman checks us off on his list
one by one, his passengers.

You know what, fuck who you like – you’ll be mine soon
mine alone. […]
Our bones will be enmeshed.’

And then, having vented her rage,
the shade slipped through
my arms and vanished.


* The title is the first phrase of the poem: ‘Sunt aliquid manes’ means that the shades or spirits of the dead (manes) are something, they exist.


Rachel and Leah

Fourteen years of tending the beasts
driving them through stony soil
down to the river
For what? The wrong tup?

For a while rage ate Jacob up
living with the deceiver
he’d watch him bent over his tin bowl
eating with his dumb fists

but slowly comfort made him mild:
Not so badly off, God had gifted
one wife now, another later
Maybe he should be giving thanks

Peaceful, sitting on the sandy banks
smoking a roll up – and from the water
Rachel, waving, skirts lifted.
His wife at home and big with child.

So when Leah turned from the dishes
frowning, he merely
spat in the grate. No need for that, my girl

And when the way of women was upon Rachel
he’d tell Leah to let her sit up late
to trim the wick and mind her wishes.
Mother, he’d say, and it was Leah who came,
slick with sweat, from the birth stool
Leah who rose to fix his collar

Rachel, jigging the babes when they hollered
Rachel, crouched by the glowing coal
blowing the flame.

Rachel still wore her hair in braids
though the white strands shone
through the black.

Laban watched them like a hawk:
You stay away from her till our deal is done
So seven years Jacob minded his gaze

                                *

Laban couldn’t keep his hands to himself
But Jacob still bided his time.
Some men are born to watch other men’s kine

When Laban sat with a daughter on each knee
Jacob took up an axe like a man bent on
slaughter – and felled a tree

When Laban punched the wall
it was Jacob who mended the hole.
But when Laban called him

Bloody coward Jacob rose
from the table, towered over them all,
the sisters froze.

That very same night
when they fled
Rachel had her bleed

under her slip and wrapped
in bloody rags, Laban’s
precious things:

a packet of seed
a bony mask
and some strange figurines.