The earth will know your flesh,
Embrace your marrow’s last memory of bone
More encompassing than any lover.

You were received from earth's body,
As much her child as sky’s; even more perhaps
When you are no longer breathing.

Into raw earth, you will change incomprehensibly
As incorporeal as starlight itself,
And nameless as shadows in moonlight.

Just as daylight dies, you disappear
Down into the deep foundry of death;
Swallowing darkness, in bowels of earth again.

You don’t think the day you are going to get diagnosed with cancer is going to be a beautiful one. One that makes you want to sprint across the sand and dive under crystal water. You think maybe, as the sun envelopes your room, that you don’t have to go to the hospital today, everything’s perfect. That is until you stand up and nausea forces you to the floor and soon you are folded up into a car and shipped off to a giant white building with white doctors and white walls and white floors and white instruments. You don’t think you can be diagnosed with cancer, not today.

Tonight, we will sink

take 8 deep breaths
place a hand on your head
pray that you never know pain

I hope
(for your sake)
there is never a locomotive
in your pristine living room
or bloodstains on your flawless carpet

I hope
your mirrors never shatter
                  into a thousand
downward kamikazes
glinting with deadly glory

I hope these things
because I know
the dark side of stage-curtains

I have seen the wizard.

and if you can keep up the myth
of bleached-out living
    then maybe someone
             can finally rest in peace

The rain's been relentless
I've been soaked for two days
the wind blowing sideways
Unavoidable fray

Cold to bone, I run bathwater too hot to handle
Want to sweat it all out, and to run myself pure
Pale steam 'round me rising, obscuring the candles
and thoughts of you run though my head, like a lure.

My clothes lie bedraggled, cast here on the floor
kindling flashbacks of searching for mine in your room
fully dressed again, kindly you'd showed me the door
and I left, leaving heartstrings caught up in your loom.

So here I am, aching
so here I am, tired
so here I am, glad for the perfume you left

So here I am, hopeless
I'm mystified, following
bright flashing memories, indeliberate gifts.

How can it be, chest cavity filling with sorrow
What small sweetened curse did you drip in my heart?
Chemicals mine, and chemicals foreign
weave conundrums of pain as your next work of art.

I loathe to think you've one resentment against me
Did I clarify all clamoured in heart and head?
moth to flame, I remember you hate them,
don't hate me
but also, remember- they all end up dead.

You'll never know, just what a blessing our time was
Precious stone, as you know are important to me
I am that Roman candle, actinic in pearls
my fog soon in passing, and I will be free.

So please, don't let too much dust cover our glow
Synchronicitous, meant to be, beautiful, rare
Something splendid as that, should be held in the heart
Hands of time have a tendency- obscure and tear.

so here I am, peaceful
so here I am, salient
the memories of your arms around me, your chest

so here I'm imagining your face before me
how perfect our moments
Thankyou, lover;
I'm blessed.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko*


No monument stands over Babi Yar.
A drop sheer as a crude gravestone.
I am afraid.
            Today I am as old in years
as all the Jewish people.
Now I seem to be
                a Jew.
Here I plod through ancient Egypt.
Here I perish crucified, on the cross,
and to this day I bear the scars of nails.
I seem to be
            Dreyfus.
The Philistine
              is both informer and judge.
I am behind bars.
                Beset on every side.
Hounded,
       spat on,
              slandered.
Squealing, dainty ladies in flounced Brussels lace
stick their parasols into my face.
I seem to be then
                a young boy in Byelostok.
Blood runs, spilling over the floors.
The barroom rabble-rousers
give off a stench of ***** and onion.
A boot kicks me aside, helpless.
In vain I plead with these pogrom bullies.
While they jeer and shout,
                         "Beat the Yids. Save Russia!"
some grain-marketeer beats up my mother.
0 my Russian people!
                   I know
                         you
are international to the core.
But those with unclean hands
have often made a jingle of your purest name.
I know the goodness of my land.
How vile these anti-Semites-
                            without a qualm
they pompously called themselves
the Union of the Russian People!
I seem to be
            Anne Frank
transparent
           as a branch in April.
And I love.
          And have no need of phrases.
My need
       is that we gaze into each other.
How little we can see
                     or smell!
We are denied the leaves,
                         we are denied the sky.
Yet we can do so much --
                        tenderly
embrace each other in a darkened room.
They're coming here?
                    Be not afraid. Those are the booming
sounds of spring:
                 spring is coming here.
Come then to me.
               Quick, give me your lips.
Are they smashing down the door?
                                No, it's the ice breaking ...
The wild grasses rustle over Babi Yar.
The trees look ominous,
                      like judges.
Here all things scream silently,
                               and, baring my head,
slowly I feel myself
                    turning gray.
And I myself
            am one massive, soundless scream
above the thousand thousand buried here.
I am
     each old man
                 here shot dead.
I am
    every child
               here shot dead.
Nothing in me
             shall ever forget!
The "Internationale," let it
                            thunder
when the last anti-Semite on earth
is buried forever.
In my blood there is no Jewish blood.
In their callous rage, all anti-Semites
must hate me now as a Jew.
For that reason
                I am a true Russian!