are you dreaming, Frederick?

"Bach in the D.C. Subway"
As an experiment,
the Washington Post
asked a concert violinist--
wearing jeans, tennis shoes,
and a baseball cap--
to stand near a trash can
at rush hour in the subway
and play Bach
on a Stradivarius.
Partita No. 2 in D Minor
called out to commuters
like an ocean to waves,
sung to the station
about why we should bother
to live.

A thousand people
streamed by. Seven of them
paused for a minute or so
and thirty-two dollars floated
into the open violin case.
A café hostess who drifted
over to the open door
each time she was free
said later that Bach
gave her peace,
and all the children,
all of them,
waded into the music
as if it were water,
listening until they had to be
rescued by parents
who had somewhere else to go.
--David Lee Garrison


"Snow Collides with the Fate of My Nation"
snow collides with the fate of my nation.
white melts as wax over december.
"is this emptiness?"--you ask me.
"it isn't complete yet"--I reply.
snow collides with fate. clocks stop.
the imported prophetic groundhog--has dropped dead.
we will return to the comfort of our own private hell,
in our own circumpolar atomic town.
snow bears down, rolls with relentless fervor.
we perform sisyphan acts every day
in a white congress of time and balance
common decency ticks, and ticks away.
here we are and alive, so far, no woes befall us.
the gas hasn't been shut off, the lights haven't been turned off.
"is this emptiness?"--you ask me.
"yes, this is it--now," I answer.
--Gennady Kanevsky


"Passing a Rubbish Dump"
Passing a rubbish dump,
You sometimes see, amid all that filth
A refrigerator, an oven,
Over-painted with fancy flowers.
This urge to be creative
Is heart-warming but also a bit perplexing,
Still, the primitive decoration
Lends the dump a kind of distinction.

Your fridge is not like everybody else's,
On your sideboard paper's been glued,
On the wall's a painting by some unknown artist
Who died at age 14
While masturbating.
Like a sofa spring, poking out,
You were a pretty original type.
Your fridge oddly painted.
I remembered this, passing the dump.

Empty, not a glimmer anywhere,
Fences and garages spreading all over.
You continue putting your heart and soul into objects
That have no souls.
--Andrey Rodionov


"It's God or Else a Squirrel Busy in the Tree"
It's God or else a squirrel busy in the tree.
The queen-crown's pregnant. Frightening:
Now and then it rips her open,
Jabs with a heel or thrusts a forehead in.

The crown is afraid, as a heated teakettle
Is afraid; is embraced by flame;
In the ceiling-cauldron of fright
All kissed by the sweaty steam.

The form is afraid, as a whirlpool's afraid
The moment keys start to beat in the locks,
In a sweet eclipse, in a solar circle,
An entrancing living something.

The form is afraid as a plaza's afraid
To lie down each night with the monument.
The form is afraid as the palate's afraid
Of the tongue, just let it start tickling.

Of the tongue, which tsks on somebody's chest--
To the tongue, from which head over heels,
Words spill like blackjack winnings in a hem,
What is speakable in my fear of passion.

As the wine and the little dress glisten,
Three altitudes, the river, my knees,
Someone to talk with, hand holding a notebook
As God-in-a-storm appears!
--Maria Stepanova


"The Woman"
His sunrise is like a thread,
Yours, like oil--
She said to the man.

[His tail hangs forward,
Yours, backward--
That's what she didn't say.]

He is the master of impulse,
You're the master of siege--
She comforted the man.

[He's got a spine,
You, a belly--
That's what she wouldn't say.]

He has a moment,
You have eternity--
She reminded the man.

[He has the summit,
You, a plateau--
She said nothing of this.]

He has sand in his boots,
You have gravel--
She worried for the man.

[He will die in the future,
You will die in the past--
She held her tongue and sucked on it.]

It was the least she could do.
It was the most she could do--
True from the start. To the bitter end, true.
--Sandzhar Yanyshev