100 "artworks"
May. 6th, 2012 05:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maskitheclownI think I posted this once before, apropos nothing, but here, my favorite poem ever, by Sergej Jesenjin*, one of the last ones before he killed himself.
- also under cut, love story in poems
Trigger warning for talk of suicide
The Black Man
Translated by Geoffrey Hurley
My friend, my friend,
How sick I am. Nor do I know
Whence came this sickness.
Either the wind whistles
Over the desolate unpeopled field,
Or as September strips a copse,
Alcohol strips my brain.
My head waves my ears
Like a bird its wings.
Unendurably it looms my neck
When I walk.
The black man,
The black, black,
Black man
Sits by me on the bed all night,
Won't let me sleep.
This black man
Runs his fingers over a vile book,
And, twangling above me,
Like a sleepy monk over a corpse,
Reads a life
Of some drunken wretch,
Filling my heart with longing and despair.
The black man,
Oh black man.
"Listen, listen"--
He mutters to me --
The book is full of beautiful
Plans and resolutions.
This fellow lived
His life in a land of most repulsive
Thieves and charlatans.
And in that land the December snow
Is pure as the very devil,
And the snowstorms drive
Merry spinning-wheels.
This man was an adventurer,
Though of the highest
And the best quality.
Oh, he was elegant,
And the poet at that,
Albeit of a slight
But useful gift.
And some woman,
Of forty or so,
He called his "naughty girl,"
His "love."
Happiness--he said--
Is a quickness of hand and mind.
Slow fools are always
Known for being unhappy.
heartaches, we know,
Derive
From broken, lying gestures,
At thunder and tempest,
At the world's coldheartedness,
During times of heavy loss
And when you're sad
The greatest art on earth
Is to seem uncomplicatedly gay.
"Black man!
Don't you dare!
You do not live as
A deep-sea diver.
What's the life
Of a scandalous poet to me?
Please read this story
To someone else."
The black man
Looks me straight in the eye
And his eyes are filmed
With blue vomit--
As if he wanted to say,
I'm a thief and rogue
Who'd robbed a man
Openly, without shame.
Ah friend, my friend,
How sick I am. Now do I know
Whence came this sickness.
Either the wind whistles
Over the desolate unpeopled field,
Or as September strips a copse,
Alcohol strips my brain.
The night is freezing
Still peace at the crossroads.
I am alone at the window,
Expecting neither visitor nor friend.
The whole plain is covered
With soft quick-lime,
And the trees, like riders,
Assembled in our garden.
Somewhere a night bird,
Ill-omened, is sobbing.
The wooden riders
Scatter hoofbeats.
And again the black
Man is sitting in my chair,
He lifts his top hat
And, casual, takes off his cape.
"Listen! listen!"--he croaks,
Eyes on my face,
Leaning closer and closer.
I never saw
Any scoundrel
Suffer so stupidly, pointlessly,
From insomnia.
Well, I could be wrong.
There is a moon tonight.
What else is needed
By your sleep-drunken world?
Perhaps, "She" will come,
With her fat thighs,
In secret, and you'll read
Your languid, carrion
Verse to her.
Ah, how I love these poets!
A funny race!
I always find in them
A story known to my heart--
How a long-haired monster
Profusing sexual languor
Tells of worlds
To a pimply girl-student.
I don't know, don't remember,
In some village,
Kaluga perhaps, or
Maybe Ryazan,
There lived a boy
Of simple peasant stock,
Blond-haired
And angel-eyed...
And he grew up,
Grew up into a poet
Of slight but
Useful talent,
And some woman,
Of forty or so,
He called his "naughty girl,"
His "love."
"Black man!
Most odious guest!
Your fame has long resounded."
I'm enraged, possessed,
Amd my cane flies
Straight across
The bridge of his nose.
The moon has died.
Dawn glimmers in the window.
Ah, night!
What, night, what have you ruined?
I stand top-hatted.
No one is with me.
I am alone...
And the mirror is broken.
--
I don't know how much of his poetry you can really see in translations, Slavic languages speak differently to me, are softer.
The thing about Jesenjin is that I can't really get over him. He saw the world in all it's misery yet somehow when he wrote about it you just wanted to hug it, the world, and heal it. And he saw himself, well, like in that poem. He is both the genius poet lover and the man bored and annoyed by that story and the man using it as a taunt. He hated himself but couldn't be unaware of his talent and beauty.
I read this poem at the height of my puberty, when that's exactly how you feel. The world sucks, and everyone in it does too, and you hate yourself but you're still smarter than everyone else and will live your life better than they ever did!
The poem resonated with me, and though I don't remember any more how I felt about the way he concluded it, what that part of the story meant to me personally, I remember arguing with someone in class that he wasn't a coward for killing himself, that it took courage.
Also, I sort of want to share with you the great tragic Slavic love/hate between Jesenjin and Mayakovski.
Before he died, Jesenjin wrote one final poem in his blood:
Goodbye, my friend, goodbye
My love, you are in my heart.
It was preordained we should part
And be reunited by and by.
Goodbye: no handshake to endure.
Let's have no sadness — furrowed brow.
There's nothing new in dying now
Though living is no newer.
Mayakovski, who was his rival and critic throughout his life wrote this poem in response. It is very long (and I'm not a fan of his poetry), so I'm not going to paste it here whole, but have a few excerpts:
...
Fly, cutting your way into starry dubiety.
No advances, no pubs for you there.
Sobriety.
No, Yessenin, this is not deridingly,-
in my throat not laughter but sorrow racks.
...
You who could do such things with words,
that no one else on earth could do.
Why, for what? Perplexity appalls.
...
'Encore!' imitators coo in delight.
Over you almost a squad committed base jinks.
Why increase the number of suicides?
Better to increase the output of ink!
...
There's so much to do - just to catch up with things yet.
Life must be changed to begin with.
And having changed it - then one can sing it.
...
In this life
it's not difficult to die.
To make life
is more difficult by far.
--
Then, 5 years later, Mayakovkski killed himself, leaving a poem of his own.
And finally, in this post that is way longer than it should be, have a link to a very rare video of Sergej Jesenjin, with a voiceover of him reciting "Hooligan's Confession".
*I'm using the local way of spelling his name because in English there are at least 3 different ways :)
- also under cut, love story in poems
Trigger warning for talk of suicide
The Black Man
Translated by Geoffrey Hurley
My friend, my friend,
How sick I am. Nor do I know
Whence came this sickness.
Either the wind whistles
Over the desolate unpeopled field,
Or as September strips a copse,
Alcohol strips my brain.
My head waves my ears
Like a bird its wings.
Unendurably it looms my neck
When I walk.
The black man,
The black, black,
Black man
Sits by me on the bed all night,
Won't let me sleep.
This black man
Runs his fingers over a vile book,
And, twangling above me,
Like a sleepy monk over a corpse,
Reads a life
Of some drunken wretch,
Filling my heart with longing and despair.
The black man,
Oh black man.
"Listen, listen"--
He mutters to me --
The book is full of beautiful
Plans and resolutions.
This fellow lived
His life in a land of most repulsive
Thieves and charlatans.
And in that land the December snow
Is pure as the very devil,
And the snowstorms drive
Merry spinning-wheels.
This man was an adventurer,
Though of the highest
And the best quality.
Oh, he was elegant,
And the poet at that,
Albeit of a slight
But useful gift.
And some woman,
Of forty or so,
He called his "naughty girl,"
His "love."
Happiness--he said--
Is a quickness of hand and mind.
Slow fools are always
Known for being unhappy.
heartaches, we know,
Derive
From broken, lying gestures,
At thunder and tempest,
At the world's coldheartedness,
During times of heavy loss
And when you're sad
The greatest art on earth
Is to seem uncomplicatedly gay.
"Black man!
Don't you dare!
You do not live as
A deep-sea diver.
What's the life
Of a scandalous poet to me?
Please read this story
To someone else."
The black man
Looks me straight in the eye
And his eyes are filmed
With blue vomit--
As if he wanted to say,
I'm a thief and rogue
Who'd robbed a man
Openly, without shame.
Ah friend, my friend,
How sick I am. Now do I know
Whence came this sickness.
Either the wind whistles
Over the desolate unpeopled field,
Or as September strips a copse,
Alcohol strips my brain.
The night is freezing
Still peace at the crossroads.
I am alone at the window,
Expecting neither visitor nor friend.
The whole plain is covered
With soft quick-lime,
And the trees, like riders,
Assembled in our garden.
Somewhere a night bird,
Ill-omened, is sobbing.
The wooden riders
Scatter hoofbeats.
And again the black
Man is sitting in my chair,
He lifts his top hat
And, casual, takes off his cape.
"Listen! listen!"--he croaks,
Eyes on my face,
Leaning closer and closer.
I never saw
Any scoundrel
Suffer so stupidly, pointlessly,
From insomnia.
Well, I could be wrong.
There is a moon tonight.
What else is needed
By your sleep-drunken world?
Perhaps, "She" will come,
With her fat thighs,
In secret, and you'll read
Your languid, carrion
Verse to her.
Ah, how I love these poets!
A funny race!
I always find in them
A story known to my heart--
How a long-haired monster
Profusing sexual languor
Tells of worlds
To a pimply girl-student.
I don't know, don't remember,
In some village,
Kaluga perhaps, or
Maybe Ryazan,
There lived a boy
Of simple peasant stock,
Blond-haired
And angel-eyed...
And he grew up,
Grew up into a poet
Of slight but
Useful talent,
And some woman,
Of forty or so,
He called his "naughty girl,"
His "love."
"Black man!
Most odious guest!
Your fame has long resounded."
I'm enraged, possessed,
Amd my cane flies
Straight across
The bridge of his nose.
The moon has died.
Dawn glimmers in the window.
Ah, night!
What, night, what have you ruined?
I stand top-hatted.
No one is with me.
I am alone...
And the mirror is broken.
--
I don't know how much of his poetry you can really see in translations, Slavic languages speak differently to me, are softer.
The thing about Jesenjin is that I can't really get over him. He saw the world in all it's misery yet somehow when he wrote about it you just wanted to hug it, the world, and heal it. And he saw himself, well, like in that poem. He is both the genius poet lover and the man bored and annoyed by that story and the man using it as a taunt. He hated himself but couldn't be unaware of his talent and beauty.
I read this poem at the height of my puberty, when that's exactly how you feel. The world sucks, and everyone in it does too, and you hate yourself but you're still smarter than everyone else and will live your life better than they ever did!
The poem resonated with me, and though I don't remember any more how I felt about the way he concluded it, what that part of the story meant to me personally, I remember arguing with someone in class that he wasn't a coward for killing himself, that it took courage.
Also, I sort of want to share with you the great tragic Slavic love/hate between Jesenjin and Mayakovski.
Before he died, Jesenjin wrote one final poem in his blood:
Goodbye, my friend, goodbye
My love, you are in my heart.
It was preordained we should part
And be reunited by and by.
Goodbye: no handshake to endure.
Let's have no sadness — furrowed brow.
There's nothing new in dying now
Though living is no newer.
Mayakovski, who was his rival and critic throughout his life wrote this poem in response. It is very long (and I'm not a fan of his poetry), so I'm not going to paste it here whole, but have a few excerpts:
...
Fly, cutting your way into starry dubiety.
No advances, no pubs for you there.
Sobriety.
No, Yessenin, this is not deridingly,-
in my throat not laughter but sorrow racks.
...
You who could do such things with words,
that no one else on earth could do.
Why, for what? Perplexity appalls.
...
'Encore!' imitators coo in delight.
Over you almost a squad committed base jinks.
Why increase the number of suicides?
Better to increase the output of ink!
...
There's so much to do - just to catch up with things yet.
Life must be changed to begin with.
And having changed it - then one can sing it.
...
In this life
it's not difficult to die.
To make life
is more difficult by far.
--
Then, 5 years later, Mayakovkski killed himself, leaving a poem of his own.
And finally, in this post that is way longer than it should be, have a link to a very rare video of Sergej Jesenjin, with a voiceover of him reciting "Hooligan's Confession".
*I'm using the local way of spelling his name because in English there are at least 3 different ways :)
