Я хотел бы...

Я хотел бы родиться во всех странах, быть беспаспортным, к панике бедного МИДа, всеми рыбами быть во всех океанах и собаками всеми на улицах мира. Не хочу я склоняться ни перед какими богами, не хочу я играть в православного хиппи, но я хотел бы нырнуть глубоко-глубоко на Байкале, ну а вынырнуть, фыркая, на Миссисипи. Я хотел бы в моей ненаглядной проклятой вселенной быть репейником сирым — не то что холеным левкоем. Божьей тварью любой, хоть последней паршивой гиеной, но тираном — ни в коем и кошкой тирана — ни в коем. И хотел бы я быть человеком в любой ипостаси: хоть под пыткой в тюрьме гватемальской, хоть бездомным в трущобах Гонконга, хоть скелетом живым в Бангладеше, хоть нищим юродивым в Лхасе, хоть в Кейптауне негром, но не в ипостаси подонка. Я хотел бы лежать под ножами всех в мире хирургов, быть горбатым, слепым, испытать все болезни, все раны, уродства, быть обрубком войны, подбирателем грязных окурков — лишь бы внутрь не пролез подловатый микроб превосходства. Не в элите хотел бы я быть, но, конечно, не в стаде трусливых, не в овчарках при стаде, не в пастырях, стаду угодных, и хотел бы я счастья, но лишь не за счет несчастливых, и хотел бы свободы, но лишь не за счет несвободных. Я хотел бы любить всех на свете женщин, и хотел бы я женщиной быть — хоть однажды... Мать-природа, мужчина тобой приуменьшен. Почему материнства мужчине не дашь ты? Если б торкнулось в нем, там, под сердцем, дитя беспричинно, то, наверно, жесток так бы не был мужчина. Всенасущным хотел бы я быть — ну, хоть чашкою риса в руках у вьетнамки наплаканной, хоть головкою лука в тюремной бурде на Гаити, хоть дешевым вином в траттории рабочей неапольской и хоть крошечным тюбиком сыра на лунной орбите: пусть бы съели меня, пусть бы выпили — лишь бы польза была в моей гибели. Я хотел бы всевременным быть, всю историю так огорошив, чтоб она обалдела, как я с ней нахальствую: распилить пугачевскую клетку в Россию проникшим Гаврошем, привезти Нефертити на пущинской тройке в Михайловское. Я хотел бы раз в сто увеличить пространство мгновенья: чтобы в тот же момент я на Лене пил спирт с рыбаками, целовался в Бейруте, плясал под тамтамы в Гвинее, бастовал на «Рено», мяч гонял с пацанами на Копакабане. Всеязыким хотел бы я быть, словно тайные воды под почвой. Всепрофессийным сразу. И я бы добился, чтоб один Евтушенко был просто поэт, а второй был подпольщик, третий — в Беркли студент, а четвертый — чеканщик тбилисский. Ну а пятый — учитель среди эскимосских детей на Аляске, а шестой — молодой президент, где-то, скажем, хоть в Сьерра-Леоне, а седьмой — еще только бы тряс погремушкой в коляске, а десятый... а сотый... миллионный... Быть собою мне мало — быть всеми мне дайте! Каждой твари — и то, как ведется, по паре, ну а бог, поскупись на копирку, меня в самиздате напечатал в единственном экземпляре. но я богу все карты смешаю. Я бога запутаю! Буду тысячелик до последнего самого дня, чтоб гудела земля от меня, чтоб рехнулись компьютеры на всемирной переписи меня. Я хотел бы на всех баррикадах твоих, человечество, драться, к Пиренеям прижаться, Сахарой насквозь пропылиться и принять в себя веру людского великого братства, а лицом своим сделать — всего человечества лица. Но когда я умру — нашумевшим сибирским Вийоном,— положите меня не в английскую, не в итальянскую землю — в нашу русскую землю на тихом холме, на зеленом, где впервые себя я почувствовал всеми.

Евгений Евтушенко. Медленная любовь. Домашняя библиотека поэзии. Москва: Эксмо-пресс, Яуза, 1998.

My Name

I guess you are kind of curious as to who I am, but I am one of those who do not have a regular name. My name depends on you. Just call me whatever is in your mind.

If you are thinking about something that happened a long time ago: Somebody asked you a question and you did not know the answer.
That is my name.
Perhaps it was raining very hard.
That is my name.
Or somebody wanted you to do something. You did it. Then they told you what you did was wrong—“Sorry for the mistake,””—and you had to do something else.
That is my name.
Perhaps it was a game that you played when you were a child or something that came idly into your mind when you were old and sitting in a chair near the window.
That is my name.
Or you walked someplace. There were flowers all around.
That is my name.
Perhaps you stared into a river. There was somebody near you who loved you. They were about to touch you. You could feel this before it happened. Then it happened.
That is my name.
Or you heard someone calling from a great distance. Their voice was almost an echo.
That is my name.
Perhaps you were lying in bed, almost ready to go to sleep and you laughed at something, a joke unto yourself, a good way to end the day.
That is my name.
Or you were eating something good and for a second forgot what you were eating, but still went on, knowing it was good.
That is my name.
Perhaps it was around midnight and the fire tolled like a bell inside the stove
That is my name.
Or you felt bad when she said that thing to you. She could have told it to someone else: Somebody who was more familiar with her problems.
That is my name.
Perhaps the trout swam in the pool but the river was only eight inches wide and the moon shone on IDEATH and the watermelon fields glowed out of proportion, dark and the moon seemed to rise from every plant.
That is my name.
And I wish Margaret would leave me alone.

Composed by Richard Brautigan; copied, pasted and posted, with love, of course, by Homeless with a Laptop, That is my name.

We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are...

Ulysses

It little profits that an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren crags,

Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole

Unequal laws unto a savage race,

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink

Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd

Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those

That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when

Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades

Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;

For always roaming with a hungry heart

Much have I seen and known; cities of men

And manners, climates, councils, governments,

Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;

And drunk delight of battle with my peers,

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'

Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades

For ever and forever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!

As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life

Were all too little, and of one to me

Little remains: but every hour is saved

From that eternal silence, something more,

A bringer of new things; and vile it were

For some three suns to store and hoard myself,

And this gray spirit yearning in desire

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

         This is my son, mine own Telemachus,

To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—

Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil

This labour, by slow prudence to make mild

A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees

Subdue them to the useful and the good.

Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere

Of common duties, decent not to fail

In offices of tenderness, and pay

Meet adoration to my household gods,

When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

         There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:

There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,

Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;

Death closes all: but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,

'T is not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

 

By:  Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Copied, Pasted and Loved by:  Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name

‘Perhaps not to be is to be without your being.’ Pablo Neruda

Perhaps not to be is to be without your being,
without your going, that cuts noon light
like a blue flower, without your passing
later through fog and stones,
without the torch you lift in your hand
that others may not see as golden,
that perhaps no one believed blossomed
the glowing origin of the rose,
without, in the end, your being, your coming
suddenly, inspiringly, to know my life,
blaze of the rose-tree, wheat of the breeze:
and it follows that I am, because you are:
it follows from ‘you are’, that I am, and we:
and, because of love, you will, I will,
We will, come to be. 

By:  Pablo Neruda
Copied, pasted and loved by:
Homeless with a Laptop, that is my Name

It's Time

It’s time, my friend: it’s time! The heart wants rest

the days slip by, the hours take away

fragments of our life: and you and I

plan how to live and, – just like that – we die.

No happiness on earth, yet there’s freedom, peace.

I’ve long dreamt of an enviable fate –

I’ve long thought, a weary slave, to fly

to some far place of labour and true joy.

 

By:  Alexander Pushkin

Copied and pasted by:

Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

By:  William Ernest Henley

 

For solidarity by:  Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name

On St. Valentine's Day ... to Someone Special

On St. Valentine’s Day
                I went to seek my love,
                                up one street
and down another.
                My heart was heavy
                                Because I had nothing to
                                give her.
What should I say?
                The streets were empty
                                so I met no one.

 

Yet I knew she could not be far

              for the sun was shining
                                merrily!
 

Old though you find me

                and penniless,
                                I said to the silence of
                                the garden,
I shall take courage
                for a snow-drop is about to blossom
                                smiling at me
from my own yard,
                smiling, smiling up at me
                                from my own yard.

 

I love you, I love you!
                I said to the flower
                                knowing my love shall not be
                                lost
knowing that I am not mistaken.


By: William Carlos Williams
Thought about, copied and pasted for someone special
by:  Homeless with a Laptop, that is my Name

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmpSWlVdKmo