Though I've posted this poem before in this blog, I never get tired of reading it ... over and over again. It is the one poem that I wish I could have written because it lives in my heart. But Yevgeniy Yevtushenko wrote it first and it is far better than anything I could ever hope to write. But it lives in me so that's something. Again here it is in his own translation.
I would like
to be born
in every country,
have a passport
for them all
to throw
all foreign offices
into panic,
be every fish
in every ocean
and every dog
in the streets of the world.
I don’t want to bow down
before any idols
or play at being
a Russian Orthodox church hippie,
but I would like to plunge
deep into LakeBaikal
and surface snorting
somewhere,
why not in the Mississippi?
In my damned beloved universe
I would like
to be a lonely weed,
but not a delicate Narcissus
kissing his own mug
in the mirror.
I would like to be
any of God’s creatures
right down to the last mangy hyena--
but never a tyrant
or even the cat of a tyrant.
I would like to be
reincarnated as a man
in any image:
a victim of prison tortures,
a homeless child in the slums of Hong Kong,
a living skeleton in Bangladesh,
a holy beggar in Tibet,
a black in Cape Town,
but never
in the image of Rambo.
The only people whom I hate
are the hypocrites--
pickled hyenas
in heavy syrup.
I would like to lie
under the knives of all the surgeons in the world,
be hunchbacked, blind,
suffer all kinds of diseases,
wounds and scars,
be a victim of war,
or a sweeper of cigarette butts,
just so a filthy microbe of superiority
doesn’t creep inside.
I would not like to be in the elite,
nor, of course,
in the cowardly herd,
nor be a guard dog of that herd,
nor a shepherd,
sheltered by that herd.
And I would like happiness,
but not at the expense of the unhappy,
and I would like freedom,
but not at the expense of the unfree.
I would like to love
all the women in the world,
and I would like to be a woman, too--
just once...
Men have been diminished
by Mother Nature.
Why couldn’t we give motherhood
to men?
If an innocent child
stirred
below his heart,
man would probably
not be so cruel.
I would like to be man’s daily bread--
say,
a cup of rice
for a Vietnamese woman in mourning,
cheap wine
in a Neapolitan workers’ trattoria,
or a tiny tube of cheese
in orbit round the moon.
Let them eat me,
let them drink me,
only let my death
be of some use.
I would like to belong to all times,
shock all history so much
that it would be amazed
what a smart aleck I was.
I would like to bring Nefertiti
to Pushkin in a troika.
I would like to increase
the space of a moment
a hundredfold,
so that in the same moment
I could drink vodka with fishermen in Siberia
and sit together with Homer,
Dante,
Shakespeare,
and Tolstoy,
drinking anything,
except, of course,
Coca-Cola,
--dance to the tom-toms in the Congo,
--strike at Renault,
--chase a ball with Brazilian boys
at CopacabanaBeach.
I would like to know every language,
like the secret waters under the earth,
and do all kinds of work at once.
I would make sure
that one Yevtushenko was merely a poet,
the second--an underground fighter
somewhere,
I couldn’t say where
for security reasons,
the third--a student at Berkeley,
the fourth--a jolly Georgian drinker,
and the fifth--
maybe a teacher of Eskimo children in Alaska,
the sixth--
a young president,
somewhere, say, modestly speaking, in Sierra Leone,
the seventh--
would still be shaking a rattle in his stroller,
and the tenth...
the hundredth...
the millionth...
For me it’s not enough to be myself,
let me be everyone!
Every creature
usually has a double,
but God was stingy
with the carbon paper,
and in his Paradise Publishing Corporation
made a unique copy of me.
But I shall muddle up
all God’s cards--
I shall confound God!
I shall be in a thousand copies to the end of my days,
I can see you standing in the
woods by moonlight. The warm glow of a small campfire suffuses your face,
gilding your gentle smile and sparkling in your eyes. The clean scent of your
hair fills my nostrils as I nuzzle your neck and wrap my arms around your
waist. There I look up and see the moonlight transform your hair into a silver
aureole as our bodies move in an ancient rhythm. The rustle of leaves is lost
in the roar of the wind through the treetops above us.
Where are our dreams?
What are they?
Oh, and if dreams are slipping away in
dreams?
What are finding themselves having to
star?
The sun rises, and the shadow fades
away.
the light is on the way, smoothly hides
dreams ...
And once again everything touches the
soul,
live your dreams and will fly up to
dream ...
By Gulnara Karimova
I can see you on the deck of a
ship passing mine. Our eyes lock, we reach out as if to bridge the gap with our
arms. Sadly we wave good bye. My heart aches as your ship drifts off into the
dusk. Just as you fade away you smile at me. I can see the wistful sadness
clearly on your lips, as if I have seen it many times before. Why does that
image spring so readily to mind? Am I doomed to live among the things that can
never be?
Came Up With...a dreamwrapped...
Believe...asigh.
I don't knowhow long isthis twinkle ...one more...
By Gulnara Karimova
I sit by a pond
and gaze across the water at reflections of memories of things that never were.
I hear echoes of footsteps along a path not taken, and wonder where I might
have gone. I dream of you appearing in the dark and walking into my arms. I
remember … and I dream that it would never end.
Weare one, eternitywas...
in broadparts scatteredand theerevealed...
By Gulnara Karimova
Sometime back I
read that the composite color of the universe is – beige or tan. The scientific
explanation is that over the past 10 billion years the universe is becoming
redder as red stars have become more prevalent—an understandable observation
since red stars are older than blue stars.
To me, a beige
universe somehow explains many things… Avatar, Dances with Wolves, The Last
Samurai, The Blue Man Group for President 2016… an inchoate desire to return to
a more bluish universe
“When the sky is breathing tears… rain will
wash away all silence…” Gulnara Karimova
The sounds of the
raindrops, yes they wash away the silence of the earth, because each contains a little story from heaven. I wonder if raindrops have names? Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, etc. And what stories would they tell of the faces
on which they have dropped and the hearts that they have cleaned, and the tears
they have mixed with.
I was washed away once by a
river which took me to a distant shore.
“Where am I?” I asked. But there was no one there to answer me.
“My name is Glen Salo.”
[NOTE: I had always searched for an English-version
of my name Gonzalo; there isn’t one. Sometimes I used “John” when I didn’t care
if the person remembered my name or not—and I didn’t want to spend a lot of
time trying to get the person to say my name correctly. One day I was in my office and I received a
telephone call from a salesman who was trying to sell some product. I normally hang up quickly, but the salesman talked
well and got me interested. I told him
to fax me his brochure. He asked me for
my name and I told him “Gonzalo.” He
didn’t ask for the spelling as people usually do. A few minutes later, I received a fax
addressed to “Glen Salo.” While I didn’t
buy the product, I did love the name… So
“Gonzalo” became “Glen” for
casual acquaintances and for my blog] Anyway…
The river did not answer
me; its cataracts roared and foamed. I wondered why the river did not say, “You
are here and my name is _____.” Deep
calls to deep amid the roaring waters.
They are speaking in foam and in their splashing on the rocks. I try to
answer them but my breath is shallow and I cannot make myself heard.
I strain to see more
distant shores… they call me in a language unknown; yet I hear their call. I wonder if the Sirens called Ulysses in this
way. But he covered his ears with wax
and could not hear them in any case. I
did not cover my ears with wax, yet I only heard the rushing waters… perhaps I
did not speak their language.
"Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart.
Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens." Carl Jung
I tried to sing with the
water but my song was lost in the river. No, I am not a boatman; more of a falcon
than a salmon. I fly in the sky and soar in open spaces, upward ever upward
into the blue of space…
I wonder if the fishes in
the river sing? Would the sing “The song of the Salmons” as they swim
upstream. Who knows… Perhaps Neptune if he existed… Perhaps the fishes would
sing a song… a simple song of freedom…
In his Seventh Letter,
Plato complains of the weakness of language—the inability to
properly describe the four things necessary to know a thing (first, name;
second, the definition; third the image; fourth, the knowledge and as fifth the
thing itself which is known and truly exists).
These four necessities attempt to show what a thing is like, not less
than what each thing is. I do not think
that people are so complicated. The true
person always reveals themselves. You
cannot hide who or what you are.
I climbed to the top of a
mountain and yelled out loud, “I am calling you.” The echo of my voice gave me double reassurance…It may be that I needed double reassurance of what I wanted to say. The heart
sometimes needs a voice and someone to hear it. It takes courage to say what
you mean even if only an echo.
After rains
comes renewed life.
I visited the
Redwood Forest in Northern California, with truly majestic trees. But what really got my attention was
something I noticed on huge Redwood tree had been cut down. I usually don’t take many pictures because I’m
not very good at it but I like this one.
The picture
of the redwood bud is life renewed and more. Vladimir Navokov, who in discussing Chekhov,
observed that Chekhov in his characters shows that “The greatest of the great
laws of nature is not the survival of the strongest but the survival of the
weakest.” So it is…
The rains
ultimately lift our burden captured in Goethe’s apothegm: “Was uns alle badigt—das Gemeine.’” (That which hampers us all—the commonplace.)
We are now ready
for another day… and more songs of rain. Nice. By: Homeless with a Laptop, That is my Name Бездомныесноутбуком,этомоеимя
“When I was a child, I talked like a
child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. But when I became a man, I set aside childish ways.” 1
Corinthians 13:11
“We are tied, all our
days and for the greater part of our days, to the commonplace. That is where contact with great thinkers,
great literature helps. In their company
we are still in the ordinary world, but it is the ordinary world transfigured
and seen through the eyes of wisdom and genius.
And some of their vision becomes our own.” Robert
Maynard Hutchins
One of my
favorite books is ‘Great Expectations’ by Charles Dickens. I admit that when I first started to read it,
I almost put it down because it seemed a bit childish… yet the language and the
spirit of the book appealed to me. I
love the book now because out of the seeming commonplace, the world is
transformed … and I become a part of it.
Sunrays light up greeny
tops of the alley
Vigorous puffs blow all
over your face
The soul of yours makes a
shot through the air
Cherishing out all sounds
and smells
Floating over mysterious
clouds
Trying to touch some
unreachable heights
Breathing it over amazed
and astounded
Leaving all daily
requirements behind
Getting your mind and your
body united
Grasping upon something
really immense
Taking a gulp of
enchanting and boundless
Listening in to
inexplicable bells.
By:
Gulnara
Karimova
I’m fascinated by the
stars; I love to walk on a dark night and look at the stars. My favorite constellation is the Big
Dipper... seven stars equal the seven letters of each on my names: I was born
on 21 May... I straddle Taurus and Gemini but I’m a Gemini in most charts … I sit
on my magic carpet and fly away into the dark of space, towards any galaxy or
star that I wish. The laws of physics do
not chain me… take that Einstein. In my
magic carpet, there are no bounds. The
music undulates as the carpet flies into the stars and I sit in wonderment and
joy… No limits… No limits… The road
leads on forever…
A dreamy silence told me
That we bypassed the sun
And understood the heaven…
Alas, it is undone
By: Gulnara
Karimova
How many times have you
travelled the same road home? Work? Life? Think of it.
Everyday on the same road. Yet today
when I travelled on a different road, a truck overturned in the middle of
it. Traffic was at a standstill. Perhaps repetition has a quality and a reason
of its own.
When desiring spring
oftentimes
Skies meet autumn without
any reason
It's so hard to conceive
space of love
And to measure forlorness
of seasons
Every day is a step in
your life
Every blink is eternal in
value
And your soul should truly
apply
All your feelings to pass
through the valley
It's the valley of
promising drives
It's the valley of endless
surprises
It's the valley of
terminal love
It's the valley of our
blunders.
By: Gulnara
Karimova
They say time cannot be bought.
But I say time does not matter if it ever did. I agree with Vincent Van Gogh’s observation:
“At one time
the earth was supposed to be flat.Well,
so it is, even today from Paris to Asnières.But that fact doesn’t prevent science from proving that the earth as a
whole is spherical.No one nowadays
denies it.Well… we are still at the
state of believing that life itself it flat, the distance from birth to
death.Yet the probability is that life,
too, is spherical and much more extensive and capacious than the hemisphere
that we know.”
I feel the call in my
heart… my soul... I feel the wind on my face… I am no longer chained to a rock like
Prometheus… No, I feel like Prometheus unchained! The rebirth of life is seen in the bud of a
redwood tree: young, small, tender; a sapling which will grow into a majestic
redwood tree. That is among the greatest
laws of nature, the survival of the weakest.
A child who does
not play is not a child, but the man who doesn't play has lost forever the
child who lived in him and who he will miss terribly. Pablo Neruda
As I walked by numerous stalls in one of the Saturday-morning
flea markets which are prevalent all over northern California, just browsing
the same things over, I unexpectedly came upon a very different stall. This one had many charms and other amulets to
welcome love and fortune, and ward off evil spirits … and perhaps real
sweetness to the cup.
As the bookish sort of person, I became interested in a
collection of many small books in Spanish; particularly one which was titled
‘La Magia Verde’ (Green Magic). I don’t
know what attracted me to this book in particular other than my attraction to
green colored things in general; likely stemming from childhood stories in
which green is the color of forests, hence mystery. My mother used to tell us kids children stories
on Sunday afternoons by the chimney with a roaring fire. There, drinking Orange Crush or Fanta, magic
woods and enchanted forests would come to life through my mother’s voice in the
fires of the chimney.
Green magic – Mix the
wing of bats and the mushrooms picked from a cemetery; good luck will
follow you.
I haggled for the book; I wanted it for $3.00. The man and the woman wanted $5.00. Another customer said that green magic is not
true or doesn’t work. I told him that it
all depends on what you believe. For it seems
to me that sometimes we want to control our lives immediately and while we may
not truly know what is good for us, we want the control anyway. I’m exasperated by waiting for tomorrow; I
want Green Magic to help me today. The
Lady in Green who lives in the tree beckons me.
Inside her tree lies a wonderful world, of childish innocence and
natural harmony. I want to go back
inside it. On that particular day,
however, I only had $3.00 left.
Alas… Thus I lost the book on La Magia Verde. However, I
feel now that I need it even more today, if nothing else to remind me of the
wonder that was once my childhood. Yet
in fact, Green Magic is within us for it is nothing more than manipulating
forces that are around us but whose influence we don’t perceive. The important thing though is that they’re
there.
Two
bullfrog skins mixed with the blood of a young lizard will yield a potion of
power over another person.
The caged bird sings with a fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom.
By: Maya Angelou
Powders exist to lure a desired love or to ward off evil
spirits; lotions and elixirs to make oneself irresistible to another person. That’s how to affect the environment rather
than waiting for heavenly intervention or fate to step in; though it’s well
worth remembering that one often meets one’s fate by attempting to avert it [Oedipus Rex]. So if this is true, we are not averting our
own end but perhaps only the means.
I will show you the way to the star
And will make you the luckiest person
And your dream will come true from afar
And your fate will be happily nursed
And the ocean of reticent skies
Will upturn faraway distant reaches
And the bottom untouched by our kind
Will be lit with impossible wishes.
By: Gulnara
Karimova
The lesson here is that for Green Magic to be truly
effective, you must know what it is that you seek. Or is this unnecessary? For Green Magic may also protect you from
unwanted interference rather than merely changing your fate. There’s a definite advantage in this, because
you are warding off evil influences. Who
needs evil influences in their life?
Thus Green Magic can greatly help you to command the forces around you
and achieve a feng-shui like arrangement with all the forces that surround you—of
love, life and fortune. For impossible wishes to be possible and for smiles to
be smiles. Nice.
But she will find you.She will Call your name.You’ll hear Her mad, bewitching moan, and, You, a shipwrecked sailor, drown In the undulating waves of her
devotion As she rides the tides of your
emotion; And when she’s gone, She’ll haunt you As the day is long, And you will mourn.
She will wrap you in her long, blonde
tresses
The way your ligaments coil round Your bones and tendons, Taut, yet yielding, Moving where you move.
You must shed your skin
so she can feel the bare, attenuated
sinew And where the nerves begin and end.
Her laughter falls like tiny drops of
mist
Upon your face and hands; She hears the sound that pleasure
makes When pleasure aches As only pleasure can.
You’ll wish your face were wet with
kisses,
Her lips upon your lips and lashes When dawn unties her golden tresses And dresses her in morning mists.
And when the night softly undresses
Veil by veil her silk and laces, The moon will smile her silver smile,
her body More lovely than her face is.
She’ll kneel before you on the ground
And ask the stars to wear her crown. You lay her on a bed of down.
Her golden hair your hands caress
And you, your love, to her confess With every wave of tenderness That heaves from one who has been
blessed.
And when you lay in deepest sleep
She’ll quietly retreat into the
corners of your dreams. She is more than what she seems. Neither lover nor wife, she is the
dawn that comes In the middle of your life.
