VARIO BURNOS

Vytautas P. Bložė

a poem in sections

chupuro

Translated by Jonas Zdanys

XIX

ah, my dear friend (from the newspaper)! how brittle
the meaning of words when we try to define
emptiness, i.e., absolutely nothing, it is what it is my
living deadman

and yet you held forth beautifully describing
the commonness of attribution, in the village, the burden
of people and animals, without choice, the time of egg laying, the nest egg
from them from them all this

thank you as well my other friend (from another newspaper) who
said who where for whom why when and for what
will be judged for the emptiness of emptiness: you clipped
my crooked vein (looking around) but my

disease by no means was that: the frames of my glasses
are from Jesus’ writing
table, appropriated, it’s not clear if that is good, the future
will show, I’ll return them when I don’t need them

that’s why emptiness for me is not that at all: it is
my right hand (and my left as well)
Columbus’ egg banged on the table with its
sharp end, left where it was banged

all that for me is, forgive me, cows returning
from the meadows, udders full, toward fall emptiness for me is
tablets, capsules, doctor V. Kudirka’s grave, it is
empty birds’ nests carried home

on the empty table, van Gogh’s last supper
in an empty house alongside empty pictures, unhung
the hungry wallet of the poor, the tapping of wind
against the shutters, nationalized and distributed wind for linings

emptiness, the wind affirms, is matheria (from the word
mather, i.e., woman, mother) she is Prakrti or (as we say it)
manger, she accepting into herself Purusha she is
life, birth, reincarnation, a puff of wind

because emptiness is everyone’s i.e., we three
absorbing in the self from
leeches, ticks of blame, the transfer stations
of innocence, everything there is one and I quickly

wash my hands like Pilate, because it is
dropsy, obesity, stones
a molecule of stone, a person’s
certification, i.e., a driver’s certification

emptiness is this poem rising from
the loss of higher energies, longing, sorrow
joy of starvation in wastelands, our between-deaths
felicitations, self-burials, crossing myselfs

be or not be? emptiness is to be, emptiness is
a yard, earth, an unfettered horse tearing grass outside the window
emptiness is salt potatoes sauerkraut a garden sunflowers
emptiness is that which is tiresome to explain

oh! the stove I lit to dry mushrooms
went out (I forgot), now I’ll go light it again
I’ve forgotten where fire comes from? from a match
and from the newspaper where the poem is suppositions nonsensicalities

(Vytautas P. Bložė. EMPTINESS, a poem in sections.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys.

Published by vario burnos (workshop of concepts) & kitos knygos, 2005