VARIO BURNOS

KORNELIJUS PLATELIS

Kornelijus Platelis was born in 1951 in Šiauliai, in north central Lithuania. He graduated from the Vilnius Building Institute in 1973 and worked until 1988 as an engineer in Druskininkai, when he joined the Lithuanian democratic liberation movement. He served in various government positions in the years that followed, among them service as Deputy Minister of Culture and Education, Deputy Mayor of Druskininkai and Vice-President of the Association of Local Authorities of Lithuania, and Minister of Education and Science. He has also served as President of Lithuanian P.E.N. and as Director of VAGA Publishers, and works currently as Editor-in-Chief of the literary weekly Literatûra ir menas (Literature & Art). He is Chairman of the Board of the international annual literary festival Druskininkai Poetic Fall. He was Laureate of Poetry Spring Festival in 1996.

JOURNEY INTO SPRING

Oranges, lemons, thumping

the umber soil,

almond blossoms, cypresses, far off

the blue Bay of Corinth, and stones

and rocks and language sprouting everywhere

like luxuriant grass: don’t overstep

your limits, don’t step over the threshold

too high for the foot of a mortal.

A wave comes. Corinth, then Eleusis.

Core calmly returns to the valleys flooded

in sunlight, oranges knocking at her door.

Withdrawing, Gnosis abandons the intricate

ports of Psyche. Don’t step over.

CAMPO DEI FIORI

A Bruno

IL SECOLO DA LVI DIVINATO

QVI DOVE IL ROGO ARSE

Early afternoon. September.

I looked from the window onto Campo dei Fiori –

the heated exchanges at the market dying down, flowers tired

of smiling, blemishes appearing under the tender skin of fruits.

The warm wind carried flakes of plastic like ashes

into the middle of the square where the bronze man in hood

and cloak seemed himself risen from the earth.

It was Giordano Bruno. His eyes darkened into copper

by the flames of the fire that devoured him

in this place exactly four hundred years ago

in the name of true knowledge.

Which, as shown by the observed data, is carried

by memory to be reborn through the matrix of our soul

and therein shyly shown to God’s reflection.

And, comprehension gushes forth destroying the walls of reason

like a flaming river end to end.

Then the movement stops and the soul clenches

like an impregnated womb, and...We thank the Lord

that we are not so blind, do not affirm and judge,

and know – the fire in our hearts is hotter

than all the flames of this world. The silent fields of flowers

ripple beneath our feet, pistil waiting for pollen.

Their awareness is slight, but fragrant and durable.

It is carried by bees and wind. Shriveled blackberries.

The market’s drooping flowers. Alluring sighs

of death in the misleading ways of knowledge.

I come closer to him, lying quietly

on the beach: docile eyes,

legs folded under his powerful trunk,

short golden fur, tuft of soft locks

like tow of wool around his horns

tempting me to sink my fingers in, to snuggle

up to the fragrant body, to feel his strength and warmth.

Forgetting myself I fondle his neck, my fingers touching

the folds of skin. Sleepily he lifts his head and looks

into my eyes so ardently I can’t resist

bestriding his broad back. Wiry hair

tickles my thighs and crotch, penetrating my lips,

makes me squirm and…

Suddenly he springs up and plunges into the sea.

White froth splashes from his waist to the arch of my legs,

horror and lust clench my throat…

Finally he goes ashore on sunny Crete,

and I slide down exhausted on the soft grass and, o’ God!

he kneels down over me carefully

on all fours, and I feel suddenly how hot,

thick and slimy his thing is as it penetrates me

tenderly, insistently, copying the rite

that Gaea sets for the living,

and how my joyful womb already reads, apprehends,

and sorts his liquid shape…

* * * * *

Daedalus finishes his work…the heavy breath of night,

muted sighs walk the corridors of the palace: “Pasiphaë,

Pasiphaë” heaving my bosom like the sea…

He finishes upholstering the wood with skin, golden fur glistens.

I touch the new guise anxiously, my lust

spurs on the toiling craftsman.

Art is an imitation, a copy of the works of the Gods.

Minos, with what desires is your sap poisoned?

Now to climb through the narrow door and lay down on soft cushions.

What shape now, what message

will my greedy womb scroll down,

and what ripen into the small world of harmony?

* * * * *

I wove Europa on the bull’s back,

Danaë drinking rain as parched soil drinks,

Leda swooning under the swan –

as I was taught by Pallas,

only twisting my thread a bit thinner,

and stretching my warp tighter,

moving the bobbin more nimbly.

My lively pictures of passion surpassed

her boring Areopagus with dry voices of old men.

My imagination lifted me from the earth

but not to the sky, not to the Gods so bored on their thrones.

It never fell so low as grandiose self-portraiture.

Everyone could see it.

And then she said: Turn into a spider! ugly creature

with six limbs in the sea of imagination

hanging between sky and earth.

And now my textile is only

a strange pattern of the psyche, a web

for your thoughts, dear reader.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys

Lithuanian Post-samizdat – Set of Poetry Chapbooks “Frankfurt Chapbooks”

Vario burnos – Klaipėdos menininkų namai, Klaipėda, 2002