Внутри горы бездействует кумир… (Deep in the mountain the idol rests) by Osip Mandelstam

Deep in the mountain the idol rests
in sweet repose, infinite and blest,
the fat of necklaces dripping from his neck
protects his dreams of flood tide and of slack.
 
As a boy, he buddied with a peacock,
they gave him rainbow of India to eat
and milk in a pink clay dish,
and didn't stint the cochineal.

Bone put to bed, locked in a knot,
shoulders, arms and knees made flesh,
he smiles with his own dead-silent lips,
thinks with his bone, feels with his brow,
and struggles to recall his human countenance...


by Осип Эмильевич Мандельштам (Osip Emilyevich Mandelshtam.)
His surname is commonly latinised as Mandelstam)
from the first of the Voronezh Notebooks
(10-26 December 1936)
translated by Andrew Davis 

Interesting information: The poem recounts certain Buddhist imagery, such as the peacock, from accounts of the life of Siddhartha Gautama a.k.a. Gautama Buddha.The female of the cochineal insect species is crushed to make red pigment for food colouring amongst other uses.

Beneath is the original Russian Cyrillic verison of the poem. I couldn’t find a recital of it on Youtube but feel free to add one in the comments please if you know of one:

Внутри горы бездействует кумир…  

Внутри горы бездействует кумир 
В покоях бережных, безбрежных и счастливых, 
А с шеи каплет ожерелий жир, 
Оберегая сна приливы и отливы. 

Когда он мальчик был и с ним играл павлин, 
Его индийской радугой кормили, 
Давали молока из розоватых глин 
И не жалели кошенили. 

Кость усыпленная завязана узлом, 
Очеловечены колени, руки, плечи, 
Он улыбается своим тишайшим ртом, 
Он мыслит костию и чувствует челом 
И вспомнить силится свой облик человечий.  

Advertisements

Мой щегол, я голову закину (Goldfinch, friend, I’ll cock my head) by Osip Mandelstam

Goldfinch, friend, I'll cock my head -
let's check the world out, just me and you:
this winter's day pricks like chaff;
does it sting your eyes too?

Boat-tailed, feathers yellow-black,
sopped in colour beneath your beak,
do you get, you goldfinch you,
just how you flaunt it?
 
What's he thinking, little airhead? -
white and yellow, black and red!
Both eyes check both ways – both! -
will check no more – he's bolted!


by Осип Эмильевич Мандельштам (Osip Emilyevich Mandelshtam.) His surname is commonly latinised as Mandelstam)
(9-27 December 1936)
translated by Andrew Davis 

A recital of the poem by Mikhail Kozakov

The original Russian Cyrillic version of the poem


Мой щегол, я голову закину — 
Поглядим на мир вдвоем:
Зимний день, колючий, как мякина,
Так ли жестк в зрачке твоем?
 
Хвостик лодкой, перья черно-желты,
Ниже клюва в краску влит,
Сознаешь ли — до чего щегол ты,
До чего ты щегловит?
 
Что за воздух у него в надлобье — 
Черн и красен, желт и бел!
В обе стороны он в оба смотрит — в обе!— 
Не посмотрит — улетел! 

Extra information: The RSPB website has information, a bird identifying ‘questionnaire’ if you’ve seen any you don’t recognise, sound clips of bird calls, videos and more about goldfinches and many other species of birds. It might be an interesting distraction if you haven’t looked at it before.

The image of a goldfinch or starling is a repeated motif in the poetry of Mandelstam. (if you can’t read Russian then just put the text of the linked page, or it’s page address, into GoogleTranslate which gives a surprisingly eloquent translation).

The Film of God by R.S. Thomas

Sound, too? The recorder
that picks up everything picked
up nothing but the natural
background. What language
does the god speak? And the camera's  
lens, as sensitive to
an absence as to a presence,
saw what? What is the colour
of his thought?
               It was blank, then,
the screen, as far as he
was concerned? It was a bare
landscape and harsh, and geological
its time. But the rock was
bright, the illuminated manuscript
of the lichen. And a shadow,
as we watched, fell, as though
of an unseen writer bending over
his work.
         It was not cloud
because it was not cold,
and dark only from the candlepower
behind it. And we waited
for it to move, silently
as the spool turned, waited
for the figure that cast it
to come into view for us to
identify it, and it
didn't and we are still waiting.
 
 
 By R.S. Thomas
 from Frequencies (1978) 

Бог (God) by Boris Slutsky

 Once we all used to abide
 together with God, side by side,
 He didn't dwell in the sky,
 we'd see him from time to time
 alive, on the mausoleum.
 He was much more clever and evil
 than that other God, the old one,
 known to the world as Jehovah,
 whom he overthrew with a crash
 and reduced to a heap of ash,
 then subsequently restored
 and recruited to serve the cause.
 For once we all used to abide
 together with God, side by side.
 
 One day as I wandered around in
 the Arbat, I met God on parade
 with five limousines and surrounded
 by guards wearing mousy grey
 overcoats, hunched in dread.
 It was early and late – overhead
 the grey light of morning was showing
 as he grazed with his cruel, all-knowing
 eyes through the hearts of men,
 unmasking deviants and traitors.
 
 For we lived in an era when
 God himself was our neighbour.
 
 
 by Борис Абрамович Слуцкий (Boris Abramovich Slutsky)
 (1955)
 translated by Stephen Capus 

A recital of the poem in Russian by Alla Demidova (from 1:11 onwards after she briefly introduces it).

Here is the poem in the original Cyrillic Russian.

 Бог
 
 
 Мы все ходили под богом.
У бога под самым боком.
Он жил не в небесной дали,
Его иногда видали
Живого. На мавзолее.
Он был умнее и злее
Того — иного, другого,
По имени Иегова,
Которого он низринул,
Извел, пережег на уголь,
А после из бездны вынул
И дал ему стол и угол.

 Мы все ходили под богом.
У бога под самым боком.
Однажды я шел Арбатом.
Бог ехал в пяти машинах.
От страха почти горбата,
В своих пальтишках мышиных
Рядом дрожала охрана.
Было поздно и рано.
Серело. Брезжило утро.
Он глянул жестоко, мудро
Своим всевидящим оком,
Всепроницающим взглядом.

 Мы все ходили под богом.
С богом почти что рядом. 

Additional information: Slutsky was an atheist but he didn’t forget his Jewish cultural roots regarding not only Yiddish but also the Hebrew he had learned as a child which remained important to him even if only as deeply felt absences. This poem can be read as Slutsky reflecting on how the cult of persona arose in the Soviet era. Communist iconography of Lenin replaced Imperial Russia’s religious iconography in the day to day lives of Russian citizens in Moscow’s historical Arbat street and the surrounding area. Then he reflects, in the second part of the poem, how imagery of Stalin eventually replaced Lenin’s image and he was even worse than him.

Looking Glass by R.S. Thomas

 There is a game I play
 with a mirror, approaching
 it when I am not there,
 as though to take by surprise.
 
 the self that is my familiar. It
 is in vain. Like one eternally
 in ambush, fast or slow
 as I may raise my head, it raises
 
 its own, catching me in the act,
 disarming me by acquaintance,
 looking full into my face as often
 as I try looking at it askance.
 
 
 by R. S. Thomas
 from Experimenting with an Amen (1986) 

Pause by R.S. Thomas

 'Rest a while,'
 says the muse,
 but I press on
 losing myself between
 the dictionary and the blank
 page. Wisdom advises,
 'Call ber bluff and
 she'll come cringing.'
 But I am all nerves,
 running vocabulary
 through my fingers, faster
 and faster. And somewhere
 before me is
 the great poem, wrapped
 in its stillness, that
 I fool myself into
 thinking I will overtake soon
 by putting on speed.
 
 
 by R. S. Thomas
 from Unpublished Poems 

‘She came in out of the frost’ by Alexander Blok

 She came in out of the frost,
 her cheeks glowing,
 and filled my whole room
 with the scent of fresh air
 and perfume
 and resonent chatter
 that did away with my last chance
 of getting anywhere in my work.
 
 Straightaway
 she dropped a hefty art journal
 onto the floor
 and at once
 there was no room any more
 in my large room
 
 All this
 was somewhat annoying,
 if not absurd.
 Next, she wanted Macbeth
 read aloud to her.
 
 Barely had I reached
 the earth's bubbles
 which never failed to entrance me
 when I realized that she,
 no less entranced,
 was staring out of the window.
 
 A large tabby cat
 was creeping along the edge of the roof
 towards some amorous pigeons.
 What angered me most
 was that it should be pigeons,
 not she and I,
 who were necking,
 and that the days of Paolo and Francesca
 were long gone.
 
 
 by Александр Александрович Блок
(Alexander Alexandrovich Blok)
(1908)
translated by Robert Chandler  

‘The earth’s bubbles’ in this poem references a line from Act I, scene 3 of Shakespeare’s play Macbeth “The earth hath bubbles, as the water has, / And these are of them.” which Banquo says to Macbeth when the witches disappear after their encounter. Between 1904 and 1905 Blok wrote a poem cycle he titled ‘Bubbles of the Earth’, incorporating motifs from folk magic. In 1907 he wrote of Shakespeare, ‘ I love him deeply; and perhaps, most deely of all – in the whole of world literature – Macbeth’.

Paolo and Francesca refers to the affair between Francesca and her brother-in-law Paolo Malatesta, both of who were married, but fell in love nonetheless. Their tragic adulterous story was told by Dante in his Divine Comedy, Canto V of the Inferno, and was a popular subject with Victorian artists and sculptors, especially with followers of the Pre-Raphaelite ideology, and with other writers.