Poems from the poetry book „Fairy Tale Park“
Translated by Markas Aurelijus Piesinas
Warsaw
A green pond
In the park that
Resembles a graveyard
A fish might appear
And it does
We need light
Sun is out
We’re looking
For the most direct route
Massive posters and flags
Tell us to go
Crosses crosses crosses crosses
In the square a couple of tin soldiers
Melting near the eternal flame
In another square a protest
Three citizens speaking their truths
50 meters away from a man
With a poster saying
Lies are told 50 meters away
Bittersweet guilt
In the Jewish history museum
Which we didn’t visit
Later a delicious sip of Czech beer
As one poet said
Time is eternally running out
As one translator replied
Words find us themselves
Thirst
We’re all here like brothers and sisters
Beatrice doesn’t speak Italian
She says in Spanish
No preguntarme nada. He visto que las cosas
cuando buscan su curso encuentran su vacío.[1]
How’s your heart?
Still beating?
Great
A sad young philosopher sipping mezcal
Losing truth to oblivion and chasing love in his mind
The evening slips away
Like an unruly puppy
The snarling night
Will sink gently
Its teeth of slumber
Come morning the gale
And the clumsy sun rise
A couple is playing dice
Rolling eternity
A little short
Of enough
Beatrice can’t find us outside
Outside we’re looking for Beatrice
A lonely lover sings
Or maybe
We are the song
The lyrics don’t make sense
We keep forgetting the words
Let’s stay for another one
Just one more
Godzilla in Vilnius
no one instructed me how
to deal with situations like these
i searched the internet’s salt flats
for a drop of pure water
i tried calling
phone’s busy or disconnected
of course you had better things to do
you were never the sentimental type
and you won’t change now
i turned my late father’s radio on
(he’s lucky he didn’t get to experience this)
i can’t hear a voice it’s just
sssssssssssssssssssssssstatic
iodine tablets in the drawer
necessary items photographs arranged
in labyrinths on the floor
i run into the crowd by the bus stop
where special buses are waiting
their route is
Žemieji Paneriai–Death
traffic has stopped
the bus isn’t moving
we stare at the fog
waiting
Audition for a temporary opening of the role of third jester in the circus division of the domestic cultural ties and leisure politics department under the ministry of essential affairs in the kingdom of mirrors
Would you laugh at a naked king?
Name three of your most important flaws
Do you easily take credit for the achievements of others?
What is two times two? Four? Isn’t that too much?
Are you interested in acrobatics?
Do you juggle swords?
And can you do something else while you’re at it?
In other words, do you multitask?
Do you speak the language of birds?
Can you ride a unicycle?
Bicycle? Quadracycle? Hectocycle?
How many wenches would it take to satisfy the king?
Do you like playing with fire?
?sdrawkcab daer uoy oD
Why were you dismissed from your previous job?
Where do you see yourself in a hundred years?
Are you a solo or team player?
Heads or tails?
What are your salary expectations?
Do you partake in drugs?
What are your career goals?
How far can you spit?
Are you seeing anybody right now?
Is that too personal of a question?
Would you rather choose a cat in a bag or a bird in the hand?
Explain your choice
What other tricks do you know?
Do you believe in miracles?
What are we doing here?
You think something’s funny?
His Majesty the Lyrical Subject
Paraphrase of the poem “Today – On Lenin’s Birthday” by Justinas Marcinkevičius[2]
Today
On the Lyrical Subject’s birthday
I will constantly think of him
As I’m scrolling on Facebook
I will think of him
As I’m picking up a cigarette
I will think of him
As I’m jacking off in the shower
I will think of him
When I see:
How they’re building the Akropolis
I will think of him
How the drone flies
High above the city
I will think of him
How an old lady moves to Krasnuha
In the trolleybus
Holding her aloe vera plant
Whose leaves
Resemble a swastika
I will think of him
How corpses arrive and leave
Through the doors of a funeral home
I will think of him
And when I hear
How the people cuss
Blyat’
And how they say
Kurwa nahui
I will think of him
And when I’m watching
The Joe Rogan Experience
I will think of him
In the evening, looking at the empty screen of my laptop
I will think of him
And when I’m not thinking of tomorrow
I will think of him
451° Fahrenheit
take up and read
the catechism of sparks
sizzling letters
blazing words
flaring sentences
thick fumes of wisdom
burning your eyes
nose
throat
now’s a good time to use safety measures
like gas masks
if we had enough
the ignited covers turn blue
publications expand in the bliss of the fire
pages convulse like snakes
just hissing hissing hissing hissing
turning the tricky postmodernity of Joyce into charcoal
incinerating special operation and peace
fulfilling Kafka’s whim
FIRE extends the brave new world
FIRE prolongs 1984
FIRE fuels the clockwork orange
FIRE
pillars of smoke
mounds of ashes
are good fertilizers
they’ll fix the wasteland
P. S.
they lied to us when they said that manuscripts don’t burn
oh yes they do
leaping in the inquisition’s flames
shedding their bodies
letter by letter
life after life
into the margins of ash
1. Don’t ask me any questions. I’ve seen how things that seek their way find their void instead.” (Federico García Lorca)
2. This infamous poem by Lithuanian poet Justinas Marcinkevičius celebrating Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin’s birthday was published in the April 1987 issue of the Soviet Lithuanian newspaper Tiesa. It is a meditation on the subject’s daily routine expressing an unwavering tribute to the USSR’s first head of government (“Today / On Lenin’s birthday / I will think of him all day / As I’m reading the morning paper / I will think of him / As I’m picking up a slice of bread / I will think of him / […]”). J. Marcinkevičius’s ideological ties to the Soviet regime have recently made his status as an esteemed Lithuanian poet a matter of great debate in the Lithuanian public space (translator’s note).
