s h i r a

So...

      I may be in Seattle this summer from late July to mid August doing poetry and workshopping and music and generally loving it up.

I have one place to stay. I need more.

Who lives there?

Who has a couch?

     Also, I may be in Hawaii (Honolulu) for the last two weeks of August - yes, doing poetry and workshopping and music and generally loving it up.

Who lives there?

Who has a couch?

Know anyone who could help a gal out?
 
     Also, hi!

    And, I'm no good at cooking, but I can pay them/you back with poems, songs, art, hugs, conversation, etc.

There are two weeks of August left and I just want to write freely. Things to remember. Things to keep in my pockets like marbles. Run my finger over the hidden swirl. Know it's there. I made so many new friends at Nationals. I will be sending letters and getting letters and this makes my alphabet happy. Casey called my new poem "a beast" - it's been sitting in me for weeks, the seed of it, growing, growing, so it feels like I finally gave birth and the birthing was meticulous and heavy and fragile, but it's out. I can't wait to see how it takes shape and grows. Who knows, maybe I'll even post it on this e-palace of friendship (you heard me) if I get brazen enough. About the scene, I can't say enough. Ryler Dustin. Brian S. Ellis. Kit Wallach. Tara Hardy. Mighty Mike. James Caroline. Simone Beaubien (Good Love)... and more, and more. Good lord, ya'll. Make my knees quiver why don't you? Make my heart butterfly, make my moth mouth shudder towards the light, I mean c'mon, make my fingers weep willow hair, make my eyes sprout avalanches, Jesus H, make me cry, make me smile some, make my heart a too-soft peach, Good Lord, I just want to write freely, so please take these compliments and try to run your finger over their hidden swirl.

Simone and Brian and I were talking about writing; Simone was saying it was a fairly painful process for her, that she paced and paced around each sentence until her footsteps created the perfect shape. Me? Most of the time I'm tracing the shadows of the words on the pavement, drawing odd lumps and bobbles (what are bobbles, you ask? what are bobbles? I wonder that too). Most of the time I just feel lucky. There are so many words to trace and peel and poke! There are night-words that have no shadow but throw light onto the pavement instead, and there are jungle words with too many vines down their throat to make sense, and there are action figure words that I melt down into puddles of plasticy goo no good for the environment, and there are big blood-orange words that I crack against the pavement like snowballs, and I am just writing freely, so don't hold it against me, Truth, if I tip-toe around you and never bull's eye. 

I go back to school in two weeks. I have no idea what the world has in store for me. It is a wide open feeling. A shrug your shoulders feeling. I wonder if I'll be scared. I wonder how I'll cope. I wonder about friendships and how to set them a'sail. I wonder about what I'll write. What will come out of me? Once Brian said about where he was heading artistically, "Who knows what I'm going to write! It's like, maybe I'll invent a new language!" and yes, that feels very possible. The second he said it I knew that was how I always felt, when excited, when in the zone, when flames were pouring from my molars (whoa! ouch!), okay, maybe not molars, maybe when thunder was echoing in my belly (or maybe I was just hungry?), okay, when I was EXCITED by what was leaking out of my pen or keys, the second he said it I knew that when I was really rapt and wrapped in my writing I was on the verge of a new language. 

I am excited about possibilities. The possibilities that school puts forth. The possibilities of new friendships. Of new languages. Of new ways of expressing the once seemingly inexpressable. The last ten months have been some of the hardest of my whole life but what have I made out of lemons? Sometimes I just ate em. Gotta act practical and delicious. Sometimes I built little houses for birds to rest in-between their migrations. Sometimes I made hats for chipmunks. Sometimes I built lemon-mobiles and dangled them over Leise's head or the Whitehaus Marquee or my own heart. 

I appreciate the way friendships have housed me in the last ten months. I have received letters and hugs and words and precious company. All my bones are setting quite nicely. The firefighters may have finally left. The glow in the dark stars on the ceiling spell the home addresses of all who I trust and my sky is cluttered. Though I have been living, though I have done so much, taught, poemed, traveled, healed, worked, though I have been living, as I head into this new chapter in the mountains of Amherst, I may now really be starting my life again.  

 Hi gang!

I passed into the TOP 25 on www.famecast.com's contest and now I REALLY need your vote to pass into the TOP 10! To those of you who have already voted - thank you so so much! It's ALL based on votes, and so you can and have already made a difference.

Now that I am in round 3 I need your vote more than ever. So take 2 minutes and vote on www.famecast.com!
This is a great way to support me as an artist. It's quick, easy and the prize is huge: $10,000 and major exposure!

IT'S SOOOOO CLOSE and YOUR VOTE will make the difference!

HOW TO VOTE:
1. go to wwww.famecast.com
2 go to login
3. register as a fan
4. fill out info
5. wait for confirmation email
6. login
7. go to stage nine, watch my video, and vote for me!

ITS LITERALLY ONE VOTE APART FOR THE 8, 9, AND 10 SPOT. YOUR VOTE WILL PUSH ME UP!

love love love,
shira

...and thanks for the support so far ya'll!
remember, dancing puppies for all who vote.

Hi everybody!

POETS, WRITERS, FRIENDS, FOES, read on! 

I am putting together a zine/anthology/chapbook about mental illness. There will be poems, essays, personal narratives, information, etc. on mental illness. The point is to get many voices who have had experiences with mental illness heard, so that a whole spectrum -friends, patients, social workers - are heard. This is a deeply personal and important issue for me. There is simply not enough conversation about mental illness, too little known, more people suffering, struggling, and living with it than is spoken about, and I believe we can make a difference with this chapbook.

If you have a history of mental illness, please please please consider writing and submitting a poem about (a) your experience with mental illness, or (b) on the topic of mental illness. If you don't have a personal history with mental illness, but have had it affect your life, please consider submitting a piece about the experience. I already have some great folks in this anthology and I'm looking to make it the bomb - informative, de-stigmatizing, beautiful, and de-tabooifying (you heard me!). 

Please leave me a message here if you're interested or at s e zero five at hampshire dot edu with "mental illness anthology" as the subject line. Also, leave me any questions and concerns you might have.

 Lastly, submit!

Rabbit

I have saved all the yellow skittles till the end and now im eating them all at the same time and very pleased with this choice. Fascinating, eh?

I am off to CA at six tomorrow morning for a poetry festival - more on that at moon_log! add me if you haven't yet. poetry news + new poetry there.

also, i have a new myspace for my poetry news + poetry http://www.myspace.com/shiraerlichman check it out ya'll, one two, one two.

I am pumped to hear about Jared, Ryler Dustin, and Sonya Renee all making the Finals at IWPS. So exciting, wish I could be there to support!

In other news, the sixth graders I teach poetry every friday are really rockin. Their last assignment was to respond, in a poem, to someone picking on them and little Brian with big ears and braces wrote a poem called "I am Not Gay!" Amazing.

I saw these questions in the book I'm reading, How to Find the Work You Love by Laurence G. Boldt and I am curious what your answers are.  If you have a moment, please share.

~What problems in your world, nation, and community cry out most powerfully to you as needing action?
~What elements of human suffering speak to your heart?
~What human aspirations do you want most to champion or support?

1.

2. my poem is up @ my new journalmoon_log -  let's be friends!

3. "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiousity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiousity." - Albert Einstein 

4. define these words as a surreal dictionary would: boredom. metamorphosis. hands. home. masturbation. (check a couple entries back if you don't recall this activity, or give it a whirl without recalling...)

5. Tiny Tornadoes @ the All Asia in Cambridge on Monday, January 29th at 8:00 pm. 

6.   

7. new songs are up @ www.myspace.com/kisshugclimbmakerecords - see you there! delightful!

8. Three Oddest Words by Wislawa Szymborska

When I pronounce the word Future,
the first syllable already belongs to the past.

When I pronounce the word Silence,
I destroy it.

When I pronounce the word Nothing,
I make something no nonbeing can hold.

9. I prefer hats.
I prefer imagining.
I prefer overhearing a secret to being told one.
I prefer libraries to museums.
I prefer old-fashioned stamps.
I prefer the paintings of children.
I prefer pens.
I prefer the impossible, consistently.
I prefer the radio.
I prefer laughter to magic tricks.

What do you prefer?

Hello friends! Tis I, the wingheaded Shira McStaresatyou with some grand news!



I have a new lj account called moon_log whose sole purpose is to be filled with my poems and poem-related things such as upcoming shows, new pieces, old pieces, inspirations, and more, leaving this one to be my personal journal of secrets and boy crushes and the usual sleepover business. so, if you so desire to be kept in the loop, ADD ME! yay squared!  PS Get lost in the shimmer of my gold-plated vest! DO IT.

 

some music is born electric written on the ceiling  some is born belly-up in the microwave 
some is born in the middle of a flower & allergic to sun some music dies

because the government hasn’t figured out how to dance yet this is our song 
our hearts murmuring bedroom constellations glowing orchestras of cricketsong

 

yes to yes to popping balloons to the song of birds leaving branches yes to after city fire silence yes to the morning song of dumptrucks yes beautiful skybreasted planes carrying sound on their shoulders yes booming yes wild blue boombox bravado of driveby rap concerts yes to the skittering squirrel knockdown fast trashcan feet and tapes of just waves that your grandmother made and first records that you play so much they scratch like sand in your shorts yes to sound the sound of the word boyfriend in fifth grade boyfriend giggle giggle yes escaping her mouth like god empty o of her lips yes to yes

 

its so soft what music brings like the phrase worth living

 

if I could speak music all day if I could music my mouthtalk

xylophone-tongued

if I could not die like songs never die

so long as someone keeps listening

there’s a hole in my heart the size of a tiny death

tiny as an ant’s death

I feel breadcrumb small these days

 

if only I could feed myself music

if I could bellyfill survive on it only eat fistfuls of sound

cram POUND crash slick jam lick sound

          if I could jam myself between a symphony and a train crash

          if I could jam with Lucille Ball’s laugh

          jam a fishbowl into water so it pops up

                   that pop is James Brown’s coat falling

 

while the shiniest jazz is nice

there is nothing I love more

than a toiletflush symphony

if I could speak flush I would

 

if I could speak cards flying flush flush

fly a bouquet of numbers in the air

          oh and the sound of it

                   is James Brown’s coat gracing the floor

 

but there is nothing I love more

than a crow chorus at dawn

than microwave beep breakdancing

than movie lobby popcorn machine maestros

 

yes when I play I am shuffling of wavefeet

across splintery floors of night

I am yes sadness yes o

I am and I am not am

I am blended

with the sound

 

tonight I will milk myself of all my sour notes

when I play I am beautiful as a bloated cow

with so much to sing

 

I have only things to sing

I want only to move my mouth like the shuffle of cards

my nightsweatuglymadness peels

and something soft leaves me

its raining feathers

our song tickling children

our song when it leaves us I am whole

note closer

to the language of trash sculptures

surmounting what they used to be

closer to this language of yes

crash tongue burn yes

burn tongue xylophone crescendo

and fade out slow

Here's a poem I wrote, after 3 months of not really writing poems; a type of silence, one might say. I am posting this in honor of Jake, my deepest friend on this journey.

Silence

 

I didn’t know it was possible to breathe deeper but then

I fell off my bike breaking my toe and I had to walk slow

and the world slowed down with me down slowed world the and I

started to hear differently hear to started I and

leaves fell like pages and I didn’t care if I ever wrote another word again.

 

I threw “silence parties” with my friend Jake we would wander

for hours never speaking never making a sound

we would just be humans together just be

like ducks are just ducks

just are breathing we would watch them for hours and

sometimes they would watch us and nothing never happened

because everything was happening all around us all at once

we were so still that when the wind came blowing through it was

a crescendo a momentous event

a breeze felt like breaking news

so a bird rising out of the water to fly

was nothing short of a miracle the pattern its lifting feet made

in the water was an art was everywhere and everywhere was art.

 

One night Jake and I got lost in my own neighborhood

we remained silent pointing and guessing he gave me a piggy-back ride

when my foot started to hurt the roads I noticed were zig-zagged with tar

curvaceous black lines thick curves winding indecipherable script

in the language of tar a pattern a construction worker

must have incidentally made did he know it was art

did he know that lost one summer evening

it would make my journey more beautiful

more journey more road less destination more art

did he know he was an artist?

 

One afternoon on a silent walk we wandered into a laundromat symphony

rattling metal drums spinning sound it was orchestral

I stood a silent animal in a room of trembling metallic bodies

was I trembling too am I trembling now?

does a bird tremble as it surrounds itself with sky? what sound

lives in its hollow bones? I stood wordless with Jake

feeling like we were on another planet but we were just breathing

inside a laundromat on an afternoon in July and what could be more

miraculous? What could be more beautiful more journey

more road less destination more art than

breathing?

 

I felt I could never speak again and be happy

never even think again just be empty

hollow-boned body of sky trembling

never butterfly-pin the wings of words to a page again

never write again for a poet this was huge I wanted only to resonate

to vibrate to be sound to be to breathe to live a life more beautiful

more journey more art

to listen.

 

After hours of silence

each word I said was a century of speaking

touching the piano keys was a momentous event like touching the sky

note by note the patterns emerged without my knowing

step by step we found our way home in the dark

and each sound entered my body and shook me deeper than bone

it was as if I was empty

and everything was here to fill me

to be my water

to zig-zag wildly before me only once

to speak to me in its own language

the language of trees, of ducks, and washing machines.

 

I am learning that there is time

there is time for it all time for birds time for me

time for you time for healing time for breath

there is time to write this poem

there is time for every poem of my life

I don’t have to chase the words down blind alleys screaming

DON’T FORGET ME, DON’T RUN

there is time to stop.

Silence will teach us what words cannot.

 

A baby Hippo that survived the Tsunami waves on the Kenyan coast snuggles close to a giant century old tortoise in an animal facility in Mombasa. The Kenyan government plans to send hundreds of exotic and endangered animals to Thailand in a wildlife swap that drew harsh criticism from conservationists and concern from tourism officials.

Tortoise Mothers Hippo After Tsunami by Thea

1. today the power went out & a huge thunderstorm filled my house. i played banjo near my bedroom window, which was open & let in a lovely breeze. the rain was flying sideways. i felt small & that the world was full of sound. i love the sky's drumkit. mom put candles in my room. i could tell my parents were bored & i even watched them flirt a little bit. i challenged my mom to be silent for ten minutes (a feat if you know my mom!) and she succeeded, while my dad turned to me & said "wow...it's weird when she doesn't talk."

2. i made 12 packages of my "happy cus the world revolves" 5-song demo from 2003, wrapped in brightly, personally decorated galapagos island coloring book pages (each individually colored in by mwa in neon markers & highlighters). they look wonderful. if you want one - only fi-dolla - let me know! i'd be glad to make one espeshully for you. i am going to be in the one & only worcester tomorrow, JULY 29TH, performing poetry & music. i can't wait. it is an "Arts at the Garden" event; taking place on 9 castle street, near One Luv Cafe & the Artichoke Food Pantry. the open mic is at 6, & i will be on from 7 - 8; & ill have my limited edition (wow!) colorful iguana cds & chapbooks on hand. oh, and love. i'll have the love too. come! yeah, you! as of now, i have no idea what i'm reading or singing & i like it that way.

3. i love thunderstorms. the end.

4. shira e. & the tiny tornadoes are at it again. THIS SUNDAY, July 30th at the All Asia Cafe in Central Square, Cambridge at 8:45. only fi-dolla people. headlining too. oo la la. there's going to be clapping & stomping & sing-along-ing & a lovely new flute player & gabe in a hat & xylophone melodies & the love. i am all smiles. come! yes you! also, we're playing august 7th @ all asia, more on that next week!

5. i bought & love a "glitter cats sticker book" & i will give it away to the fiercest dancer at the show tomorrow - unless you give me a reason to use it before that. like a gift, a letter, a magic trick.

6. do you want us to play a house party in your neck of the woods? and like, play slow & loud & fast & sweet? i'm jus sayin, man. banjo pluckin & my heart & tambourines.

7. i learned that the brain can't compute fear & appreciation at the same time, so, if you're afraid a good thing to do, (if that fear is getting in yor way, not providing necessary adrenalin), you should appreciate. while appreciating, it is literally impossible to be afraid. i did it with a spider the other day & learned a lot. i watched it create a web for about twenty minutes. spiders are artists. also, if you practice making lists of what you appreciate throughout your day, anything at all that you appreciate...your fear will go down; aka, you will be less afraid throughout your days. lovely, isn't it.

8. 5 things i appreciate about summer: 1) the lazy days, no schedule, nowhere to go, nothing to do. 2) fourth of july in maine. it is always a highlight of my year. fireflies, the house, reflection time, naps, the friends, dock jumps, the friends. 3) seeing folks from home, spending time with loved ones, my family, friends. 4) the break from school, nothing is due. there can be hot dogs at midnight & sitting on my porch with the trees & the wind. 5) i have time to make music. i can play anytime. & i do.

9. this is fun. 5 things i appreciate about having broken my toe: 1) the world is slow when you can only take it one step at a time, literally. i learned to go at my own pace. 2) i learned that healing takes time, change takes time. you can't force it. even when i thought "okay! i'm ready, i'm done with this injury!" the injury (& its lessons) weren't done with me. 3) loneliness. difficult, necessary, illuminating, painful, special. all the time with just myself. i feel a new intimacy with me. i am so thankful. i made music, i sat, i took slow walks, & on, & on.  4) everything will happen, everything is unfolding as it should, if we just let go & let it. we don't need to rush from point A to point B. i loved watching the world, putting one small foot in front of the other. the slowness. 5) i felt totally justified not doing, just being. no one could rush me, push me, force me. i could go on & on with this list, & for that i am truly thankful...

10. lastly, 5 things i appreciate about fear: 1) it gives me an opportunity to face it. 2) it is a sharp, precise reminder to breathe, be fully in my body, relax, listen to myself. 3) it makes me more aware - of the space around me, of myself in that space. 4) by letting myself feel afraid, i allow myself to feel vulnerable. vulnerability is an art. 5) fear allows me to ask for help. i don't have to be bold & strong forever & always; i can lean on others & fear teaches me this. humanness.

 

hello friends! you are cordially invited...

THIS SUNDAY July 23rd at 10 p.m. at the Lilypad in Inman Square in Cambridge (www.lily-pad.net) 
I will be playing music with my band, the tiny tornadoes - that's shai e., honest gabe, sweet siv lie, and sarah golly g! 
I would love to see you there.

Let's sing together on our journey under the stars. come join SHIRA E. & THE TINY TORNADOES for a melodious evening trekking through the desert at night. Bring a friend, plenty of water, and your clapping hands. beware of ghosts. Only campfire songs and hope can save us now. Be ready to suck the snake poison out of your best friend's heart. Oh, and to sing along. Together, we can get through this.

www.myspace.com/tinytornadoes

Cost: $5

Opening: Gabriel RiCharde (www.myspace.com/gabrielricharde)

<3
see you there!

I have a wonderful little book called "A BOOK OF SURREALIST GAMES" and in preparation for a writing workshop I am facilitating tomorrow, I was peaking through it. It is full of fun games which I have been exploring with friends, friendloring with exports. At the end is the "Little Surrealist Dictionary: A Game of Redefinitions" in which the fun pack of surrealists redefined words they found in the dictionary. Here are a few of my favorites that I wanted to share.

art
Art is a pharmaceutical product for imbeciles.

ash
A disease of cigars

beauty
Beauty is simply the total consciousness of our perversions. Beauty shall be convulsive or it will not be…Convulsive beauty shall be erotic-veiled, explosive-fixed, magical-circumstantial, or not be.

cynicism
The worm of mockery that spoils the otherwise delicious fruit of complete freedom.

depravity
Descending the ascending path of pleasure

dream
Dream is a tunnel running beneath reality

future
The future is a monotonous instrument

infinity
There are two infinities: God and stupidity.

knowledge
The known is an exception, the unknown a deception.

masturbation
The hand at the service of the imagination

mustard
Produced in 1615 at the request of the anti-pope Guido da Crema, who was looking for anti-honey.

sea
The sea is the night asleep in the daytime.

sex
The act of sex is the axis of sects


Automatism is the primary method of Surrealism. Automatic techniques are used as the beginning to creative activity, as to simulate or encourage spontaneity. So, tell me, automatically! without thinking! the first thought! that pops into your brain to: what is the definition of:

heart
termite
weapon
television
today

?

*

"I work from awkwardness. By that I mean I don't like to arrange things. If I stand in front of something, instead of arranging it, I arrange myself."


*

"The thing that's important to know is that you never know. You're always sort of feeling your way."


*


Cheers, Deep Breath & an Amen.

We are all teachers and we are all students, and we must share our knowledge with each other.

*

Eventually we will all understand that all wisdom is within us, and as we remember, practice and access this wisdom, we will become our own best teacher.

*

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.
We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

... Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955)

*

More learning can occur
when there are many obstacles
than when there are few or none.

*

Wisdom is achieved slowly and is the active expression of knowledge in our everyday lives.
Loving service is the highest wisdom.

*

"When one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but is translated into a better language"

...John Donne (c. 1572 - 1631 )

*


All evolution in thought and conduct must at first appear as heresy and misconduct.

... George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

*

We are here to learn about love. This is the energy from which all of us and all things are made.

*

It's spectacular what can happen when you let your self experience, when you balance the spiritual with the logical.

*

When our communities are cooperative and compassionate, when they are responsible and kind,
we can recreate a little bit of heaven upon the earth.

*

Reach out with love and compassion to help others without concern with what comes back to you.

I Would Like

Poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko

 

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 Lake Baikal
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 Copacabana Beach.
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,
so that the earth buzzes with me,
                                 and computers go berserk
in the world census of me.
I would like to fight on all your barricades,
                                             humanity,
dying each night
                like an exhausted moon,
and resurrecting each morning
                             like a newborn sun,
with an immortal soft spot--fontanel--
                                      on my head.
And when I die,
               a smart-aleck Siberian Francois Villon,
do not lay me in the earth
                          of France
                                   or Italy,
but in our Russian, Siberian earth,
                                   on a still-green hill,
where I first felt
                  that I was
                            everyone.

1972
Translated by the author