Already, no more suffering, no
more speech nor space nor time.
In the city of Bremen, only music
still survives, and light.
Over the bakery, a pretzel gleams,
summing up foolish life,
and in the dark of midnight
a repulsive white flower blooms.
Dusty brakes of yellow acacia
clustered around an empty platform
revealed the law of gravity,
but its effect on the spirit was slight.
Life should not slip away like dross.
Again you climb the hill, but
the faces ripped open like bellies
disclose only the viscera of clocks.
We die, we sleep and eat,
weep loudly, form words
and pursue certain ends,
with no idea of what its all about.
The fir-tree branches flutter
in a dazzle of eyelashes,
and round-headed nurslings of death
materialize in the maternity wards.
No more honey, hops, or malt,
no burning water, no fire.
The blasted gold cavorts across the sky,
in too much of a hurry.
You’ll break the moon like crockery
and, approaching old age, learn how
to persecute those irrepressible Jews.
So your youthful days return.
How the winged horses clip-clopped
over the hot paving stones of the bridge.
We saw Mandelstam, or Blok,
head bowed, walking off
into inordinately deep air-pockets,
where words echo death’s knell,
where your disobedient golden head
still seems to be alive.
Translated by Ruth Fainlight