Page 1 of Discernible Sound


Discernible Sound

  by Andrey Kneller

  Copyright 2014 by Andrey Kneller

  Copyright  Kneller, Boston, 2011

  All rights reserved

  Also by Andrey Kneller:

  Wondrous Moment: Selected Poetry of Alexander Pushkin

  White Flock: Poetry of Anna Akhmatova

  Final Meeting: Selected Poetry of Anna Akhmatova

  My Poems: Selected Poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva

  Backbone Flute: Selected Poetry of Vladimir Mayakovsky

  February: Selected Poetry of Boris Pasternak

  The Stranger: Selected Poetry of Alexander Blok

  Unfinished Flight: Selected Poetry of Vladimir Vysotsky

  O, Time…: Selected Poetry of Victoria Roshe

  For Lena

  Table of Contents

  Licked by the tongues…

  Amadeus

  Embrace me Silence...

  Fire and Ice

  November

  July. White curtains…

  Although the day is six feet under…

  Silent Night

  The sun left the vertex…

  Reflect me...

  The demon on my shoulder said it best…

  August

  Draw in the smoke…

  New York

  Sad Eyes

  Macbeth

  Fleeting Time

  The thought of you vanishes...

  All of us know where we’re destined…

  Venice

  Reflections on Existence

  Ode to a Window

  To ***

  Autumn

  Cold February. Heated furnace…

  Again, it’s February…

  Prayer

  Venice II

  Mercury climbs the thermometer…

  Silence

  Mid-December.

  Venice III

  Spring

  Muse

  Without a reason…

  Rome

  Break up

  Here, on the outskirts...

  To the Muse

  First snow

  Spring Morning

  Venice IV

  Sorrow

  Bookmark

  I refuse to love in cliches…

  The sky was paler…

  Her love

  Venice V

  Poet’s Prayer

  To Pilate

  Advice for a Friend

  I’ve never asked you…

  Beginning of a Storm

  Creation of Adam

  Life is beautiful!

  Separation

  This Love

  The Muse

  Until the Sun Arises

  Then Olga smiled and said…

  Black and White

  Catharsis through prayer…

  Casting smiles aside…

  Despair

  Seagull

  Fragments

  Harlem

  Ophelia

  32B Panorama

  Melancholy

  Moonlit Night

  Desperate

  Moment

  On the Brink

  Anti-War Poetry

  Shotgun

  The Trip

  Parting

  Insomnia

  The Fog

  I continued to kiss you…

  Careful thief

  Autumn. The chill draws nearer…

  I wasted my nights…

  Ever Since Our Pathways Crossed…

  Moving On

  I want to paint the world yellow…

  Melancholy

  Learn to forgive the poets…

  The city fell silent…

  Rockport

  It rained. We walked.

  I walk among…

  Parting II

  The Pianist

  Portrait of a Friend

  I’ve lost you…

  Stranger

  My mornings are gray…

  Break-up

  Revolution

  I’ve searched for my love…

  For weeks, I haven’t had moment of repose…

  Love Song

  I gave you my heart…

  December Morning

  Drunk

  At a Local Dunkin Donuts

  Silence

  Journal Entry

  O what a useless waste…

  Good and Bad

  Verses For Her

  Summertime

  Insomnia

  VM

  New England

  The best place for writing poetry…

  This campus is attractive in the spring…

  Poets and prophets…

  If only for the simple fact…

  Happiness

  Shatter

  This town…

  I’m from…

  Katrina

  The greatest lies…

  Waltz

  The contrast of my green eyes…

  The future came…

  If I run out of paper…

  Ella

  August 20, 2008

  Let’s set some time aside for love…

  Nights here are quiet…

  Prayer

  Elegy

  Especially from up high…

  During the day…

  Again, I smile to myself…

  SOS

  I must confess…

  No one cares to bring charges against me…

  You surrendered to me…

  I’m a hunter…

  Haunted house

  There were four women in my life…

  They grabbed her by the neck…

  My sixth sense says…

  Autumn

  Lullaby

  Go unplug your television…

  I think this calls for a drink…

  Rockport in spring…

  Intimate

  Coffee but no cups

  Cadillac, Bar Harbor

  This autumn’s different from the rest…

  Alexandra

  We are still worlds apart…

  Falling stars, on the horizon…

  Dream

  I love you even more for your curves…

  Analyze the circumstance…

  In all the beauty that was revealed to me…

  I awaited a letter…

  Dali was wrong…

  Creation

  You – on my chest…

  Occupy Wall Street

  To the Muse

  Though often alone and happy...

  On my skin...

  Before you...

  Before the world...

  I love you most...

  Emptiness in the crib...

  Your hands are steady...

  Much too much has been said...

  Learn from toddlers...

  Emptied sky...

  Life’s a game…

  "I can't sleep. There is a woman stuck between my eyelids. I would tell her to get out if I could. But there is a woman stuck in my throat."

  Eduardo Galeano

  Licked by the tongues…

  Licked by the tongues of summer heat,

  The day burns slowly into ashes.

  As though a teardrop from the lashes,

  A drop of ink falls on the sheet

  And I, as lonesome as that dot,

  A single mark upon the page,

  Sit locked inside an opened cage,

  In endless space can’t find my spot.

  I search but do not see a reason

  Why full of images and thought

  I cannot write a single word,

  Why being free I feel imprisoned.

  Amadeus

  Each night, I am deprived of sleep and rest

  Three grueling weeks and I have just begun.

 
It started as a game, - now I’m obsessed,

  The cards were dealt, - His will is left undone!

  With every note, my Fate is drawing near

  The melody resounds in her steps

  Oh Melpomene, my heart is filled with fear.

  I'm tangled in my notes,  - my wicked webs.

  I wove each line with Ariadne’s thread

  My Requiem is due, I’ve lost my touch…

  “Do take the music that my soul has bled

  There’s more in me, - don’t hold it as a grudge!”

  Embrace me Silence...

  Embrace me Silence! In your presence,

  So many poets seek the Muse.

  They search for words to share their views

  And take no knowledge from your lessons...

  But you and I, - we sense the essence,

  We understand, - words have no use!

  Fire and Ice

  Both, fire and ice, before destruction

  Can be tamed!

  Two opposites meet in attraction, -

  As a result of this reaction,

  The melting ice puts out the flame!

  But if one day it does expire,

  The world’s demise will come from love,

  Since neither ice nor blazing fire

  Can mar enough

  To damage more than heart’s desire!

  November

  A whole new day erupts, -

  Horizon’s lit with embers.

  The sky is pierced with drops

  Of tears shed by November.

  The leaves twirl in their flight,

  So weak and short of breath,

  While reaching for new heights,

  They glide into the depths

  Of dimmed reflected skies,

  Where heaven quickly smears

  And echoes of their cries

  Send ripples through the years.

  The sad fate of the lost, -

  To seek the Truth in mud

  When by the window crossed

  The Truth is hung to rot.

  Just take a look outside, -

  The skin hangs off its bones!

  November, crucified,

  In all three voices moans...

  July. White curtains…

  July. White curtains. Melancholy.

  The stale air is hard to breathe.

  Alone I sit and stare at Holly,

  Who’s doing homework, while I grieve.

  Two weeks remaining. Birds are chirping.

  It’s four a.m. I’m counting sheep.

  Is it my conscience-- so disturbing?

  My eyes are red from lack of sleep.

  Spread fingers hold the heavy Norton.

  Her other hand is on her lips.

  While I am left to die from boredom.

  Outside, the pale sunrise creeps.

  The sun will rise before we know it

  This day will be consumed by time.

  But, until then, let’s steal a moment

  From lifeless verse and boring rhyme.

  I strain my eyes from lack of sleep

  July. White curtains. Melancholy.

  Four twenty-five. I’m counting sheep

  Alone I sit and stare at Holly.

  Although the day is six feet under…

  Although the day is six feet under,

  Your perfume in the air remains

  And horses drag the fallen reins,--

  Apollo's fallen into slumber.

  Like ghosts at night, dark branches sway

  And cast long shadows onto walls.

  The creaking carriage slowly rolls...

  The horses’ hooves sink into clay.

  The wearied horses stray and wander.

  The night is chilling, cold and grim,

  And one by one, the windows dim,

  Apollo’s fallen into slumber.

  The heavy clouds loom with gray.

  They’re undisturbed by northern winds

  And leaving only rounded prints

  The horses’ hooves sink into clay.

  Dark skies are gliding down the lanes.

  The moonlight lulls us, softly healing.

  Cold corpses lie without feeling

  And horses drag the fallen reins.

  The darkness fills the empty halls.

  Our voices lower to a whisper.

  The air is turning colder, crisper.

  The creaking carriage slowly rolls...

  With frenzy throwing up the curtains,

  September rages, filled with spite...

  My darling, don’t turn off the light--

  We won’t awake the sleeping servants.

  Silent Night

  Choking minutes with her hands,

  Slowly squeezing the aorta,

  Nature, with her chilling glance,

  Proves to us that she’s immortal.

  Naked trees with passion sway,

  Sweeping stars, while none will fall.

  Icy puddles mark my way, -

  Dark like windows to one’s soul.

  Ashen doves rest on the cable,

  They observe the pale sky.

  Wind, - the hand that rocks the cradle,

  Softly sings a lullaby.

  There, I linger, sad and wearied,

  Breathing in the silent night.

  Shaking lips confirm my theory, -

  Even dreams here freeze in flight.

  The sun left the vertex…

  The sun left the vertex

  And tree trunks fell slanted.

  Thrown from the vortex,

  Gold leaves were implanted

  Alongside those bleak streets,

  Where gentle and cautious,

  Avoiding dark thickets,

  In muddy galoshes,

  We rambled on homeward

  For what seemed like hours,

  But, we took the long road

  Because it was ours.

  Your skin showed a faint blush.

  The clear chilly evening

  Was drawn with paintbrush,

  Its colors were gleaming.

  How softly you whispered,

  “Don’t take these nights lightly”

  Believe me, my sister,

  I think of them nightly.

  Reflect me...

  “Reflect me as I am, — three-dimensional!

  Do not flatten me with your exterior,

  rather curve from all the conventional

  and engulf first my spirit ethereal

  and then patch it up with new scenery.

  Swallow light and reflect its radiance,

  capture everything in your vicinity,

  and invert the lines of your radius

  as to include all of the outwardly,--

  everything that is out of your medium.

  In some sense, I guess that I’m cowardly,

  I’m afraid of the permanent tedium

  of the life on this side of the border...

  so I beg you reflect me, I’m sinking!”--

  Thus I prayed to oblivious water,

  as the puddles were drying and shrinking...

  The demon on my shoulder said it best…

  “...we consider too much the good luck of the early bird, and not enough the bad luck of the early worm.”

  -F. D. Roosevelt.

  The demon on my shoulder said it best,--

  "The grass is greener when the grass is smoked,

  It doesn't matter on which path you've walked,

  All roads will lead to Rome, both east and west...

  Remember that three lefts will make a right!

  That curiosity gave cats a life worth living.

  And don't read novels, -- content is deceiving,

  Judge by the cover and you'll be all right!

  There aren't any winners when there's peace

  Engage in fights as often as you wish!

  Learn that the worms will catch the early fish,

  And that t
he second mouse gets the cheese!

  For every penny saved, a second's lost...

  If time is money, -- do not sell it short!

  Don't sell your soul for pennies to the Lord--

  The Devil buys it at a higher cost."

  August

  Doors swing open on loose hinges.

  Poverty’s a state of mind.

  Cuddling like two gray pigeons,

  Two lone shadows intertwined,

  Searching in the eyes of August,

  Down the emptied water-well,

  While the wind, so dry and raucous,

  Sweeps the body’s every cell.

  Hot and humid, lustful dreams,--

  Women wearing see-though gowns.

  The temptations will not cease.

  In the chest, the clock resounds.

  Hands of time strike faster, harder,

  Almost echoing the heart.

  Autumn,-- questions disregarded,

  Autumn,-- foliage in the yard...

  Memory, lost in the sawdust,

  Wanders aimlessly, perplexed.

  There is only August, August

  There is nothing coming next...

  Draw in the smoke…

  “...and gaze at the reflection in the mirror,

  As streetlights gaze at drying puddles...”

  J. Brodsky

  Draw in the smoke and with the motion of a finger,

  shake off the lazy fireflies, which linger

  to burn to ash. Cold bathroom lights reveal your flaws,--

  the bald spot in your hair, the crooked nose.

  Breathe out the smoke, and nothing’s to be seen,

  except the rows of plastic bottles, -- blue and green,

  creams and colognes that tower high above

  the bathroom sink. They’ve never caught true love.

  The smoky mirror hides your grim reflection

  and now, none of your flaws remain...

  Thus streetlights watch with warm affection

  the puddles blurred by drops of rain.

  New York

  New York,--a barren city, devoid of color.

  The gusting winds holler

  At pedestrians crossing the zebra.

  Mercury’s frozen at zero.

  The passage of time cares not for infants,

  But here, even nymphets

  Lack vital signs and only cold statues

  Appear to capture

  The chill that stitches these side streets.

  Each morning, the eye greets

  The hung-over clouds, like drying clothes.

  And each night, the moths

  Anxiously soar to the burning candle,

  And clocks strike the temple

  With a pulse that can keep you awake

  At your wake.

  Sad Eyes

  Sad eyes reflect crooked mirrors and only.

  The parrots mock you by being quiet,

  And nothing can drive one to be this lonely

  Only the silence when you can’t deny it.

  The heartbeat subsides to hear the clocks’ crow, --

  It’s only eleven, but the ball is long over

  And Cinderella is turned into a beast to show

  That the night doesn’t want to see you sober.

  On nights like this, it no longer matters

  Whether the legs can find the way to the bedroom.

  The body hits concrete, seeking a mattress,

  And helplessly slides six feet under in tantrum.