Rusalka

I have always loved Dvorak's Mesícku na nebi hlubokém [Oh Silver Moon], and often ponder the story of Rusalka. It is a tale similar to that of "The Little Mermaid" but deeper and even more sad. The Rusalka story takes place in the inland swamps and waterways of Eastern Europe. The themes of betrayal, forgiveness and enduring love make it a haunting version of the water-nymph story.

Many cultures have stories concerning a feminine sprite that haunts watery places - the Nix, Ondine, Kelpie, Selkie, Water Baby, La Llorona, Melusine -- sometimes they are evil and sometimes just sad, but few versions are as affecting as the Rusalka story. Fairy tales seem the perfect form for a sestina, (see Swan Songs), the difficulty mitigated by the sweet way that this old repeitive form compliments the themes of a folktale.  Here is a link to Renee Fleming singing Mesícku na nebi hlubokém, perhaps the saddest song ever written.

 

What a man builds he may then so easily tear down--

Small betrayals or subtractions, every day more thorns,

Hearing strange and joyless cautions from his careful heart .

Thus we women come to haunt the old road or water-way

Unmade, undone, damping fires, revisiting, reflecting,

Still in love, still wishing for the fair, free ghosts we crave.

I saw you in the marshes, and thereby learned to crave

I, your white doe, your flameless fire, paused and went down,

By a voice on the river, smoke and stars reflecting.

I left the old confines, cut across my deadwood thorns,

To meet you sliding hard along a silken river way;

Only one to only one, the theory of this heart.

You said, my liege, that no such bright omens of the heart

Exist, that no stars cross, moons neither align nor crave

To sigh upon the earth just as we did in a way

Perfect, rare and fine. Then you faltered, turned me down,

Backed away, betrayed, and now here on November’s thorns

I wait and watch the marsh fires now in black reflecting

Those hands, our breath, and every flagging hope reflecting.

The witch warned that I’d live in joy until my heart,

Of volition, you would cast away on long-bow thorns.

So, I am taught how “grave” will always rhyme with “crave.”

Master of my old weakness and my new strength, look down

River and call out again, laughing, as was your way.

Fairytales dictate a girl’s submission as the way,

For giving sweetly seasons sweat, our eyes reflecting

All. This lesson the moon girl learned from mortal heart.

Proud, twined in garlands of cold blue pearls, I lay down

My stringent self-impalement, my sleepless, sleeping heart,

The burning bushes in the fields, my kiss and all you crave—

Admit it prince, somewhere you bring me the moon and thorns.

Many ways to end a tale: upon a bed of thorns,

Beside a pool, beneath the frosted grass, all the way

To room nineteen, on the night road,  words and tongue I crave,

By the river, upon the sea, in the tomb reflecting,

Or with sacrifice, my love, a pyre, the goblin’s heart.

A tale maybe fanciful, but brings the darkness down.

Crave no sad and brutal thorns, forget the way;

Down along the river I no longer wait and crave,

Reflecting, still reflecting, to salve my moonlit heart.

Truth or Consequences -- Against the Coryphaeus

 

They said you had no life

Outside

My imagination

They tell me that the few words

You spoke 

Were empty

Only a residue of vodka

Beside the pillow

They say you had no life in you

That I did not put there

But I believed

In neurons and in you

Chorus: 

Did you not smell the smoke on the wind?

Did you mistake fire for flame?

Did you see the absence of promise

As a sign of an honest heart?

Hear us now:

Kisses are but ashes on the breath

Of an unkind lover.

They said you were never anything but cold

Clay

And I breathed upon you

The only heat you held

Past dawn. 

You had already put me down

In those first weeks

Looking across Montana for the next woman

To prove

What I already believed

Chorus: 

Forget,

Forget, what you think you knew.

His kisses were ashes

Lie, lay, lye

Under my hand your face went still

You brow unfolded

And thus you settled, lay across me, rested

We slept and did not

For my lips a quicker quickening

And I persist in thinking

It was no false delight when you laughed

And surely I did recognize the tremor

When you so recognized

Me

Chorus:

You should've listened to us

Do not fall so hard against

The unquiet evidence of hands,

Of lip, of tongue, of breath, of sweat, 

These most tender gifts easily spin

The only human treasure

Or slip upon the weft of that oldest lie

A fool is fooled

As many before and many will after be

Ashes of kisses

Lies upon October

December silence

January empties

No deposit, no return

Why grieve over

The detritus of faith?

They say you were poaching

Needing nothing

But the seducer's micaceous gold

And by finding it again and yet again,

Can prove you still have the stakes--

Until, of course, you do not

And must take what is left

Paying then a higher cost for smaller heat

Proven wrong

Even thrice

With the instinct of the branded

I am yet a last believer

In the paradox of who

I knew

Chorus: 

Fool, he gave you nothing, brought you naught,

Took you nowhere, showed you to none,

Gifted you without one object of good faith

Kisses are only the ashes of breath....

Hush now

You singers

Tell me no more of the acid moon

The sorrows of sparrows

Nor of birthday's without wishes

And one lost black feather

I hold the secret

I believe

On Alterations

 

Some will tell you to choose your path with care—

For this may be the last dress you wear.

Do not put credence in such dark advice,

For those who say it cannot know the price

Of cold years lived in tattered raiment.

They don’t count the cost, but see the payment.

We who wear our ripe flesh lightly must stress:

A woman always finds another dress.

Woven, spun, knitted, in toga or sheath,

We must to our daughters this lace bequeath:

From ashes, fire or dust we still create,

To thus re-stitch our selves, souls, lives and fate.

The long work of mending cannot be put down,

But Love, you will always have another gown.

The Way It's Done

If you would woo me

Be cognizant of altitude,

And the fluctuations of air pressure

When thunder breathes 

Upon the nape of the high pass

And lightning is your tongue.

Take me into the desert.

If you would know me

Memorize the watershed --

Canyon, arroyo, gulley, and creek:

The ages traced in Fortuny silk,

Like the cloud shadows that lie

Forever between us.

To find my heat

Stop and pull over

When the sun lowers itself

Upon the dead grasses

And the blaze can last an hour.

Take me into the desert.

If you would know my sinew

Study the desert crust,

A microclimate accrued

Across a thousand arid nights

As ancient and fragile as hope.

If you would gain my trust

Do not ignore the plummeting

Raven as he falls for that other half

And makes spirals of the prism darkness

For the white light pleasure of it

If you would seduce me

Take me into the desert spin

Incremental odometric pleasures

On my skin as smokey sweet

As the dust plumes rising behind us

On the long road out.

For I am she that waits upon 

The pungent ridge 

The basalt shadow

The firelight

And falls only as hard

As  the last flash flood.

Nadeshda -- A Found Poem

From the memories of Arthur Koestler in Invisible Writing,

Chapter Ten pg. 90-109

Nadeshda's words are mine and all the rest, are exactly Koestler's, edited and rearranged but unchanged

I.

TIFLIS

Short circuit

The lights out in the sleeping car

A girl entered the compartment followed

By a tall officer of the Red army.

Slim, tailored black suit

Brown hair which shimmered

In the light of the candle

You looked at us

And looked

A profile of classic haughty purity,

The vaulted forehead and chiseled lips

Of a Greek youth,

But a disturbing contrast between

Profile and frontal view.

En face the inhuman

Features had a touching

Wistful quality

“Excuse us, wrong compartment,” I said

out of the darkness

The pair left

With a nod and a bow, completely out of place

In the drab proletarian world.

I slept with a guilty, aching nostalgia

for the world

the decaying bourgeoisie,

Where women were

Graceful, smelt of scent,

and spent hours in their bathtubs.

And the next morning in the corridor

We stood in silence at the window

Why did you not speak to me then? I never believed in your shyness.

Thus started

The saddest affair of my lifetime.

Her head bent over the tea glass,

The eternal romantic deviation

“Going to Baku?” you asked me, when I sat down

in the dining car

as if any other place

lay at the end

of the line

black bread, salted herrings, vodka, tea,

again red caviar

zakushka

She spoke French with that melodious Russian drawl

That is the only legitimate maltreatment of the the French language

I recited for you passages of Pushkin and Mayakovsky

And you made me laugh

Behind her gayness

The impenetrable reserve

Of the jeune fille de bonne famille

You said you thought I was an actress or a ballerina, but

“The Water Board position assures one a quieter life,” 

I replied, sure that you, of all people, 

Would understand 

Some of us must remain unnoticed.

She constantly widened her eyes in surprise

Leaned in to me

Leaned in

Her pupils wide and so dark

I asked you many questions about the cities beyond Russia

The long plains sped by

in horizontal geography, 

each window frame identical

To the last -- you looked away

I suddenly began to see her

As a sick child tied

To its bed by some paralytic disease

You had been to a party I could never attend, 

In gleaming rooms a dream

Of evening gowns and fragile fabric.

I wore a sweater with a silver label,

traded to me by a traveler from Geneva.

You laughed and promised me silk stockings.

I knew it for a wish and a lie

II.

BAKU

Two grey rooms,

A sofa where she slept

The aunt devoid

Of curiosity lace

at her neck, perfect French,

served tea 

And we walked out together.

I was so proud of that green sweater

Red shooes, the suede only a little scuffed

I took your arm in my small radiance

The next day I met Werner

In line

Waiting for red caviar.

A crippled shoulder, a sweet weasel grin

A refugee story I did not believe,

But had the thrilling thought

My new friend was a Comrade from the Apparat.

Within a week I had his story

Over vodka at my Inturist room:

He survived after the war

In France and Belgium

Killing cats and selling the skins for bread,

Until given local liquidation duties by the Party-Apparat.

Of these murders he spoke without emotion.

But you told me of the Weasel's dreams: 

 Milk-seeping eyes of dead cats.

“Your friend,” Werner said

“I have asked my Nalchik about your girl’s Aunt

and my boss laughed and said “Staraya, sta-raya spionka --

An old, old spy."

And Nadeshda?

“Under observation.”

How could you be such a fool, dear one?

You, having escaped Hitler

in the luck of the night

rushing here on a Stalin invitation.

You led him to me.

I could not believe the shuffling aunt was really a spy.

If Werner met my girl he would see

The absurdity.

And that, of course, was precisely what he wanted.

I couldn’t tell her what Werner was.

That would be a breach of Party discipline

And he had confided in me

His stories.

Of cats and of murder and of the smells

III.

It was an unhappy lunch

At a black-market restaurant

In spite of the shashlik, and the drinks

And the gypsies, unhappy.

She had refused to come at first,

But I could see the wistful little

Girl behind the classic profile,

Shimmering with curiosity and desire.

I discovered that the need to worship

May be stronger than desire.

There was a hush

As she wended her way between the tables 

With her floating

Weightless walk.

It was an unhappy lunch

The Weasel's eyes became rounder

Each time he looked at me

I became more frightened each time

I looked at you

She was frightened in the manner of the brave,

Head held a little higher.

A great stillness came over her

Body becalmed waiting for the axe to fall.

In Russia personal pride is not considered

A virtue it is not

A sin to be affable to those you fear.

The Weasel-boy remembered the old

Stations as soon as he saw me he

hated the way I held my fork.

I hated the way I held my fork,

but I lifted it anyway

And he watched my mouth

And you watched my mouth

Trying to get Werner to relax,

I would demonstrate

We are not so different.

A mistake 

As Nadeshda became the lonely

Apex of our triangle.

I became increasingly base

Not conscious of the choice

Unthinking, automatic

This is the excuse for most betrayals

IV.

One does not think at a given moment

I am

Going

To be a traitor

One slides into treason by degrees

For ten days I tried to avoid you

I wasn’t home

But we walked together again

Laughed outside the cable office

I stuck the garbled cable

Into your pocket lining

Where you held my hand

When the cable came up missing

It did not seem important.

I did, however, report the incident

To Werner.

Denunciation is the Party’s Germ-

Warfare against the human spirit

The elementary duty of every Party member,

A test of loyalty.

You, beloved, you who never had

never again would

Denounce another

I would have died

For her readily and with a glow of joy.

During my seven years in the Communist Party

The only person I ever denounced or betrayed

Was me. Only me.

You gave me up, gave me away.

You introduced me and spoke of me,

You only walked away

Without me.

And the fact

That we could breathe together

That our kisses were flying pieces of

Unmistakable joy

Did you forget that or remember

And choose against it?

Do I want to know the category

Of leavetaking? My wolf, my white-toothed lover,

Your marks have faded from my breast

And left me more hungry

I cannot watch

The end

IV.

The explanation

Of the mystery, the betrayal

That missing cable

The most unbearable part

She whose proud profile would show no

Personal curiosity about me or my life

I was too proud to speak of them,

your previous lovers, your lovers

Whom I envied

Their silk pleated brassieres worn

And removed for your hand

Their morning coffee by a river soft

Buttered bread and a silver knife like

My mother must have used

Lovers who made you wait

While they tried on a hat

Silver pink gauze, perhaps, then

Looked at you with just the right angle

She, who betrayed curiosity only about the Jordan and the Nile,

Had pinched the cable to know

Whether it came from a wife or a mistress

In glittering Paris or Berlin with 

The curiosity of a child.

A child I betrayed the child

I took it thinking of your secrets, yes

Your secrets

Not those of which you write

But those of which you dream

I could not know then

That when the Terror came

A denunciation of this kind would be enough

To seal my Fate.

From my hotel window I could sometimes hear the little wail

Of the steam boat on the Caspian Sea

“Why don’t you tell her to get herself a job in some other town,”

Werner said on the last day;

Over worked spy-masters in small

Towns rarely bothered to forward such information.

I shook my head when you mentioned transfer,

thought of my Auntie among her last things

and the water ran down my cheek with the kitchen soap

on the second rinse.

That detergent cosmetic always made you sad for me.

Werner said with his little grimace

And his soft steady gaze

“Du wurdest gewogen und zu leicht befunden”

You have been weighed and found wanting.

We said good-bye in the rain on the sleet-mad dock

My kisses ever more insistent

Why, why, did you tell me to go

And did not ask me to follow.

In he darkness Nadeshda’s face looked to me the same

As it had in the sleeping car on that first night

Pure, severe, child-like

I waited for the redeeming whistle of the boat

Her hand now dead and lifeless

In your tweed pocket, my hand now a polite loan.

The last moment of these weeks in which

I became me you betrayed

My kindling heat

Drowned and with the ink

All running

Down the blue cable

Date flowing into the mud of Baku

And my almost-new suede shoes

Seeping vermilion

Ruined