Latvian Feature more poetry Janis Rambis is the pseudonym that poet Janis Elsberg used for his early published work. *The Andalusian Dog is a well-known poets’ cafe in Riga

Juris Kronbergs Translated by Māra Rozītis from Wolf One-Eye WOLF ONE-EYE TWO-EYES There was a time when Wolf One-Eye wasn’t Wolf One-Eye He wasn’t called Wolf Two-Eyes just Wolf Of that time he had no memory Did he then see twice as much as he sees now? Both his own birth and death? The past and the future? Good and evil in human nature? One at a time or simultaneously? Honesty and perfidy? Twofold half-truths, two-faced duplicity? Bones and organs? Nakedness revealed? Those who once scattered the seed of the forest? The one who once scattered the seed of the world? And had that one been him? But if it had been another, had he seen it—or was it a case not of seeing but believing? WOLF ONE-EYE ON ODIN’S STREET On the pavement he found, not a heart, but a potato It wasn’t even round, but irregular and finished like a sentence in a praised but plodding literary effort The day was gray and tedious like the ringing of a cell-phone which only hides yet more ringing He turned his head to the left Three cars were parked by the pavement: two legally, one illegally The latest findings show that a collective unconscious as taught by Karl Jung does not exist It’s said that in psychoanalysis the questions of therapists determine the memories of patients, not what actually happened What was it, then, that actually happened? Well, one of the cars drove off But if it was one of the legally or illegally parked ones, he didn’t see He only saw that it had quite unexpectedly started to snow STRATA OF TIME (Riga, The Andalusian Dog) Day skulks off with a whiff of tobacco Rain. Old film music drifts from a loudspeaker Today it’s Nostalgia’s birthday Once lived days turn up like uninvited guests Time leafs through your old as yet unwritten diaries You leaf through time like newspaper pages where the print hasn’t stuck * Howls of an active emptiness inside you which hints at religion our railing at the edge of extinction You feed on that: the manna of nothingness * Empty streets empty windows fill up with your old ghosts A flash of thought a flash of proximity A flash of what may be Maybe was. May as well have been Rain all day. Fatigue Up to your neck in it * A wonder the houses haven’t been worn down By all these writings A wonder the words haven’t been worn away By all these prints of fingers A wonder the bridges haven’t been ground to dust Night. Houses of parliament and government sleep The surrender of democracy to the dictatorship of dreams * * * One evening when I left my room It followed me No winds could scatter it No sun could wither it No rains could flood it Even though I never returned to it It has stayed in my mind unchanged Time passed but no dust settled On the furniture books piles of paper All was as it once had been Because of me time stood still I am aware of the simple law That my physical return would cause Time’s avalanche to sweep over that room So forcefully that its very existence Could be cast in doubt That it could not even be imagined