do I or do I not. . . Latvian Feature more poetry

Edvīns Raups from Cook Up Something Transitory for Me Translated by Margita Gailitis * * * I must still write in petit sand stone shards cliffs and nights When my head like an archetype sleeps beside the unmilked way Milky and art is a beast that has dipped its muzzle in dew asking If this is too little Fine I wasn’t as precise as a whirlpool Just singularly deadly like a bee I was lost but my neighbor was found by Heaven washed up on shore * * * I’ve been shown for a long time what blood is I’ve been advised to begin all from the beginning But heartclean The Lord’s whine sounds and the silver button in her lap wails a path Don’t she says My fear the Night’s epic window No one has set foot here except for buffalo the buffalo like dawns crash over me just the tenderness of night narcissus draws me so irresistibly memory slips away through my nose and I am a small red god absorbed by grass * * * sacred hour of belief with a candle on her chest a Small green frog Split crosswise like the yin and yang theme Someone whispers in a lotus blossom a fairy fey Pulls out of me this rusted phlegm and drives in something new and clean * * * in a masterfully nailed cadillac I drove ever deeper inland and farther into pale sufferer country my hair   windblown like a torch You come just in time! Suddenly in my mind heaven shrank and wrinkled darkness flooded in joy over wide open eyes but froze in expectation As if I had died ha brothers sense my horse hit in the nostrils by the smell of formaldehyde and sparks fly into Mary’s lap Where are you in this beyond the grave country where palms sway over crags of cliffs and the moon hangs in the branches By the spring where I must drink and water my horse? Hey lift your heads from the beyond death bowls of peace soup Here w  e’  l  l   c  r  a  w  l o  u  t   * * * my colors the combination of field plants and hills like veins And the veining collecting into scars around the center of the lake in the morning when chatter chatter come the shakes vibration oh Blood mother it whispers stay in your place stand like a pillar put in a word for the child for me And suddenly all changes gender and number and God’s frogs leap about kerplunk yes water it’s good she says but don’t While the owl still is blind While there are drying sheds for hay and each of us through our own straw dies upwards * * * an infant too reaches a critical age I remember the valley where I couldn’t be caught because I was slower than the white bird in mother’s breast Slower yet than an eagle that flew here calling We have the same blood you and I Slower than the place where water flows from the abyss and from which Columbus now is writing to his grandchildren— Lords you are mistaken that a continent exists here and only that * * * I recall Cezanne’s little dogs rupi rupi Something dear and fine and sensible like the saved Sumerian phallus And what is it now— is it an era? Maybe we should return to the quintessential Water mother Spirit mother Akrura Lakshmi Ardzuna may the word remain where it’s been Only I’m sorry for the human and you Oh      the dead how disobedient they are * * * When I wanted to be together with you Who was I a Flesh Nail caught perhaps mid sea Grasp with confidence this landscape loosen your heart nine black horses nine black men midst three stones a Bird three Greek letters in the sky a Bird find me when leaves turn when the dead move soft softly And the sun is high in the heavens and a song sets. I like this girl I like this striving When I was the one who wanted togetherness the Nine black horses Do you Recall the opera in which Hoffman’s death was awaited the musical Canal score of Your lips and the Triangle on your forehead which sucks out a dead future placenta. So fine So good we’ve survived the Lovely Virgin with the Yoke! The Cross on the forehead so one maaay see. . .maaay see. . .Maaay row brother Ker plunk into River Daugava In gaps between three stones a Bird My Nail my midsea and Stars don’t hit the lake stars nail your palm to the heart Consummatum est Old Jews during the night heal me learn how a chimney draws they cry learn how it draws until the final possibility like hair like a pillar of salt wears down like an old moon dries up like a swamp reed the Sacred river passion and the backs of your horses are one and the same See and Gaze at the Waves your tongue splits like the mourning of Sybils Large and spaced letters l a r g e a n d s p a c e d Why from sorrow does the window bleed only for you why am I slain When not even the Devil can see who drives in God’s carriage * * * your wedding veil in a Closeup the high rocky shore with its splintered icons What is the lyrical she asks what has escaped God through his fingers Is it a thread is it mine * * * the clip of flesh registers in the dark blood the clop of father’s Third son riding into the courtyard Nothing yet to be sensed only a bird flies into a window puts together his hands clip clop Lord the heavens up high bend the clock Let it ring should I wake