Utz Rachowski

THE SLAVIC HEART

You can find the Slavic heart in the grass
of the vast
meadows of my home land. It is the poppies
among the flowers,
their fruit pleasantly intoxicating.

The summer has to be warm and yellow. As
a child you have to
lie in August’s first hay.
Then when you have lived patiently and
alone, some day
it speaks from your mouth.

It is the storm above the winds, the
ruby among
the hearts of stone. Its pulse is the light
that it
captures and releases again in
the sunset,
but full of blood.

The blood of the Slavic heart has within it the
deeper insights
of the ailing Europe with its exiled
inhabitants:
man and woman.

The Slavic heart is
the tear in people’s laughter
with which they say farewell to laughter until
the last
farewell.

The Slavic heart is the drop of
Vermouth at the spring
of love, the scratch on the shining
sword of death,
the hawthorn in the eye of cowardice, the rust
on the pillars
of the world.

The Slavic heart adores
beauty and is
a pain in the neck of the mighty

You gain the Slavic heart if
first you
pound your chest and then your forehead.

Then it is up to you to find
the Slavic heart.

Translation by Jane and Wolfgang Müller (USA)

HAMLET’S FINAL LETTER

Only two voices: yours and mine.
All this you alone will decipher …
– Anna Akhmatova

I’m writing you writes Hamlet
I have seen
the Vogtland the sun the sky
after eleven the stars sometimes
drowned above the January snow
the Vogtland sky drones
I have seen always late at night
that war passing high above my head

Hamlet is writing a letter

Tomorrow at 8:05 you fly
from Klotzsche to Sharm el-Sheikh
life runs in the blood who consumes it shall perish
wrote Moses in his third book your war inside me
writes Hamlet this very night

“Doubt thou the stars are fire
Doubt that the sun doth move”
the bookseller says next morning:
last night they were moving troops out
those were cargo planes overhead

“Doubt truth to be a liar
But never doubt I love”
writes Hamlet non-stop
tomorrow at 8:05 you fly
from Klotzsche to Sharm el-Sheikh

Up Moses’ mountain you want to climb
and find your karma on Mount Sinai
for your life you say is built on sand
on the Kassberg heights in Karl-Marx-Stadt
ever since they parted us from time now past
and I served out in Walter Janka’s cell
a sentence passed in the name of this people
whose silence we had broken
I knew of no other guilt
back then I told you of the burning thorn bush
that like my oaths was not consumed by fire
at the foot of that mountain sand drifts now

my words your hand will comprehend them
tomorrow you fly out of Klotzsche
the 8:05 to Sharm el-Sheikh
writes Hamlet on this night

Your war that drones in me
off above my heart
shadows cross the sky
drowned above the January snow
against the stars I saw
as white as my own face
the cargo planes were flying
headed for the Persian Gulf
writes Hamlet on this night

In the East the snow of last year
is falling again but you
want the warm places
in this world I know
tomorrow at 8:05 you fly
from Klotzsche to Sharm el-Sheikh
and to a nunnery go if there is also war
in Klotzsche I loved you not
writes Hamlet another perhaps
a goddess from the Red Sea in other time
but inside me the sun shines no more
in the Vogtland the stars no longer shone
the thorns we held up to our people are ashes

I now fear only for myself
writes Hamlet and someone like you
may have nothing to fear but I
must fear both – in your eyes I saw the green ships
sailing languidly up to Arcadia unhurried
I wrote you
the war passing over my head your war inside me
tomorrow from Klotzsche
to Sharm el-Sheikh you fly
at 8:05
from the one into the other
writes Hamlet in his final letter

The rest is if you still remember
and my words ever meant anything to you silence

Translation by Michael Ritterson (USA)

• Motto: lines from two poems by Akhmatova: Два лишь голоса: твой и мой. from Cinque, 2 (Dec. 20, 1945); and Всё это разгадаешь ты один. . . from (untitled, 1938).
• Vogtland: Rachowski’s home region in SW Saxony.
• Klotzsche: main airport serving Dresden.
• Sharm el-Sheikh: resort on the Red Sea coast of the Sinai Peninsula.
• Kassberg: district in Karl-Marx-Stadt (now again named Chemnitz), site of a holding facility for political prisoners being expatriated to the West, especially during the 1980s.
• Walter Janka (1914-1994): one of the best-known political prisoners in the GDR. With the frequent changing of cell assignments in Kassberg, there is a good chance the poet spent time in a cell that Janka had occupied.
• third book: Leviticus (17:10-14; cf. also Gen. 9:4).

THE COLD WAR IS LONG SINCE OVER

My heart was already a bullet
of ice and I set off again
for Checkpoint Charlie
where every day the Russians stand
with matryoshkas babushkas
and wrist watches
because their time has run out
I asked right away for Makarov
and lowered my eyes and looked
at that single strip of bronze
where once the wall had stood embarrassed
the Russian said konyezhno sure!
you can have for eight hundred
now I looked at the sky above the
old guard tower and thought of you
on the beach at Sharm el-Sheikh
embracing someone else
the Russian asked me and how many rounds
that’d be another ten apiece
or you can make me an offer
I looked at him and said – just one
and sensed the wall rising again
the Russian said I can’t do that
and looked at the sky with me
as if the answer were there
he gave me then for half the price
an old pocket watch with a cover and
the three Fates on it he called after me
and don’t come back let them decide
the age of suicidal heroes is past
and why not just get a divorce!

I walked back to the strip of bronze
for the wall, yelled no! you got it wrong
what you learned at your stupid school
don’t shoot! were the last words they spoke
they weren’t after heroism just love!
like you and me the Russian rolled his eyes
said it doesn’t prove anything Yesenin too
was stingy with his noose a real farmer
what’s this about love who still believes that
at most just you and me as if I could
smell it you all just want a single round
and the babushkas just stay there on the
table nested together perplexed and cute
come on now I said – you babushka!
pulled the Russian by his fur coat
this one’s on me just a few steps away
said we’ll get a stiff drink with
Makarov’s price so off to the Café Adler
with all those pitiful people!
we got pretty loud sang to each other
“Ah, let the flying cranes bear all their grief away”
and “Speak now, comrade Mauser!” and once more
“Have no regrets and suffer pain no more!”
on every chair was sitting the New Man
not man nor woman not warm not cold
this is his high calling – he has rid the world of love
looked all around stared at us but made no sound
– we punched in all his many faces!

Let these screwballs have it! the Russian yelled to me
screwing briefly reminded me of you
pulled out my pocket watch made the three Fates
jump that seemed to calm even the Russian
we headed home under peaceful skies
sang that we’d conquer Baikal sailing just a walnut shell
it was already late in the day as you sank
under that very same sky exhausted
from the arms of the other one
down on the beach at Sharm el-Sheikh
the war was long since past it seemed to us
me and the Russian who’d refused me the pistol
rescued! my heart beat fast now quick to the subway
no sooner said than it was done – we jumped the turnstile!
I had more beer in the fridge and empty returnable
bottles the Russian sang there in my kitchen
of pitch-black ravens and cranes snowy white ones
we had no regrets and I suffered pain no more
I waited another winter for you

Translation © 2012 by Michael Ritterson