The Final Frontier

"...the sea far from the haunts of men, where no islands lie, and where are no continents rising to confront them."
St. Basil. The 7th Homily on the Hexaemeron.

"And the fire lights."
E.Th. "Berlin"


desert roses did Khayyam nourish and shell last night.
I gave up seeking passes; I thought, engines would not ignite
for the land in a veil, the valley.

a three-folded teabag sinks in the ocean height.
in the day to come, all will be tannin yellow.

let fool's gold and malachite
light the thread of a kite
out of sight of the counter-stance.
flurries/quarries/loading stations.
people say, it's a three-hour rectangular metal flight;
mine is yet to commence.

in the neighborhood, winds roll cardboard, we finish our past day's meal,
and the door swings as we leave knee deep in the rising rill
to eye-follow the fall lambs rambling.

but at times we are touched by the snow and knife and chill;
as a scale, almost friendly.


however far you reach shuffling the woolen mantle
vineyards' optical fiber mingles with apple metal.
headscarves are garlic-tied sober in daily labor,
shops treasure lacquers and screws. streets stray like oak roots
in memory of a neighbor,
but mica instead of names is glittering from the rock.
high is the market day for every produce that grows.

morning is range after range to pass, gate after gate to knock,
not a promise but hope; never ever will all the flock
meet at the same crossroads.


the bell of a light rail car is a shard, a Nahuatl scarp.
sound-absorbing carpets,
public library, cardboard of index cards,
the offset, the mark, the epoch is lost in the missing part,
the band of the growth meter is dangling shallow,
the frame is shifted a third its dimension sideways.

decide. as you miss, yell to the railroad gallop;
what made you stumble, spines or the chain-link wire?
either they or you will appear nude when the film's developed,
either you or they belong to the blind-born choir.
what the hell of the seventies can you tell of?


lint in the sun.
right angle.
surefire.

the hardcovers stand beyond cloud and crowd reach.
the lecturer's voice streams mellow.
the carrier stays a constant.

three men are swapping cases at the cross-border bridge,
no, I did not say "legal"; those with metal corners.


such are the hill and the hall. they never extend across,
but each one is skated over letting the other course.
seeing them both requires changing the filter set,
hiding your Apple watch as if you were a workplace spy.

in their war on each other, I wish they would not excel.
they have both blown my sail.

but they aren't like oil and water.
water and oil are a stormboat engine, a pier spile;
these are the bone and the skin.


embarrassingly, we haven't been trashed like skim,
were spared the thorny crown, evaded the royal hook,
but we have never lost track of the services of the jinn
and we have never burned the money-monger's book.

we can drain a double shot sugar free.
we believe we can get along with the World War Three.
we are the Monday 9 AM and the sun is
climbing above the scree.

I have no other us for ourselves. the trail bends around the humps,
the snowy melon skin is pulling the water cloak.
out of the honeycomb paper foam, out of the strobe of dance
we are following no more the scent of mint; that of woodsmoke.
sails whole-made of patches, lives of unending yarns,
sea in a lease-to-buy - by any means not to let -

and until we land, there is not a living soul beyond.
not a single yet.


Original: www.stihi.ru/2015/12/19/565