Old Boy poem – A. Van Jordan poems

If one rainy night you find yourself
leaving a phone booth, and you meet a man
with a lavender umbrella, resist
your desire to follow him, to seek
shelter from the night in his solace.
Later, don’t fall victim to the Hypnotist’s
narcotic of clarity, which proves
a curare for the heart; her salve
is merely a bandage, under which memories
pulse. Resist the taste for something still
alive for your first meal; resist the craving
for the touch of a hand from your past.
We live some memories,
and some memories are planted. There’s
only so much space for the truth
and the fabrications to spread out
in one’s mind. When there’s no more
space, we grow desperate. You’ll ask
if practicing love for years in your mind,
prepares you for the moment,
if practicing to defend one’s life
is the same as living? You’ll
hole up, captive, in a hotel room
for fifteen years and learn to find
a man within you, which will prove
a painful introduction to the trance
into which you were born. Better
to stay under the spell of your guilt,
than to forget; you’ve already released
your pain onto the world; don’t believe
there’s some joy in forgetting.
There’s no joy in the struggle to forget.
And what appears as an endless verdant field,
only spreads across a building’s rooftop;
your peaceful sleep could be a fetal position,
which secures you in a suitcase in this field.
A bell rings, and you fall out of this luggage
like clothes you no longer fit. Now what to do?
You remember when you were the man
who fit those clothes, but you’ve forgotten this
world. Even forgotten scenes from your life,
leave shadows of the memory,
haunting your spirit
until, within a moment’s glance,
strangers passing you on the street,
observe history in your eyes. Experience
lingers through acts of forgetting,
small acts of love or trauma
falling from the same place. Whether
memory comes in the form of a stone
or a grain of sand, they both sink in water.
A tongue—even if it were, say, sworn
to secrecy; or if it were cut from one’s mouth;
yes, even without a mouth to envelop
its truth—the tongue continues to confess.

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Poems in English 

• Николай Рубцов – Зимняя песня by Николай Рубцов
• Николай Рубцов – Жеребенок by Николай Рубцов
• Николай Рубцов – Загородил мою дорогу by Николай Рубцов
• Николай Рубцов – Я тебя целовал by Николай Рубцов
• Николай Рубцов – Хороший улов by Николай Рубцов
• Николай Рубцов – Возвращение из рейса by Николай Рубцов
• Николай Рубцов – Воробей by Николай Рубцов
• Николай Рубцов – Ветер всхлипывал, словно дитя by Николай Рубцов
• Николай Рубцов – Весна на берегу Бии by Николай Рубцов
• Николай Огарев – Я сорвал ветку кипариса by Николай Огарев
• Николай Огарев – Хандра by Николай Огарев
• Николай Огарев – Выпьем, что ли, Ваня by Николай Огарев
• Николай Огарев – В прогулке поздней видел я by Николай Огарев
• Николай Огарев – Тебе я счастья не давал довольно by Николай Огарев
• Николай Огарев – Свисти ты, о ветер, с бессонною силой by Николай Огарев
• Николай Огарев – Смутные мгновенья by Николай Огарев
• Николай Огарев – С полуночи ветер холодный подул by Николай Огарев
• Николай Огарев – Расстались мы by Николай Огарев
• Николай Огарев – Прощанье с краем, откуда не уезжал by Николай Огарев
• Николай Огарев – Предисловие к колоколу by Николай Огарев

More external links (open in a new tab):

Russian Commerce Agency

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Doska or the Board – write anything

Search engines:

Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)

Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.

Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees

Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.

Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.

 

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