Troublesome
Juhan the Terrible lost his cool
and did away with his son.
My mother stepped out of a family snap
and talked to me
in human tones
Lady Bird
Lady Bird
Lady Bird
hurry away home
who knows what woes are waiting
a boy and a girl on their own
Blackbird gills were broken
so was the whale’s pelvic bone
my friend-of-the-pen Hemingway
is once again woebegone
Ice Hell
in my dreams I’ve
spoken foreign tongues
and awake I’ve
danced such dances
as ill fit a man
whose health is failing
who’s on the books
of the TB dispensary
who’s on the record
in a domesday tome
whose heard confession scorches you
who all life long
runs happily moaning
as the merry world
is icily torturous
where a billion lives
rely on skates
and across the surface
struggle to last
where a billion lives
slip into water untraced
if it’s cold in there
no need to ask
+ + +
my favourite season is night my favourite flower is the flower
I sit overnight in the cinema where Bourvil is screening now
I’m already living tomorrow’s night that’s what nowadays is
I’m in life in dream in work quite the drunken flagship
whose was the lie that each door has a hook and a latch
who’s to know who lied quicksand buried the whole shooting match
the sand buried delivered a sermon and rests from fatigue
in the head of a half-buried sand lion ten riddles intrigue
+ + +
in theatres they’re staging
a newly adopted
writer’s adapted novels
in the circus short stories are hauled to the ring
where once were horses
bears and buffoons
in the circus a jittery critic is juggling
with monopoly money
a clown reads essays as ordered
whose heads will supply the sawdust
to cover the ring?
+ + +
take a telescope, take the long view
and you’ll see how the months recede
then there is time. then white clouds too.
black dresses. blossomless wreaths.
as you go, hold your stature well
close to the ground and in your shade.
scythe in hand he comes from hell
and reaps you in with his rake.
don’t cry. smile from ear to ear.
your lips will once again touch my skin.
but my wit will stay crystal clear
even when my eyes cave in.
Visitor from Abroad
into my home umbrella on his arm
strolled a foreign theatre professional
I’d hoped to be alone that night
for my home is my cathedral
this maestro tramped dirt into the rug
and the air grew thick
from the cigar on his lip
he wanted to know who I worked for
and the monthly amount on my payslip
the conversation dragged like ox drool
Ich liebe Dich
I bellowed
with a start he withdrew to the stairwell
the lift was free and took him down
+ + +
Moth, your momentum is wondrous.
Thither (hither) no turning back.
Moth, your moment is wondrous.
Hither (thither) no turning back –
both these beyonds attract.
Behind the glass is fire,
beginning and end of light.
Long have I seen it looming,
I know this is the Dying Room,
oh, I know it is the living room.
Into that room! I must go, I must go!
My broad black-and-white wings
I bear all the years-long night.
To the window, ill-fated one, cling!
Wanting in – your labour of life.
I am heavy and slip-slide down.
Again I lunge and thud.
Behind are all the dark days.
It is the light of death you crave.
Into the warmth of the lamp globe
the stunning messenger flies alone.
It is morning. For us and for me
the time to fly into flame is near;
to blow out the flame oneself
through this wondrous life.
Translated by Miriam Anne McIlfatrick-Ksenofontov
Read Kristjan Haljak’s afterword to the selection: A Realist Angel at the Fire Window.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Juhan Viiding (1948–1995) was a poet and actor. Up to the mid-1970s he published under the pseudonym Jüri Üdi, a poetic persona whose strange, ironic relation to his poems made his work immediately accessible yet resistant to any final reading. Viiding worked at the Estonian Drama Theatre; his roles included Hamlet and Peer Gynt.