Nine poems about nine elephants
Elephant under elephant, shelter
and each on the other.
The shoulders of the giants
are narrow for their feet.
The 9 elephants talk
to each other about art,
whatever they dream it.
For the city, what will we break it,
if we don
remember exactly how and how much it happened.
And we don’t write in the notebook,
on the walls and all,
that we are in this city
on purpose and move
it will be hard.
1.
2.
“I’m not fat!”
said the fattest elephant of all.
And he began to rustle the old buildings,
to put moisture into their walls,
to open the bricks bare,
to patina the noble,
to rust the iron,
to make the tap not work,
to make the gutters fall,
to break the dripping.
Take a picture before everything
we ever remembered has fallen.
And then don’t look at the picture.
It’s a shame.
The elephant is naked in it.
3.
Behind all that is
seen lives
an unseen power.
Which laughs.
Her dove is proudly
raised, whistling.
A fanfare that
calls to us.
Let’s
see what’s flickering,
let’s poke in there,
where it’s bubbling.
Let’s re-create
, whatever
is missing.
Let
us be the city we invent.
4.
The deeds of the elephant
Step, step,
ashamed no,
the beauty is hidden
in mom s neighborhood.
Put down by the drivers
of everyday life,
the ones missing the small stuff,
the opinion makers.
A former jungle,
and now an antechamber
of a future we
have forgotten.
What was
and even what is.
Good thing there’s
to remind us.
Our streets are full of footprints
from all past eras.
Footprints of elephants,
who have passed by here for a little while,
but have taken that left forever.
5.
Through nine elephants in a tenth –
we will run.
Till in the mirrors of the benches,
which we have lain on,
the catwalks,
which we have fallen from,
the railings,
which we have embraced,
and the poets,
whom we do not trust,
we know not ourselves.
Till we tell our stories,
and point the finger of art,
the guilty, and build
a playground for our children,
for their knees,
to walk their future
dog, the spirit of the time
Till we clean up the dirty.
And sift the eternal
from the corruptible.
We’ll be right here
and never move.
Through nine elephants
in ten we will escape.
So the book will say.
6.
The elephant in the room doesn’t want to leave.
His ears are administrative hurdles,
his proboscis is an aunt on the counter,
his eyes are lost hopes –
his forehead is “it was better”.
The elephant in the room won’t budge.
His feet – contests set,
his tail had talent,
his belly – with ministry problems
will not budge – and so on.
The elephant in the room is our personal failure.
The problems are in our neighborhood,
where we have turned
art into something between
bureaucracy and carnival.
7.
Art lives between the buildings.
No frame, no stop,
has everything it wants.
It believes in people, it cries colorfully,
its words are known,
its power is useful,
its past is worth it,
you can buy it,
but it is not bought.
Art is memory,
but without monument,
living proof
of meaning.
He breathes, side by side with the birds,
he does not breathe with the stones,
he moves every attempt at direction,
he jumps into the fingers of the young,
and they paint him behind the block,
they risk and drink his juice.
Art is out there,
as long as you have a look,
as long as you bare your senses,
to see how
it looks like nothing.
And to love it.
8.
Elephants have no feathers.
They didn’t count.
They don’t seem to be huge.
They do not occur often.
They are quiet.
Their hobbits planted
in the People’s boxes.
Uncomfortable to sit on,
poorly made.
In general.
They are not in orderly ranks.
To one, on the edge.
They are frozen, not even breathing,
lest the world should end.
They write.
They don t lend a hand,
they eat out of people s trash
and turn it into art,
which cures fatigue.
So much.
Huge nothing special. Snowless.
When you see an elephant, thank it.
They like not to be invisible.
Neither passed away.
9.
Pedestrians, public,
unsuspected opportunities
for future communication.
The city, its squares
and roadsides,
are temples to
everything murky here.
Every form
of life that
encounters
every form
of art.
What are we saying to ourselves,
if we decide
to skip?
Do we not read
on a poster or in the eyes,
that everything will be
sorted out and there is no silence to allow.