I am Goya
July 2, 2006 at 3:59 am falstaff 7 comments
Andrey Voznesensky
I am Goya
of the bare field, by the enemy’s beak gouged
till the craters of my eyes gape
I am grief
I am the tongue
of war, the embers of cities
on the snows of the year 1941
I am hunger
I am the gullet
of a woman hanged whose body like a bell
tolled over a blank square
I am Goya
O grapes of wrath!
I have hurled westward
the ashes of the uninvited guest!
and hammered stars into the unforgetting sky – like nails
I am Goya
(translated from the Russian by Stanley Kunitz)
A poem that captures so well the darkness and violence of Goya’s vision, marrying it to images from the Second World War.
[falstaff]
The original in Russian (we think! hat-tip Black Mamba)
Я – Гойя!
Глазницы воронок мне выклевал ворон,
слетая на поле нагое.
Я – Горе.
Я – голос
Войны, городов головни
на снегу сорок первого года.
Я – Голод.
Я – горло
Повешенной бабы, чье тело, как колокол,
било над площадью голой…
Я – Гойя!
О, грозди
Возмездья! Взвил залпом на Запад -
я пепел незваного гостя!
И в мемориальное небо вбил крепкие звезды -
Как гвозди.
Я – Гойя.
Entry filed under: Andrey Voznesensky, Art and Painting, Falstaff, Russian, Stanley Kunitz. Tags: .
1.
shoefiend | July 5, 2006 at 11:47 am
‘I am the gullet
of a woman hanged whose body like a bell
tolled over a blank square’
I can’t get the image out of my head. Thanks for the post.
2.
Falstaff | July 5, 2006 at 1:11 pm
shoefiend: Yes, glorious isn’t it?
Also, wow! I really am bringing light and sweetness into your life these days aren’t I? Is this why you’re going around murdering husbands over their evening meal?
3.
shoefiend | July 6, 2006 at 9:29 am
Yes. It’s all your fault oh Dark Lord :P You know you should change your name from Falstaff to Morgol or something similarly eveil sounding.
4.
shoefiend | July 6, 2006 at 9:30 am
Yes. It’s all your fault oh Dark Lord :P You know you should change your name from Falstaff to Morgol or something similarly evil sounding.
By the way when I tried to post this comment your blog said ‘slow down cowboy’ or something to that effect
5.
Falstaff | July 6, 2006 at 3:46 pm
:-). Actually, there was a brief time back in college when I went around calling myself Gothmog, Lord of the Valaraukor (or, as you humans call them in your tongue – Balrogs). Ah, the good old days.
6.
sojournerstrange | January 20, 2009 at 4:29 am
Who did the reading>
7. CINEMA AS CRIME: Appendices Politically, pt. 1 « DONALFOREMAN.COM / BLOG | June 3, 2009 at 12:16 pm
[...] end Whitehead is left in his editing suite, haunted by his own images, with the sounds of ”I Am Goya“, a Russian poem of embodied suffering by Andrey Voznesensky, playing untranslated on the [...]