Tan tin tin tan — the celesta hammers away. Here I turn off the light, and darkness drinks me in. I lie like one immured but still permitted to breathe. I lie like one to be crucified whom nobody will nail to the cross. I lie and wait.
I absorb sounds. My soul was a dry sponge, the metallic sounds of the celesta fill its crevices and canals. The soul swells and bloats, and I am immortal again.
That is why I request a Madonna.
She is six. Her hands are meager and dirty, she was rummaging in a garbage can and she found a
wilting carnation. Her hair is a thorn-bush. She is framed in a landscape: a three story house with peeled
off plaster, a “Halo” advertisement in the window (wash your hair with the miraculous fluid), a sky
scraper’s Gothic in the horizon. In her eyes: dry tears; the soul has sucked up the salty liquid spongelike, only the rainbow glimmer of light remained. Her little shoes are beat, she lost her tin button, her leather belt drags after her on the cement. And there is only one fairy tale of which my Madonna knows the beginning:
...Once upon a time there lived Billy Brown. His nose was large, his knife sharp, his red boots adorned
with star-shaped spurs. The most notorious badman of North Dakota, he was stopped cold a hundred years ago...
You there, you dutiful angels, descend upon the cement! My Madonna needs elegant escorts. Let the
thorn-bush blossom with wilting carnations, let the Mayor himself wash Madonna's hands; Billy Brown, the most notorious badman in North Dakota will hand him the silver vessel.
She wears a blue sweater. My Madonna is six. She shall give birth to a Son, sadder than herself.
Tan tin tin tan — the celesta hammers away.
Antanas Škėma (1910 - 1961) Lithuania
Translated by J.Z.
Source: Litunaus, June 1958 Vol. 4, No. 2
From Čelesta, a collection of poems in prose, Nida Press, 1960
I absorb sounds. My soul was a dry sponge, the metallic sounds of the celesta fill its crevices and canals. The soul swells and bloats, and I am immortal again.
That is why I request a Madonna.
She is six. Her hands are meager and dirty, she was rummaging in a garbage can and she found a
wilting carnation. Her hair is a thorn-bush. She is framed in a landscape: a three story house with peeled
off plaster, a “Halo” advertisement in the window (wash your hair with the miraculous fluid), a sky
scraper’s Gothic in the horizon. In her eyes: dry tears; the soul has sucked up the salty liquid spongelike, only the rainbow glimmer of light remained. Her little shoes are beat, she lost her tin button, her leather belt drags after her on the cement. And there is only one fairy tale of which my Madonna knows the beginning:
...Once upon a time there lived Billy Brown. His nose was large, his knife sharp, his red boots adorned
with star-shaped spurs. The most notorious badman of North Dakota, he was stopped cold a hundred years ago...
You there, you dutiful angels, descend upon the cement! My Madonna needs elegant escorts. Let the
thorn-bush blossom with wilting carnations, let the Mayor himself wash Madonna's hands; Billy Brown, the most notorious badman in North Dakota will hand him the silver vessel.
She wears a blue sweater. My Madonna is six. She shall give birth to a Son, sadder than herself.
Tan tin tin tan — the celesta hammers away.
Antanas Škėma (1910 - 1961) Lithuania
Translated by J.Z.
Source: Litunaus, June 1958 Vol. 4, No. 2
From Čelesta, a collection of poems in prose, Nida Press, 1960
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