Achean horse

ACHAEAN HORSE

(response to Alexey Tsvetkov's "Achaean song")

The poet starts his speech from afar…

Marina Tsvetayeva

I

 

This verse is masterful but sort of out of place.

Like everything, a metaphor can fail

When keen to please, our buddy takes up chase

At anything the market can avail

As a handy reason for feeling right

For a soul seeking limit of its flight.

I must admit: the poet is good

And music of his verse is nice and fair

But still the truth commands me that I should

Placating Higher reason - be aware

Of sirens' luring song, the frills ignore

To rectify the metaphoric flaw

The drowsy waters' roar contravene,

Restoring the rainbow o'er the Oikoumene.

I guess that Paris was a fretful swine

When brought his native kingdom to decline

For mere sex. The gods' conceited thirst

Made jar of human sins fill up and burst.

Its shards fly over making world inhale

Sweet poison of Greek enchanted tale…

The simple tunes of the blind kitharode

Caress the ear of the whole world

Lulling it to a thousand-year sleep.

His ethnic muse's magic goes deep

Making the human soul worship war

Embodying lust and blossom heretofore.

The man is deaf to Thanatos's tread

When savage call of evil in his head

Becomes delicious weave of gentle lore.

III

 

And still, my friends, I am sorry to admit

That we despite our culture, pride, and wit

Are mere Nature's miserable creatures

And our existence here features

Not even dire earthly mortal faults

But ever-present minor nuts and bolts

The pawns of Darkness at the feast of looting

Eternal dance of splitting beastly booty

Of territories, wheat and oil and wealth

Traditionally called politics-not stealth

This word has quite a decent sound

But makes a human crouch to the ground

And while care is taken of the flesh

The homeless soul gets caught into a mesh.

 

IV

 

We straighten history to follow the line

All eager to distort the real events

We run the ranks of fakes against the time

To snatch a period that suits us fine

Embodying deadly slogan "NOW AND HERE"

That lures us to a blissful nowhere

Where we treat our loves without gloves,

Bite off the space and chew it with delight

Ready to live on ephemeral spite

Or rather on a merciless virus

Blood-thirsty builder of the world empires

That makes one neighbor kill another

And trusting fundamental laws of nature

Be in his turn duly eaten by his brother

 

 

We snatch a glimpse of world and that is that

Indifferent to what has brought us here

And who we are - Our healthy mindset

Turns us into hard-hearted jumpy gnats

 

V

 

Of all conspiracies, I recognize as true

Just one that won't ever lie to you,

As although obscene, porn seldom lies

About life in human paradise.

That's history I mean. It's doing well

As a conspiracist. And it has wed

The God and chance keep Nature's secrets tight

And lay us a long and twisting path to tread

It starts in in heaven but it ends in hell.

Oh, history! It's Darwin's full discretion-

The simians' test site. It's a delight

To follow the primates' mind progression

When filigree of conscience is in fight

With tipsy ape. When light of thought is shed

And tries to stay in a bewildered head

To keep the man from sliding back to dark

In an attempt to please his simple chums

Traditionally favoring the night

Who their brother's seeking for light

Treat like a treason to the mother Earth

Blood-soaked, soft and from its birth

Indifferent to craving for a change

And passion of light to spread the light

To make immortal both world and body

?So that all the words and deeds were subject not to laws of nature

But rather to sublime human order

So that the caveman background

Could no longer limit all around

Repeating dully "Don't mind the Death"

Defying it is just the waste of breath"

Death's omnipotence simple and unending

Commands us to habitually rot

And disappear dutifully bending

To verdicts given by all sorts of gods

Just nourishing hypocrisy and blight

Of all descendants that appear might,

Their low meekness in the face of pus

And sewers that the Chaos pours on us…)

 

Beloved dead! We'll burn you or bury

Your ashes will be scattered or kept

In perfume bottle after we have wept

Absolve us of childish sins we carry

And we will put you happily to rest

And your memory will never die

If you provide us with diversion booze

Which will placate us, tickle and amuse

And put the truth as filling into pie

And hence our great covenant will shine:

You have agreed, enlisted, fed and doomed

And "tons of bronze" since now will be thine!

 

 

 

You are our idol of the latest breed

After the Titans, Zeus and mythic kings

Descended from great Orpheus. We bring

You as an offering, a lamb of absolution

Redeeming filth of darkness that we relish

Like children. Sacrifice to our childhood

For us to kill you and return to dance

With souls innocent, despising real life

We worshipped one true god, or, better, goddess

Which does not ask for brains and enjoys

Our crowd basking

In sweetest sea of sensory delights

Rushing into arms of one another

in all-consuming joyous copulation

Of all with everything to hide away from death

Through death-in-love to flee to that Great Womb,

To darkness, which is our carnal mother

 

 

 

You should, therefore, be meeker in your claims

To us – the children or spawn of Chaos

Afraid of our own mirrored face

As of a ghost from our resting place

What can we do if we forever seek

Not even heaven – the nirvana doze

When we – so tired and so weak-

Will drift daydreaming and forever flee

From wicked choice "to be or not to be"…

 

 

You strove to get away and called us with you

Not really knowing what you can call your home

So take your monument and stand

In only immortality at hand

And we…we'll trend the beaten track

And rot as usual –vain, tired, idle

And covering the chasm under our life

With you, our misbegotten idol

The pitfall cover made of slimy fraud

Is our only gift to the creators

Informing us that trap below awaits us

And there we are falling overboard!

The narrow-minded knower of science,

Imagination cleverly suppressed

Plucks up his courage: "You can place reliance

On you our death. But what of it? Stay blessed

With joy of instant. Take from life the best

And all the rest be damned. We cannot break the rules"

But there are no rules at all. We are the fools

Whose life despite all trenching

Is actually constant chaos-frenching

 

We have exchanged God for Nature's wraith

By science pushing out the hopes of faith

And stayed the same babies in the wood

With nothing learnt and nothing understood

By every effort made in deed and word

We'll change focus and may grow wiser

Perceiving Nature as a half-cognizance

And memory. Imperfect is the world.

This insight like an arrow in flight

Will whiz through time back and cast the light

On us and everything.

This will upset the Nature's applecart

And give us chance of talking heart to heart

VI

 

The looting which I mentioned from the start,

Dates back to dark Darwinian era,

Or, more precisely, to the same stone cave,

Where all gorillas mine gems to save.

The history is only form of looting

And Fukuyama made a great mistake

When struck his head on politicians' fake

Assuming that a human can escape

The unavoidable law of nature.

Survival of the fittest makes it favor

Some species as it modifies the rest

And this will go on until the caver

Becomes a human at his fuzzy best

And in himself will duly see reflection

Of that eternal image of perfection

Who on the stone tablets long before

Inscribed ten rules of the divine law

For men to be distinguished from the beasts,

To cut their kinship with the totem bear

And stop devouring their near and dear

The history occurs beyond the reason

It is the mutual plague and mutual treason.

 

 

VII

 

The God has ruled and Marx had let it go

The Trojan horse was masterful and cunning

Device to press Troy [5] out of the running

To pave path for the capital flow

And no longer bar the Hellespont [6]

From eastward moving arrogant Achaeans.

The ones with bells and whistles more impressive,

More numerous, more fateful, more aggressive,

More ready in the nature to dissolve

To raid the others and themselves absolve

Erecting power like doom over the world.

It was begun by Argonauts as scouts

Then Alexander crossed the Hindu Kush [7]

And after him the Romans blossomed out

When marched their way from Britons to Artsakh,

Then Bonaparte [8] playing antique hero

Was planning taking India from Brits

And Hitler's crooked solar flare

Eurasia like rye was ready to reap

Wherever blind force takes over

There prowls the beast, intruder leads assault

There even serene and tender Poland [9]

Seized Moscow its khanate to exalt…

 

There the Third Reich and Third Rome in their battle

The blissful West dumped in the hell of war

The same West that waved aside its gore

And never ever now or before

Admitted all its deadly sins galore

Against the alleged God's command

It simply flourished and continued to expand

 

We are spiritually robbed by war,

Which switched the cloth off European table

With all its humanistic fancy foods

To feel our loss we are no longer able

Gas chambers burning up the evolution

Have been forgotten and across the life we scud

As if neither Christ nor Buddha had ever died

And the twentieth century did not reek of blood

The bills and banknotes weave our space

And memory is no hindrance to bliss,

As daily routine blinds our eyes

And maintains the semblance of success

And although the prophet of the past

Declared "We are the third Rome and the Fourth will never be"

Deeds are more eloquent than proud words

And what had happened could not fail to happen

America's the third Rome-and-Reich renowned

It combined the virtues of its forefathers

And drove on like instrument of fate

To fleece the world of everything it's won

This Rome is the last, there will be no other

The homesickness of peoples everywhere

Will sooner bury the existing one

 

The Latin ghost has been devouring us for two thousand years,

In which we worshipped a sheer brute force

We are its child (a sign of mutual death!)

And are the prisoners of our own prison

Treading the steps of imperial brigandage

We launched attacks towards sunrise most of all

And, pushing aside the voice of God

Embittered the entire human race

The blind force marched against the sun

In false attempt to defend the God

The star of eastward land grab lured and tempted

From westward must be easier to paw

Only the Golden Horde attacked the East

But Moscow managed to pare its claw.

This victory didn't do it any good

Its vesper brother it rejected right away

Though Russia rescued Europe from Mongols,

Who will rescue it from Europe today?

 

 

 

My question builds rhetorical suspense

And shifts the focus to the western bound

As Europe has long relaxed and sound

Asleep- impervious to change and its sense.

The western unity of Rome-and-Reich

Is writhing making whole world to writhe

The wreckage of evil by every our step is doubled

We'll have to clear together this endless trouble

Emergence of an ever-stronger horde,

Which the antithesis has sharpened and restored

Provided faint hopes that Achaeans

Will come to reason when almighty Allah

Presents the problem making it more clear

And will assuage the all-embracing fear

Of being burnt in global conflagration

It's not a petty public bricolage10

And quest to Cordoba began by 'Umar11

Is turning now to worldwide barrage

 

VIII

It's time now to return to Troy

When mist of centuries has somewhat cleared

And we can better see the vile beast

Rampaging through Pangean spaces here

The Trojan horse, the old age-mate of Moses

Stands at the origin of western times

And to the world it clearly exposes

The treachery wrought not only by Achaeans

But that of all the other western tribes

Unsheathing their swords against the East!

Credulity, conceit and superstition

Made Troy an easy prey for Ulysses' trap

Gods vanished, heroes have perished,

Earth's gravity removed them step by step

 

This definitely brings to mind Aeneas

Gods' vengeance was to bring him up and rear

The retribution threatened proud Achaea

Who were doomed to pay for their bloody snare12

 

Aeneas's descendants had created Rome

Which gave Mars a rather handsome yield

Super-Achaea13was its power to wield

Over the world while Achaean Ares

One-time Alexander could afford

And nobody else. Too bad for Greeks

The fate abused them and Socratic hemlock

Was no help. For Rome

The Greeks remained East and only East

 

 

Sunset – land grab! And eastern picks

Are frail and always vanish altogether.

Hold-up when it's ephemeral and quick,

Won't be able to keep the loot forever

The West is different. It paves with its loot

The Roman road that doesn't lead to God

As God lies bound in their posh car boot

Preserved alive just for unlikely case

That it will serve ID if something goes to wreck

And the dark world's tender to our pack

Wherever it's in need – produce the common token-

In which the spirit of hope is crystallized and woken

By heavy press of all preceding ages…

The robber-architect was also summoned to cater For Mammon's market seeking for creators

 

In childhood centuries, gods on their own

Blessed gangs for fraud, and robbery, and plunder

They harshly judged the common people under

But turned their minions to heroes of high renown

Great culture did not fail the mankind

Encouraging the man to serve the loot

It glorified the hardest-nose thugs,

Instructing youngsters taking their path

To steal eternity and be its rightful heirs

Stockpiling kudos of the generations-

That’s how human childhood

Cognized the paths of sacrosanct heroics

 

 

From age to age a brilliant example

Of robber hero felicitous and blessed

Impressed the public with a sham of quest

And huge rewards- chimerically ample

The peoples revered him as if he were God

New citharists one after another trod

In glorifying common self-conceit

And listing records of victories

So Alexander was inspired by Achilles

So Caesar admired Alexander

So Bonaparte broke the way to Egypt

And merged with Caesar at the pyramid

They were overwhelmed by sign of ageless greatness

The gift of Cheops and the site of his remains,

World's navel, crown and certification

That conquered world you hold in your hands

And your plod from sunset hasn't been in vain

Undoubtedly, fiery Adolf

Had surely remembered Bonaparte

But still forgot him - and the mocking time hand

Made their paths converge in one ill-fated end On global map.

As India set limit on Iskandar14

Those two were smashed by woken Russia

There is always finis for children's bloody rushes

You cross the line and you are in for a blight

As if even the Fate defended common right

Of every living thing to live and breathe

Your reason, Caesar, was dried up by glory15

And retribution brought on you was gory

But powers of evil disregard

Conclusions, findings, and revelations

That's why they are evil, dark, and blind

Continuing the rite of ravage

All steeped in history and interest of nations

Resembling predators whose joint mind

Is wandering in hue of self-assertion

Producing constant narcissistic noise

Not consciousness but merely survival-

Their inertia is aimed outside

When your neighbor isn't good for food

He should be burnt in any sort of fire

And that's the dream of natiobiota16

To make the geosphere be itself17

The secret services are holy, that's their job

In godless world one's own to extend

And somebody other's to destroy

Society is mooring to the cave scheme-

The very soul of ever simple nature

When one biota struggles with another

Not recognizing other's right to life

When any tribe has alphabet concocted

It cherishes a dream of being great,

Desiring the satraps of its own,

That can all earthly reaches aggregate.

On the horizon, there's glowing Rome -

Eternal sign of conquering the globe.

Seeing power as purpose epitome,

When any other power's its foe.

Coat of arms, flag, rods, elections, rights,

Imperial chief in president's disguise,

And falsely humanistic slants and rants-

That's democratic path, the time grants!

But capital would never bear a rival,

On top there's ethnicity survival,

The tribe pays tribute to the hosting state

Taking imperial nonsense as a bait,

Or, more precisely, heaping trash from cave

That's eager to merge clans and them enslave

To put it brief, the age of passion seeks

To clutch the world in amiable grips

And squeeze its juice to bring it back to nature,

Keeping man's balance with every beastly creature …

The past appears to regenerate

And tramples brazenly on all that is alive,

Troy's here again, Achaea's standing by

And the proverbial horse already lies in wait.

The Trojan horse is just a major error

It is Achaean! Trojan is a fake

Invented to deceive and to abuse

Repeating ever-being history remake.

Remake, my friends! It's where the dead can score

And masterfully choke us, the living,

Making us play another person's role

And breaking up our living soul...

The whole world is again the joust

of Gods

Right, not the Gods they used to be before

But passions are the same and they gnaw

And shove over conceited haughty serfs/slaves,

Confusing often power with freedom

And ever keen to tear earth apart

Devouring the space as tasty morsel,

And merging crime with experiment,

Like beasts, they mark the ever traveled path

With their own filthy excrement …

Now the Lord, who is well known to have died,

In darkness blesses this amusement ride:

Achaeans heading forces of goodwill! -

And humanism, allegedly deceased,

Believed in their self conceited phiz,

And handed them the same fabled olive..

 

Achaeans push ahead and keep persuading,

Claiming their raid to bring us common good

And their legions the noble peace to exude.

The impudence of might leave us amazing,

We grunt, but still are keen to imitate –

And cursing out still we curse our idol.

And it is creeping like medieval plague,

A threat of people's blood degeneration

That turns a human being into a bot.

The trouble is not that getting their way

They'll make us just a part of algorithm,

But that the death for ever is here to stay …

 

For us it is naïve to think

That's it's enough the lexicon to shrink

To make the word of "death" be vanishingly rare

For us the gentle children's ears to spare,

And we will reach the sought humane age–

Instead we get a self-deluded creche,

That wants to live by laws of fairy tales:

-To bloom in bliss like grasses in the dales

Amidst eternal spring. But even grasses

are crushed by lawless boots when cannibal Horde

Invades the dale abhorrent and abhorred

...

Achaeans push ahead and Troy they vilify

Because it keeps its borders fortified

That it is shockingly unwilling still to die

And what Acheans never will forgive-

Has every reason to thrive, breathe, and live.

 

 

 

Translated by Inna Pertsovskaya April-November 2023