The March of the Fools on Kiev

(a real happening – see Prizhov)

Dedicated to Zlata Kotsich



1. Prelude

In Moscow, abandoned to sin, within a graveyard’s walls
Gathered a group of those who were for Christ’s sake fools
And set their thoughts on atonement, and their sights on the holy bones:
Kiev’s Monastery of Caves, where the relics found their home.

Some will die by the roadside
That is how it shall be,
But another fool will make his way
On all fours, if needs be
And he shall intercede
With the Lord for every man
And he shall win forgiveness
For mortal sin.
Even a tongue-less fool
A cripple, unsired
May raise up a prayer
For the whole Christian world.

So they set their thoughts and their sights on Kiev. Some were left sleeping in taverns,
Some in the dark woods, some looped
Their way home, and others were killed by wicked folk.

2. Marfa

Marfushka, singing, walked
From one inn to the next
And measured out the road
In cups and sips,
And hopped on her way
On her one good leg.

Long past Vladimir
Ryazan is left
With Kaluga, now behind her
But still no Kiev.
Jump up on her –
If only it could!
Come fluttering out
Of the deep dark wood.

I’ll cross the river blue
Over the water, onward
By marsh or by stream
By cart through the ford
So she gave her golden cloak
For a little wooden boat
And her slanted sail was a burdock leaf
And she crossed the river wide
Oars shivering the clouded sky
Under snag and river slime.

The little fish all followed her
Dancing on their tails
Until dawn they pushed her boat along
With their fishy kisses
And sang: jump in with us
Be a mother to the groundlings
And a sister to the sturgeon
And they waltzed the whirlpool with her
And the water sang
And no one ever saw
Marfushka again.


3. The Lunatick Fool

Towards Kiev and the holiest bones
Strays a lunatick, holding a staff
Hardly knowing what it is, this Kiev
Or where he himself roams.

His reason scorched bare on kindling
The ash feeds the grass
And in his moon-round head
Only the faintest smouldering.

Before him, all in dust, and white
Rolls the cask-like moon.
And after dawn the murmuring birds
Lead him through the woods.

Just once he caught the moon up
And found himself inside
As if heavenly Kiev shone there
It bore him up to the skies.

He carries his pouch and staff with him
His circling saintly life -
I see him whenever I stare at the moon
He turns her wheel like a mouse

And how wild the moon’s face grows
Since he wheeled within
The faintest smouldering of his mind
Has made her mask quite dim.


4. Matrena the Leader of Them All

Clop, the matron Matrena
Clop, clop, her creaking gait
Her waddling and wandering
Where is it then, this great Kiev?
Forest all about.

She turned into the drowsing wood
Leant her head against the bark
And there became a storm-cloud
With fur stitched to its skirt.

She became the fear of God
She swoops above the road
And into the soul, a black cloud,
When you bring out death’s clean shirt -
Then you’ll remember God.  


5. The House of Pakhom

Pakhom, piss-head, wanders in
Clothed in sick and spittle and spite
Whispering prayers, his prayers a sin
For he has ended a child’s life.

Pakhom wanders, slurring, slower –
Half the road to Kiev now passed.
A moment’s metamorphic power:
And he stands, a house, to block the path.

The passer-by is forced inside
The salt is barely found, an owl
Rises from the stove, the eye
Of a boar’s head winking from the ground.   

A blackened icon hangs beneath
A thick spider’s web
And if he thinks to take a rest
A snake curls on the bed.

The walls quiver so strangely
The floor is a fuming well   
The bodies of the wretched burn beneath:
Here the gates of hell.

So run and run as far as you can
To the first haystack, through the night
Your body dissolves in trembling
You become a God in your flight.


6. Labyrinth


Matrena is quite, quite lost
In the meadow green.
We called and called, we ran to find her
Goosey, goosey, whither do you wander?
Look, look, here’s a crust!
The Maid passed by and in her haste
She dropped the bread behind her.
Dry old bread, lying in the grass…
But then the bread begins to swell
And grow, until it comes to press
And milk the sky and lift its shell.
We fell upon that crust of bread
We nibbled, chewed and carved it
What if we found Matrena inside?
And with her Kiev, and our Fathers.

Feodosiy, always honking, spitting green
Red-eyed, peg-legged, bad egg, he
Says, ‘why o why did I choose this bit
I’m stuck in the bread-bog, like a boot in shit.

Soft bread, warm bread
Cosy yeasty dough
Deafens me and blinds me
Who I am now, I don’t know….’

Fedula now, she ate her way
Through the other side,
Fedula’s nose has lost its place
Her mouth a blemish on half her face.
And then there’s Pakhom the sponge
And Max with the fat chops
All of them make inroads -
Around the bread they flock.

Rushing, rushing all of them
The hunchbacked, the one-eyed
To the centre of the earth
Four blind and naked mice.
It’s nourishing, warming there:
They’ll flourish and bud,
Breathe, and eat a pap of bread,
Made half of tears, half of blood.

They darted back and forth
And heavenwards - down
Matrena nowhere to be found
There they spun like tigers round.

And then a passer-by
A foreigner, a wanderer
He took that bread and ate it
That fine bread, that wicked bread
And to his bellies
The four fools sunk
And spoke in a hundred
And ten different tongues
And in his blood
They are at liberty to swim
Is it him, then, carrying them –
Towards Kiev his legs bear him.


Epilogue

I was out marking in charcoal
A storm cloud – leave me alone
When I entered a fearful house
And became a ghost unseen.

But this ghostly me
Whispered, made the sign of the cross.
And for a good while
My pale hand lit the darkness.

My heart at once a stranger
As if a blade had sliced it out
In it Christ’s own prayer
Whispering to itself.


Post-epilogue

Were you there on the road with me?
You read the stern elders’ dark scroll
That they pray like hives of sleepless bees
For God, and no longer for the world.

Translated from the Russian by Sasha Dugdale