The Poetry Project

Publications > The Recluse > Issue 15

Three Poems

Dmitri Prigov translated by Simon Schuchat

A LIST OF MY OWN DEATHS (1999)

Prefatory Note
I myself was surprised to discover, after the fact, that three of my recent large "inventory" texts are associated with the theme of mortality -- who died in my time, enumeration of graves and this one here too. I thought that I might just as well have listed, to no lesser effect, things that were lively and cheerful. But then it occurred to me that the principle of inventory itself is mortification par excellence. So, quite naturally, the most natural thematic addition to this would be something correspondingly mortal. It's just a case of like being drawn to like. 1

I might have died at age 1 from chickenpox, but didn't
At 2 I might have died from measles
At 3 I might have died from lupus, hunger and war
In my 4th year I could have died from measles, many did
Oh, and at 6 months I could have died from dyspepsia
I also might have died before my birth, from the unspeakable difficulties of life to come
I could have died while being born, these things happen
I could have died at 5 from scarlet fever — a terrible thing
At 6, 7, 8 and 9 I could have died from polio
At 10 I could have died from fear — it was very scary
At 11 and 12 I could have died of boredom at school, but I overcame it
At 13 and 14 I could have died while crossing the street, in someone else's garden stealing apples or in a courtyard fight -- those were brutal fights
At 15, I could have died from encephalitis from a tick bite in a forest outside Moscow
At 16, I could have just died
I could have just died at 17
I could have just died at 18
I could have died at 19 or 20 when bathing in the Black or Baltic Sea
At 24, I could have died from the police
At 25 years I could have died from food poisoning
I could have died at the ages of 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, or 41 in prisons, camps, from torture, on a prisoners' bunk, during interrogations, in the logging camps, on a criminal's knife, at the North Pole, eaten up by gnats, in the desert, on a cross, thrust under the ice, thrown into the furnace, on the wheel, from a bullet, in a dungeon, in manacles, from exhaustion in the cattle wagon, in a gas chamber, thrown from a cliff, doused in acid, from scurvy, without making it to the location of my second prison term, of a heart attack in front of the camp gates flung open in the days of rehabilitation
At 41 I could have also died from a twisted intestine
Or, at 40, for example, if I hadn't died before that in prison, I could have died from being bitten by a rabid dog -- they were running around Moscow in those days
And at 39 I might have died from malaria in Asia
But at age 42 I could already die of tuberculosis
I could have died at 43 from a traumatic head injury, for example, from a blow with an ax
I could have died at 44, 45 and 46 from something or other, literally just some nonsense
I could have died at 47 from serious worries
I could have died at 48 from a possible cancer
At 49, 50, 51 I could have died from a heart attack, and indeed died, but I snapped out of it
At 52 I could still die from a heart attack
At 53 I could die from anything, for example, from an irregular life
I could have died at 54 just about anything
I could have died at 55 from anything
I could have died at 56 from anything
I could have died at 57 from anything
I could have died at 58 from anything
And at my present 59 years I could die from anything, for example from these compositions
And in all the years, times and sentences to come, I can, can, can die, die, die from what, from what, from what? — from just about anything

1 For context, Prigov was born in 1940, and died in 2007 at age 66, eight years after writing this\
work.

THREE SOURCES (1998)

Prefatory Note
Since the time of Lenin and Leninism it has been known that everything has three sources. Well, we are not as shrewd and powerful in our capacity to trace them with striking precision. But we did try. Moreover, our errors cannot lead to such dangerous and devastating consequences as in Lenin's case. Ours are just little jokes, slips of the tongue, grimaces.

There are three sources of knowledge: life, books, plus something unexpected. For instance, an ex-convict who moved into the neighborhood.

There are three sources of life: food, love, plus something unexpected. For instance, maybe there is some kind of God.

There are three sources of love: the heart, the libido, plus something unexpected. A mental injury, for example, that fundamentally changes one's perspective on life.

There are three sources of anger: bad temper, liver trouble, plus something unexpected. An evil spirit, for instance, that has possessed the organism.

There are three sources of weakness: ill health, a bad climate, plus something unexpected. For instance, a streetcar falling suddenly into one's path, or something heavy.

There are three sources of well-being: hard work, resourcefulness, plus something unexpected. For instance, the death of a rich relative, having good credit, or finding a purse stuffed with dollars. Which, of course, in this era of credit cards and electronic money, is a highly improbable illusion.

There are three sources of death: predestined inadequacies of the body, passionate desires and the penalty for them, well, and something unexpected too. For instance, a face-to-face encounter with a Basilisk or the Medusa.

WHO I WANTED TO KILL AT VARIOUS AGES (1997)

Prefatory note
This text is among several of my preceding ones that have as their objective to denominate in a nearly catalogue-like and enumerative fashion names, events, thoughts (instantaneous and lingering), intentions, projects and desires with reference to certain either concrete or invented-mythologized circumstances. And, generally speaking, all these explanations are unimportant. What's important is the energy of the flow of real and imagined positions of remembrance and usage.

Compared to the others, this text may seem to be, as it were, the most bloodthirsty. Get out! First of all, it isn't any more bloodthirsty than the other bloodthirsty texts. Secondly, who can correctly and accurately catalogue the phantoms of childhood and youth?! So don't bother trying to think all this through. Relax and observe the flow, the more or less energetically precise alignment and channeling.

As a child I wanted to kill Hitler
Really it wasn't just me, everyone wanted to
I also wanted to kill Antonescu
I was just like that
And I also wanted to kill the evil old lady in the neighboring apartment
And I wanted to kill her cat, to make her cry
And I wanted to kill the neighbor, but just pretend
And I wanted to kill Syngman Rhee
Though no, no, I wanted to kill him later
And there were many, many, many others that I wanted to kill, who had
xxxxx themselves already died

As a teenager, I wanted kill Truman, Adenauer and Tito
And I wanted to kill this one redneck in our courtyard, nicknamed Toad
I also wanted to kill the director of our school for his nastiness
And for his nastiness I also wanted to kill the chemistry teacher
And later I wanted to kill my lady chemistry teacher
And I also wanted to kill Genghis Khan, Batu, Napoleon and the dastardly
Teutonic knights that tortured Russia
Also I wanted to kill Vitalik Borisov, but only as a joke, to teach him a lesson, but I
did want to kill him
I wanted to kill Bukharin, Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Rykov, Tukhachevsky,
xxxxx Slansky, Krylenko, Radek, the doctors, the military men, the technicians,
xxxxx the writers, the Jews, the Georgians, the Germans, the Americans, the
xxxxx Japanese and many, many, many others, who had already died, but I
xxxxx wanted to kill them

In my youth I wanted to kill Stalin, Kaganovich, Malenkov, Molotov, Zhdanov,
Yezhov, Beria, Poskrebyshev, Dzerzhinsky, Menzhinsky, and, uh, that guy, I've
forgotten his name, but I wanted to kill him
And also in my youth I wanted to kill that lady, what's her name, no, no, I didn't
want to kill her, I wanted to kill her much — what's her name again?
And also, I wanted to kill, in my youth, Vasyuta the gangster from the neighboring
courtyard, and it's too bad that I didn't kill him
And I wanted to kill Tyulen the "Seal" from our own courtyard
And also, from our courtyard, I wanted to kill Krysa the "Rat," in my youth
And Tolya, in my youth I wanted to kill him, but he was from a distant courtyard (2)
And I also wanted to kill Batista, Samoza, Mao Zedong, Lin Biao, Tshombe,
Mobutu, Semichastny, Pavlov and many, many, many others, whom I don't even
remember anymore, who had already died on their own before the time I wanted
to
xxxxxkill them

In later years I wanted to kill Vuchetich, although no, no, I didn't want to kill him
I wanted to kill Serov, but no, no, I didn't want to kill him
I wanted to kill Surov, but no, no, no, I didn't want to, I did not want to kill him
I wanted to kill Brezhnev too, although no, no, no, no, no, no I didn't want to
I wanted to kill Brodsky, but no, I didn't want to
Others wanted to kill him, but I didn't want to, didn't want to, didn't want to
And Rubenstein I didn't want to kill
And I didn't want to kill Nekrasov
And Sorokin I didn't want to kill
But that guy, what's his name? I wanted to kill him
But overall, I didn't want to kill anybody, no one, no one, except for certain people
Other people certainly wanted to kill me, but I didn't want to, didn't want to, didn't
want to, didn't want to, didn't want to kill anybody

But so, in principle, who can you kill?
Well, you can kill practically anybody
Like you can kill this guy? — you can
Can you kill Yeltsin? Yeah, sure you can
Can you kill Anpilov? you can
But what, you're not allowed to kill Erofeyev? --I wouldn't really want to, but it's
possible
So what, you're not allowed to kill the youth? It's totally doable
But your son, son, son, you can't kill your son — whyever not? you can
And your wife, the wife, the wife, you can't kill her — whyever not? because you
can't! you can't! you can't! you can you can
And I can't kill you, right? whyever not? You can
I thought about how it's probably not allowed to kill the Patriarch — why not, if
they killed God, why not kill the Patriarch? It's possible

2 Another text adds, "in Sokolniki where my grandmother lived"

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