Joseph Brodsky
I have Brodsky’s favorite “From the outskirts to the center”, long but beautiful: Here I am again visiting this area of love, the peninsula of factories, the paradise of workshops and the arcadia of factories, the paradise of river steamers, I whispered again: here I am again in baby chests. So I ran through Malaya Okhta again through a thousand arches.
In front of me the river lay flattened under coal smoke, behind me a tram thundered across the bridge unharmed, and the gloom of the brick fences suddenly brightened. Good afternoon, here we are, poor youth.
The jazz of the suburbs greets us, you hear the trumpets of the suburbs, the golden Dixieland in black caps is beautiful, charming, neither soul nor flesh - someone’s shadow over your own gramophone, as if your dress was suddenly thrown up by a saxophone.
In a bright red muffler and a raincoat, in the gateways and front doors you stand in plain sight on the bridge near the years of irrevocability, pressing an unfinished glass of lemonade to your face, and the expensive chimney of the plant roars behind you.
Good afternoon. Well, we have a meeting. How insubstantial you are: next to you, a new sunset is driving sheets of fire into the distance. How poor are you? So many years have passed in vain. Good afternoon, my youth. My God, how beautiful you are.
Greyhounds rush silently across the frozen hills, train whistles sound among the red swamps, taxis fly out onto the empty highway, disappearing in the smoke of the open forest, and aspen trees look into the sky.
This is our winter. The modern lantern looks with a deathly eye, thousands of windows burn dazzlingly before me. I raise my cry so that it doesn’t collide with houses: it’s our winter that still can’t come back.
Is it not until death, no, we won’t find her, we won’t find her. From birth into the world we go somewhere every day, as if someone in the distance in new buildings is playing beautifully. We all run away. Only death alone brings us together.
This means there are no separations. There is a huge meeting. This means that someone suddenly hugs us by the shoulders in the dark, and full of darkness, and full of darkness and peace, we all stand together over a cold shining river.
How easy it is for us to breathe, because, like a plant in someone else’s life, we become light and shadow, or more than that, because we will lose everything, running away forever, we become death and paradise.
Here I am again passing in the same bright paradise - from a stop to the left, a new Eve runs in front of me, covering herself with her palms, a bright red Adam appears in the arches in the distance, the Neva wind rings mournfully in the hanging harps.
How fast life is in the black and white paradise of new buildings. The serpent is entwined, and the heroic sky is silent, the icy mountain glistens motionless by the fountain, the morning snow curls, and the cars fly tirelessly.
Wasn’t it me, illuminated by three lanterns, who ran for so many years in the darkness through broken wastelands, and the radiance of the sky swirled around the crane? Isn't it me? Something has changed here forever.
Someone new reigns, nameless, beautiful, omnipotent, burning over the homeland, a dark blue light is spreading, and lanterns rustle in the eyes of the greyhounds - one flower at a time, someone is always walking near new houses alone.
This means there are no separations. So, it was in vain that we asked forgiveness from our dead. This means there is no return for winter. There is only one thing left: to walk on the ground without worry. Impossible to fall behind. Overtaking is the only thing possible.
Where we are rushing, this hell or heaven, or simply darkness, darkness, it’s all unknown, dear country, a constant subject of singing, isn’t it love? No, it doesn't have a name.
This is eternal life: an amazing bridge, an incessant word, the passage of a barge, the revival of love, the death of the past, the lights of steamships and the glow of shop windows, the ringing of distant trams, the splash of cold water near your ever-wide trousers.
I congratulate myself on this early discovery, with you, I congratulate myself on this amazingly bitter fate, on this eternal river, on this sky in the beautiful aspen trees, on the description of losses behind the silent crowd of shops.
Not a resident of these places, not a dead man, but some kind of intermediary, completely alone, you shout about yourself in the end: you didn’t recognize anyone, you made a mistake, you forgot, you were deceived, thank God, it’s winter. So, I haven't returned anywhere.
Thank God it's a stranger. I'm not blaming anyone here. Nothing to know. I'm walking, I'm in a hurry, I'm overtaking. How easy it is for me now, because I haven’t broken up with anyone. Thank God that I was left on earth without a homeland.
Congratulations to myself! No matter how many years I live, I don’t need anything. How many years will I live, how many will I give for a glass of lemonade? How many times will I return - but will not return - as if I were locking the house, how much I will give for the sadness of a brick chimney and a dog barking.
“I loved you more than angels”: Brodsky about women...
Joseph Brodsky passed away 20 years ago, but he still occupies the place of one of the greatest poets of the 20th century. His name constantly flashes on social networks, and a variety of media outlets publish endless collections of Brodsky’s “commandments,” “philosophical quotes,” and “love lyrics.”
The latter, by the way, is not so surprising - the poet was often spoken of as a lover of women. Although, by and large, there were only two women in his life - Marina Basmanova and Maria Sozzani. The first one went to his poems, and the second one went to himself.
The poet, who was then 22 years old, met the Leningrad artist Marina Basmanova in 1962. This is how Anna Akhmatova, with whom Brodsky had a close friendship for many years, described Basmanova: “Thin, smart and how she carries her beauty! And no makeup. Just cold water!”
Even then Brodsky began to dedicate his poems to M.B. – the one he called his bride:
Your curl does not curl into a ring, and you cannot find a finger for it in an attempt to outline your face, as you previously outlined a strand...
This love was the first in the poet’s life and, as usually happens, unhappy. He wanted her to always be there, but Marina, as they say, did not give Brodsky any promises:
I was only what you touched with your palm, over what you bowed your forehead in the dead crow night.
I was only what you could discern there, below: a vague appearance at first, much later - features.
The relationship between Basmanova and Brodsky always had a tinge of some kind of pain and doom. Both his parents and Marina’s father, the famous artist Pavel Basmanov, were against their union. Why, the poet’s chosen one was also in no hurry to marry him.
You know, with the onset of darkness I try to estimate by eye, counting the grief from miles away, the space separating us.
And the numbers somehow converge into words, from where the confusion coming from A and the hope coming from B are approaching you.
Each time they fought “forever,” but then they certainly ended up close. Brodsky cut his wrists, smoked several packs a day - the love he sought so much mainly brought him suffering:
I peer into the fire. In the language of fire, “don’t touch me” is heard and “me!” flashes. This makes it hot. Through the crunching of the bones, I hear a choking “more!” and a frantic “let go!”
It’s sad, but the most banal love triangle put an end to this relationship – or rather, even an ellipsis. When Brodsky left for Moscow in 1964, hiding from the police who were trying to prosecute the poet for parasitism, Marina became friends with his friend, the poet Dmitry Bobyshev.
What a pity that what your existence became for me, my existence did not become for you. ...Once again, in an old vacant lot, I launch my copper penny, topped with a coat of arms, into the wire space, in a desperate attempt to exalt the moment of connection... Alas, those who are not able to replace the whole world with themselves usually have to turn the chipped telephone dial, like a table at a seance , until the ghost echoes the buzzer's last screams into the night.
Of course, the news about his beloved’s betrayal became a catastrophe on a universal scale for Brodsky. They will forever remain enemies with Bobyshev, Marina simply will not open the door for him, and a few days later Brodsky will be arrested right on the street:
First a chair fell into the abyss, then the bed fell, then my table. I pushed him myself. I don't want to hide it. Then - the textbook “Native Speech”, a photo of the whole family. Then four walls and a stove. All that's left is the coat and me. Goodbye, darling. Take off the ring, write out the fashion newsletter. And you can spit in the face of whoever takes my place.
Then there was a trial that ended with a three-year exile in the village of Norinskaya, Arkhangelsk region. Marina came to him, they lived together for a long time, and he was ready to forget about everything, but Basmanova again left for Bobyshev. The result of these throwings was a son, to whom Marina did not give either a middle name or the surname of Brodsky.
From nowhere with love, the eleventh of March, dear, respected, dear, but it doesn’t even matter who, because, frankly speaking, I can’t remember the facial features, not yours, but no one’s faithful friend greets you from one of the five continents, based on cowboys. I loved you more than the angels and myself, and therefore I am further from you now than from both of them.
Returning from exile, Brodsky left the USSR - the authorities made it clear to the poet that nothing good awaited him in his homeland. Marina and their son stayed here - Basmanova did not want to go to America. Soon she broke up with Dmitry Bobyshev, preferring loneliness to an exhausting relationship. But even there, overseas, Brodsky could not find peace:
A quarter of a century ago, you had a passion for lula and dates, drew with ink in a notebook, sang a little, had fun with me; but then she met a chemical engineer and, judging by the letters, she became monstrously stupid...
...Don't misunderstand me. Nothing is connected with your voice, body, name anymore; no one destroyed them, But to forget one life a person needs at least one more life. And I lived this share...
When asked by his friends to fly to Leningrad for at least a couple of days, he always refused: “They don’t return to the place of love!” Moreover, a new “place of love” appeared in Brodsky’s life - at the Sorbonne he met the beautiful Italian Maria Sozzani.
She was 30 years younger than the poet, her name was similar to the name Marina, but what’s up - Sozzani surprisingly resembled Brodsky’s first love in appearance!
“Goodbye, goodbye,” I whisper as I walk, I walk again among the familiar streets, the windows shake above me, the usual hum of the day grows in the distance, and the lights go out in the gateways. - Goodbye love, call someday.
In their marriage, Sozzani and Brodsky had a daughter, Anna Alexandra Maria Brodskaya. According to the recollections of friends, the years spent with Maria were better for the poet than his entire rebellious life.
Whether this was true or not, shortly before his death Brodsky published all the poems he had written to various women, and published them, dedicating them to M.B.
Goodbye, forget and don’t blame me. And burn the letters like a bridge. May your path be courageous, may it be straight and simple. May the starry tinsel burn for you in the darkness, may hope warm your palms by your fire. May there be blizzards, snow, rains and a mad roar of fire, may you have more luck ahead than me. May the battle thundering in your chest be powerful and beautiful. I am happy for those who may be along the way with you.
