Sergey Kuznetsov. Don't make it in time

Don't make it in time
Old and new. Issue 12

Sergey Kuznetsov

Publication date: June 5, 2003

Today 's issue of "Old and New", dedicated, in fact, to the old, slightly violates the rules that I set for myself. I was going to write only about those old books that in no way relate to “literature”: at best, it could be genre literature, or even better - its waste. Today's book, of course, also falls into the category of waste - but for too many years many people considered it real literature. And its author, whatever one may say, had a huge influence on Russian poetry of the late twentieth century.

We are talking about the youthful poem " Procession " by Joseph Brodsky. Written in three months at the end of 1961, when its author was only twenty years old, it was published in Brodsky’s first Western collection “Poems and Poems” and - regardless of this - circulated in Samizdat for decades. When I was a little older than its author, many of my friends considered it the pinnacle of the work of the future Nobel laureate. They, of course, were mistaken - this is just a youthful romantic poem, rather uneven.

Almost twenty years ago I retyped it on a typewriter and knew it almost by heart. I'm afraid that I remember it quite well even now. The first evening when I met my future wife, I read to her almost all the romances and large chunks of commentaries by heart - and continued to read the entire first year of our romance. Since then, I have managed to memorize many of Brodsky’s poems, get married, give birth to a daughter together with my listener, write a monograph on Brodsky’s poetics, get divorced and completely forget about the existence of the poem “Procession.” That is, of course, if I had been asked what poems were written by Brodsky, I would have named it - but “Procession” was not in my actual memory.

It all started about three weeks ago. During one difficult but inevitable conversation, I accidentally found myself quite seriously uttering a quote from the first romance of the Lovers. From this quote - as if he had built a house in chaos - as if from the center of a spiral, the entire text began to unwind, and at some point I caught myself starting to repeat to myself all the romances one after another, as if twenty years had never happened . And so, afraid of not having time, I am writing this article - while the feeling is still strong.

After so many years, in the depths of my soul I hoped to discover that the romantic poem of a twenty-year-old youth from St. Petersburg demonstrates irreparable gaps in good taste. It seemed that it could not be read seriously by a person who had passed the age that Brodsky designated as the beginning of aging. Unfortunately, I didn’t see anything new in “Procession”. At twenty-three, as well as at thirty-seven, I knew that the lines “and tears stream down your lips and no roses await us, no roses await” were better forgotten like a nightmare (however, come on, I remember it already for many years) . In the best verses of this poem, despite their certain naivety, one can still feel the very “greatness of the plan” that Akhmatova spoke about to Brodsky.

Something is brewing nearby in the world,

It's the beds moving apart again
Soldiers awaken after death
Lovers wake up in their arms.

And babies are conceived anew,
And the saxophones sing before dawn,
And they are in a hurry, in a hurry to get dressed
New recruits, new recruits, martinets.

There is some kind of power and unprecedented scale in this picture, but this power and this scale are such that one involuntarily recalls some Hollywood movie like “The Lord of the Rings”. This is something designed for a teenager, but from old memory also works with an adult. All these resurrecting dead, lovers waking up in the middle of the night and endlessly conceiving children... no, this clearly lacks good taste.

However, who said that metaphysics needs good taste?

That's life
that's life
flashed by
Here comes the city
snow covered -
And the mist
Just remember
nothing crazy-
new power
And mad-
great confidence
real whistle

So remember just a few words:
Leads us from dawn to dusk,
The Pied Piper is leading us! RAT PICKER!
The Pied Piper is leading us! -
Repeat!

This is almost the ending, and it sheds light on everything that happens in the poem. The entire “Procession” exists in the microscopic gap between conception and death, in the face of the unexpectedly revealed transience of life, in the face of the awareness not so much of the inevitability of death as of its suddenness and unexpected proximity. Hence the choking rhythm, the faltering voice: out of fear - not to have time, not to shout out everything that was discovered inside. I think the closest analogue of “Procession” in Russian poetry at the end of the century will be the most successful albums of Siberian punk.

It’s no wonder that these poems are so fascinating at twenty years old. It is not surprising that the adult Brodsky grimaced when asked about this poem. It is impossible to live your whole life with the feeling that dictates “The Procession” without falling into permanent hysteria. And therefore Brodsky quite quickly outlived the intonation of “Procession”, “August Lovers” and “July Intermezzo”. Brodsky contrasted the feeling of death, which can come at any moment, with the feeling of time, which erases everything.

Imagine that the more sincere the voice, the less tears it contains,

love for anything, fear, passion.

It is in this voice that it is appropriate to speak to an adult who knows that life, contrary to youthful premonitions, has turned out to be long .

But sometimes the feeling that we exist five minutes before the end of the world returns. And along with it - those few words that I was asked to remember half my life ago. This is a rare case when I cannot resist the urge to end an article with a direct wish: I would like those who are just under twenty-five today to make an effort and read “The Procession.” At least in pieces, starting from the end. Because then it will be too late, then you won’t have time.