Poems - Marijan

From old poems

It is true: you were seduced and taken away.

You will never come to my poem, you won’t return;

In the caress I notice your vice, your wickedness

in your awaiting I can only take care of the child.

As the moon arch shyly swimming in the white clouds

they too is gentle, faded and fainted,

on their parents silently upset from day one —

It is a puzzle, yet unsolved by no one.

I know I will be forgiven by the feeling, yet inexistent

as a rhyme I will burn out, wear down,

and you belong to someone else. happy, complacent

you will never come to my poem, you won’t return.

Looking down at the child’s honey eyes, glassy shafts,

a glimpse of familiar curves smiles at me back, —

I will sacrifice last drops of my damned life to them

In the future I will tell my confessions to them.

Torn thoughts need no one today besides you.

In awaiting for you I can only caress the child,

I am left today, alone, only as a nanny, as their maid —

and you are with someone else, you will never return.

1923

Raw material

Fate itself has handed me the wet material,
raw material, pristine, unstained,
on a different soil, carved out from the sun dust
and spray-sprinkled with heavenly balm.
Although lifeless, still i hold enough strength,
to weave into the burnt soul the raw material,
assemble, foregather with the ripple of the blood current,
to compose a poem, poem pure, poem flawless.
I will weave into it: moaning-tormenting of the wounded chest,
hot pulsating of the wrist, fading of the ailing face,
broken hopes, fake love, mute fervor,
magnificent blasts of turbulence from accumulated lust.
…In my hands I hold a lovely raw material,
Only if this damned, wounded heart would let me….

1921

Topic that concerns me strongly

After my first poems,
I also carried the name of the poet.
Now, as if I stepped on the ice,
my poems reveal nothing outright.
I stepped down, although
I also wanted to act or to work with the word,
...I thought: Someone else will follow —
A new woman, A new vision.
How many words disappeared unpublished,
how many rhythms were taken by night.
I want to tell this feeling to paper,
to revive the poems that have faded
Why did I hush, when my skills
were no less than anyone else’s,
when the feelings ever blazing
would profusely transform into verses!
I have bored myself with inaction,
word doesn’t shatter the gateway to life.
I feel people for whom I was toiling,
are gladdened by my poems no more...
If the old verse has turned into mould,
and smell of decay pervades all,
what is my legacy for new generation?
What have I done? Why have I come?
Why should I be exhausted,
when my heart delights and flutters:
Either renewal, or demise!
There is no alternative choice.
1931

To Ekaterine Gabashvili

I met you, when the night in me was morning
when the first ray was dancing in my rhyme,
you allured me. Single bead dropped from your eyes
and… you disapproved the honesty of my rhyme…
You reprimanded me ‘’ have you got no pity
towards yourself, that these feelings, that you’ve felt yourself,
you deliver to the reader for scrutiny, for entertainment –
True feeling is mute and always concealed.
Is there no theme - besides yourself - that can make you sing?
Why don’t you want to look into the hearts of our people?
Today the labor overshadows rusted tokens of the past. –
Today all from yesterday is reassessed’’.
I bent my head. agreed to the high intellect.
Felt the truth of every word of yours,
how much care for people your heart could carry
and very often I recall this memory.

1948

Translations by Ana Gzirishvili

*Ana Chiladze, 2021, pencil and gouache on paper, 15x21