I Am Goya, By Andrei Voznesensky

I am Goya

of the bare field, by the enemy’s beak gouged

till the craters of my eyes gape

I am grief

I am the tongue

of war, the embers of cities

on the snows of the year 1941

I am hunger

I am the gullet

of a woman hanged whose body like a bell

tolled over a blank square

I am Goya

O grapes of wrath!

I have hurled westward

the ashes of the uninvited guest!

and hammered stars into the unforgetting sky--like nails

I am Goya

TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN BY STANLEY KUNITZ

From “An Arrow in the Wall: Selected Poetry and Prose” by Andrei Voznesensky, edited by William Jay Smith and F.D. Reeve (An Owl Book/Henry Holt: 344 pp., $10.95)