DOLLS IN THE SKY OVER THE CITY
Ardakh Nurgaz
Translated from Chinese by Ouyang Yu
for my friend, the poet Kanat Omar
As soon as I think of the city, I think of myself
Located in the city, I can’t bypass it, I can’t go without facing it
It’s inside my body, inside my heart, every footstep taken, walking and stopping, stopping to
look backwards
overtaking some or giving way to others, all in the city, in the heart, in the heart of my hearts
I can’t remove certain things from it, like throwing away certain things
Relatives, friends, people known and unknown, colleagues and people I’ve only met once, all in
there, in the city
I can’t bypass it
Getting off the bus, someone is smiling towards someone else, possibly a smile for me, too
Because, in two days, I may accidentally recall the features that send forth spring warmth to the others
The streetlights go out at 11pm, but I may not go out except that I may close my eyes
Another part of the city, like me, may be brightly lit and as noisy
Houses in the city are levels, like threads of thoughts
The entrance may be to one family but there are actually many doors by which to enter
The threshold of my family is high because the previous owner may have spent many years in
prison
and, when coming out of it, may have kept increasing its height by adding a number of wooden
boards
Every time I cross the threshold I recall those things of the past, of the owner who has moved out
and of the days he has spent in prison
I do not know where he is now and whether the suitcase is still there that he took with him when
he left or if he has given it to someone else
On the day of his departure, the suitcase he was holding left a deep impression on me. I imagined
that it wasn’t a suitcase and that
it was a maze as if, with a jarring noise, the stone door would open itself to let countless batsout
of the dark cave
But it’s just an ordinary suitcase and it’s I myself that let my thoughts go astray
One must be close to darkness, so close that one wants to bring out thrusts of darkness even in
broad daylight
For this reason, I am sensitive about words like ‘darkness’ and ‘brightness’. Put simply, I hate
their guts
They make me allergic. They resemble a wound inside my heart
I am only too anxious to smash them to pieces, to have the opportunity of chucking them into the
steel furnace
But there’s nothing I can do as I have to deal with them and live with them as usual
They have a different name: lies
Lies make life smooth and relax people. Yes, you think so, too?
Who says that butterflies are real but the petal-eyes on their wings are fake
(Look at my metaphors)
Lies are not something you could pour out as you sit and sit
They are wisdom, the highest level of thoughts
(Those on high may feel relaxed themselves and, for that reason, they often catch cold)
Those on high may assume that they look at things differently
For example, those on high and in power often cheat
And we on low ground act as if we know nothing but we also cheat them
We cheat each other exactly because we do not hope for a return of yesterdays
Simple as that
The hat on the head is getting bigger, rounder
But not getting out of the zone of wisdom given by God
Such thoughts as now I normally conceal even from myself
Concealment because that is an idea of cloudless childhood
Why do people become cunning and greedy, growing into adulthood?
(When I was a child my father kept saying after he got drunk: cunningness is a stain on human
character)
Why not stop to contain oneself?
Isn’t it that I do not resemble myself, acting like someone else speaking?
While waiting for the bus by the roadside, drinking coffee, I nearly throw up on thinking of these
things
acting as if I had imagined myself as a philosopher
Philosophy is written for human beings
From Socrates, Plato until the present, if wo/mankind has not gone astray
It is because they are vigilant about their rationality
If one can’t hold one’s desire what will be the difference between one and the animals?
In an environment like a zoo, treating oneself like an adult
Is a hell
(It seems I’m inclined towards theology
That won’t do and let’s carry on for radical religious elements may raise their fists or threaten
with suicide bombs, and that is not good
Sometimes people are that crazy
You must have realized the extent of confusion in my head)
How can it not be confusion:
The Talmud, the Bible, and what else?There’s The Koran
The materialists have no other gods than the money or the Holy War
What have we got today except the two extremes?
Like the fragments fallen from the sky imagined by Nietzsche
When he saw the chariot rushing down the street, didn’t he run towards the horse and hold his
head and said: My pitiable brother?
The auntie in retirement next door kept crying all night
The government kicked the retirees and migrants off the housing security list
The good news is that one has not seen a bird of passage for a long time
What is a bird of passage? Time, a metaphor, a symbol or a story?
I say it is creating something out of nothing
A trick played by the bankrupt Soviet Union
In the Soviet Union period, things were so good that it is fucking enough to shout ‘Heil, Hitler’
or ‘Long Live the Party!’
But it isn’t bad now as there is freedom from fears and freedom to make money
Someone stops me on the road and says, ‘Can we go to the mosque together?’
Then go to the war in Syria for a monthly salary of 800 US dollars
Without thinking, I pack him off
Managing to bear it all, I thought of going to fight the war in Ukraine to defend the Russian
territory but those genuine words
‘Although Russia is huge we can’t possibly beat a retreat as Moscow is behind us’
Are such great words
That were being said after the Soviet Union collapsed, cruel of course
Dog only knows if Russians can imagine the iceberg drifting in the ocean of my heart
Although my wife knows it for she says: your heart is not on the left, but on the right
Are there people without hearts?
‘I am Kazakh. I have died thousands of times and have come back alive thousands of times’ but
who said that?
Possibly he doesn’t have a heart or he has a hot head
Why scream like that?
Isn’t it that one is born once as he dies only once?
It must be like that to have a hot head
They always like talking in a victorious tone:
I, oh, I, oh, I am so great…
Why not say the name of a crow that it should have
It’s that crow, a good bird, that one hears can live for thousands of years, for tens of thousands of
years
(not mentioning the fact that it is true that Stalin lived longer than Lenin)
But it’s all nonsense to say that crows keep company with sorcerers and reside with vampires
It is true, though, that there are some who exaggerate and who can’t hold still if they don’t talk
big
When they talk about eagles it is the phoenixes that come out of their mouths
And it won’t do if they don’t talk as there’s the itch
Crows are an example. Because they are black birds, black all over, you keep smearing them
black and adding black to the black
Whereas in fact it’s not that the crows are black it is that the skies as imagined by some have
sinister blackness that is hidden
Crows are not crows, the dark spots are the crows
And, for this reason, the crows are not wrong
Isn’t it the case that they talked about the powers that be as the sun yesterday but feel puzzled today as they can’t find a resounding metaphor? Why?
It’s because they can’t get the name of a crow right that it ought to have
Because they can’t
They can’t go past it, they can’t get rid of the dark clouds overhead and they get today askew
Falling into what Abay described as a vicious circle of self-satisfaction that looks full but that is
actually stupid
Watching the kids playing on the swing in the courtyard
Suddenly, but it’s not suddenly, it snows
Just that ordinary snow! In the infinitely high place, steam turns into water drops
And, in the cold, turns into snowflakes, falling over my head
Just then, a group of black crows comes flying, perching on the white branches of that big elm tree
Translator’s note: Abay Qunanbayuli (10/10/1845 – 6/7/1904), a great thinker, philosopher, Nationalist poet, and founder of the written literature in Kazakh of Kazakhstan, who has produced a large number of poems, prose, long poems and philosophical work in a refined language and with realist methods, trailblazing a new path for Kazakh poetry. He provided a profound analysis of, and made sharp and convincing commentaries on,the realistic life on the steppe of Kazakhstan with exquisite composition and refined language.