’I come to see birth as a shift:‘ 2 poems by Georgian artist Karlo Kacharava

Known as an artist and art critic, Karlo Kacharava (1964-1994), was also a great Georgian poet. His writing and art inspired many young Georgian artists and thinkers of his generation, and continues to have notable influence on contemporary Georgian art today. Although his life was cut short at the age of 30, Kacharava has left an impressive creative legacy behind him, which includes about 300 paintings, thousands of drawings, and an unfinished dictionary of modern and contemporary art. His first solo exhibitions were organised posthumously, both in Georgia and abroad, including the most recent show, People and Places, at the Modern Art Gallery, London. The poems below were both written in 1990.

A Love

(from Cafe “Medic”)

It was so great a love –

so exhilarating it could never end well.

The woman called him from a massive black phone

at the post office in some Soviet city.

It was winter. Outside, it was snowing.

When he heard her voice, the man stopped writing

and lit a cigarette,

almost dropping the receiver.

They talked so frankly,

they seemed almost shy with one another.

They talked about possibly getting together

but neither of them could guess

that the flight, which would be delayed due to snow,

would never set off into other millennia –

ahead to the past or back to the future.

They will never see each other again,

and the snow will never again be just snow.

A Woman Sleeps

(from Cafe “Medic”)

This woman who sleeps like an old rat in a silver bed

will adapt to one more night.

The adaptation is short-lived,

even when she does not sleep alone.

It is not measured in heavenly silver or by a letter of consolation.

I think of this woman

when I look back upon the past.

I think back to all the many deaths in a single life

and I come to see birth as a shift.