In the deaf open
The dead falling in
All fire and smoke where
I passed and came out
Lentils on boil there
Blind root in the pot
No ship comes to dock
Whistle runs aground
Still the signaler
The kernel won’t sprout
Hole in my belly
Ice water within
Many tank turrets
Tear nets in the spring
I pumped up the spare
Burned papers, crushed coals
My housing permit
Here, let me go home
Safe conducts speechless
Lie sunk deep in ice
I will not know how
His wife doesn’t know him
Mama, what janitor
Lives in the basement
Can’t recollect
His scattering name
Now seldom that damned man
Comes out on burning ice
Shuffles the iron spade
Scrapes with the bright broom
When at dawn I get dressed
Come out for work
When at dusk get undressed
Stick pumps in the dresser
In that basement womb
Daylight or nightlight
He lies around like a bedspread
The abyss sets its sights on me
Child, how could we know
Our lost Alexei
Lies in the basement with no heating
Half-forgotten by people
And that you didn’t know him
For your groom and husband
It’s that life is a great hall
Where many souls take a stroll
And that they’re yellower than an orange
His non-Russian features
It too stands to reason
We too are not what once we were
We have grown old like tramcars
Ashen is your permanent
While he like a lava lamp
Glows alone in the basement
A train is riding over Russia
Along some great river
The passengers took off their shoes
The conductors don’t look sober
Slippery with grease and dreamy
Chicken thighs go sailing by
The faces of huddled humanity
Like trees in unsteady water
I walk in a state-owned throw
Through train cars full of people
And sing as earnestly
As a saved soul in paradise
It’s a dirty job, even dirtier
Than the bossman-conductor might deem
For a quality song in our business
Always rises up to a scream
Ladies gasp when with my naked larynx
Over the knee-jerk cursing of men
I sing of how poppies turn even more red
When the blood of our commander drips down on their head
My voice makes a hole in the comfort
Of the car like an out-of-nowhere shiv
Everyone starts feeling downcast
And takes turns beating me by the toilet
An honest song has such outrage in it
The heart cannot stomach the shame
The passengers keep their defenses up
Like a tear in the middle of a face
Ordnance was weeping in the open
For the hero’s open wound
There he lay, his breast thrown open halfway
In anticipation of the end
Battle-prattle rattled in the eardrums
Tattled, sent regrets for plodding hammers
Female installation the Katyusha
Fed with kasha the whole panorama
And, while she was pounding close-in targets
As she polished off the riverbanks
For the one she was in love with
For the one she could not save
Raining dust and down off his service coat
Tensing infantile wings to fly
The heir of the gray eagle of the steppes
Kept watch over his parent from the sky
The A went past, Tram-Traum
It’s given lifts to you and me
Some mademoiselle will now
Open a fashion boutique
Lay out the blacks and whites
Wipe the empty mirrors
Look up at the unplugged
Displays from the corner
Which don’t reflect the Friday hour
Not the shopping people
Not a few summer dresses
But something else entirely
In everyday hustle and bustle
The gait of grandpa’s spring
You by the bakery
With a net bag of national air
The past is waterborne
A tear washes away
Its look of reproach
And falls to disappear in the display
We open up like faucets
This way and that, this way and that
Boutique security
Never give us a second look
Well I don’t sing Kupitye papirosn
And I don’t hazard games of chance
I resolve issues of high priority
On the guesstimate that I won’t die today
The postal carriage is coming down the rails
The iron horse is steaming at the bit
You let it go after an hour or so
That you are not entirely ready for it
Into whichever of our young republics
I’ll carry off my empty head
That heart’s a bagel, it costs only a ruble
Get it before it’s cold
from the cycle
KIREEVSKY
TRANSLATED BY SASHA DUGDALE
The light swells and pulses at the garden gate
Rolls itself up, rolls itself out
Smetana,* the very best—open up, mamma
Sweet lady, unlatching a casement—the best and the finest!
O black-throated Smetana, flame up
O white-winged Smetana, flare high
I’m no Lenten gruel, no scourge of sultanas
No faceless soup of curds for convicts
Don’t you dare compare my cream of ermine!
Are you pleased with a simple-minded cheese?
As the land rises and falls in hills and valleys
I’m shaped in living lipids and calories
Congealed unconcealed made gloriously manifest
Turned from one side to another and back again
Who will take up a silver spoon to muddy
My lilac-hued body?
And you, my light, barely at the threshold
Little fool, my light, never where I need you
You effulgent, I gently melting
I gently melting, I slightly smelling
And down there, where life rustles in the undergrowth
A tiny frog sits and croaks
Swells and croaks. Croaks and swells
And lifts its front legs to protect itself.
—
* Translator’s note: Smetana is Russian sour cream.
In the village, in the field, in the forest
A coach rattled past, a carriage
A smart little trap with a hood like a wing
From the big city they came, from Kazan,
At the turning of the year, with caskets and coffers
To carry out an inspection, a census:
Oh the forest is full of souls, and the water’s flow,
Many souls in the hamlet, and in the oak tree, too
And day wanders the wood, walking into the wind
All its own self long, on the spoor of the hind.
And the circles of dancers—still traces in the ground
The lips of hired weepers—not yet shrivelled
And all of it, even the young Cleïs,
Recorded in the book of conscience
And behind the gilded crest stamped on the boards
They barely dare to scratch or burp.
A deer, a deer stood in that place
Under the nut tree
And tears ran down its coat
Blood smoked on the snow.
A deer, a deer stood in that place
Under the nut tree
And rocked, rocked gently
The empty cradle.
A deer, a deer stood in that place
Asking the endless question
And from beyond the seven seas
Carried the wails of a child.