by Alexei Parshchikov
translated by Wayne Chambliss

And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.  Kings, Book 2 (2:23)

There are fewer and fewer animals in the capital.  Less and less often
are the torches of bears
raised above the tall

towers of apartments.  More and more often, they fall down shrieking

in an eclipse.
Snorting, they lick
the ears of stone sailors on rooftops.

Semi-transparent.
More like tea leaves than bears.
In deserted circuses,
they are wrapped in tarpaulin
like giant candies.
Their symmetries were beaten out
with crowbars,
until they were bent to the good
and it was made plain:
better a cow in India than a bull in Spain.  Even so, we offended Elisha —
two score children and all half-witted —

and down the hill he went, flapping like canvas, pigeon-toed, tender,
made soft with pride,
as we are, by rage, before we die.

We were off to the country to gather a muckle of unbound pages.      Laughing, we plucked

the books of Mao.

We were naked as syntax.
The Word moved among us.  It moved us.  Exquisite and vicious,        we wagged our tongues at

the prophet:
“Behold, Elisha’s is the light!   Even bald!”
two hairdressers cried.

Two Medeas emerged from the forest.  Two bears electrified.
Two she-bears, one great and one small, lunged at us in a fury

to asphyxiate to maul. 

Crimea

Perched on one foot, latching a sandal.
First I see an olive tree — and then the magnetic tree.
Orbits of objects, carefully balanced.
Flick the pupil and, as if by prayer, a lizard is vanquished.
The sea clicks, transmitting foam that plots at random
a group of flies.  Turn hard
and you are met by a Khan, flanked by a pair of spindly birds, picking through axes of rotation — like a battle made of glass, now in shards.  Poppies blister the loam.
Let the slack-jawed run through stone to Judgment.
Those struck dumb in adoration —
for the initial precision of blood, the first rotation — will be saved.

by Mikhail Eremin
from POEMS
     translated by Alex Cigale

* * *

Does not the risen yeast swell on the generosity
Of leavening?  Is not the fungus floret fattened,
Spreading its feathery fleece broadly
On the surface of the pastry roll?
Does not the ergot consume the gold
Of the still unharvested sheaves of grain,
Rotten at the root, not unlike those debased by the aurum
Of the commodity market?

2009

* * *

For whom but Athena to know what hidden in her Father’s
head? — Is it not
From her someone by birth from Colonus learned
That an occupation is a prediction, and no prophecy?
It may be that gossip regarding knowledge lost
Is not so idle, even if, let’s say, Aphrodite,
Already not white-spumed, but not yet white-marbled,
Perplexed the mortals in love with her with tall tales of low-lying
Ruins.

2011

* * *

Hiring freeze, takeover, foretaste of profits —
Half-game half-lesson for the benefit of the populace.
Offset and futures, spot and forward —
Half-game half-accounting, as they say,
The capital was put to work.  Half-game half-treachery,
Half-vice half-deviousness — this list is incomplete,
That it at times be selfless, if nothing else,
This half-game half-play of indenture to the muses

2013

by Mikhail Eremin
translated by J. Kates

* * *

Is it because there is no stopping moments
No matter how splendid this might be,
That time is like a by-
Product of the creation of the world,
Going along with the moon and the sun — days, months,
years.
But we have to admit, how much more seductive
Hypotheses and conjectures, even dreams
About reversing time.

2012

* * *

The real inhabitants of bridges
Are sightseers and suicides.  Fishermen
Are not in favor with the guardians of order.  Other folk —
Move on or move over, for every bridge
That spans a river, or spans a road,
In fact, is a segment,
It happens, late in life,
Laid down to point B from point A, on the journey.

2013

by Sergey Stratanovsky
translated by J. Kates

I’m no romantic —
The pied piper said — I am opposed
To the sound of flutes inviting
children of the town into the abyss
And not sparing things
transforming them
This is not my music,
I am in favor of simple melodies
Sharptoothed, accessible living with me
My favorite rats