by Elena Fanailova
     translated by Stephanie Sandler 

A Woman’s Jataka
     for Aleksandr Anashevich, author of a text with this title 

Yoko Ono wrote in her diary:
His i.d. cards are in my glove compartment
A hand fixed on the trigger
My finger paused in that round space
Together we’ll still sing some karaoke
Let it beand similar immortal verses
A Double will resound in his head
The nations attack one another in war
I will become his hangover syndrome, his drugstore,
In a word, I must see that man

She is a lady, a beauty and a yellow ape,
A goddess without flaw.
A performance artist and a young pioneer,
Like Kulik today,
They always close the little door behind him.
He’s famed for that.

John Lennon draws obscene little pictures
On the back pages of sheet music,
Giving no thought to battle,
To a factory set up as a co-op,
He doesn’t read Foreign Lit,
Or Woman in the Dunes.
He gets laid in his socks,
He’s Mozart, he’s a child of nature
He’s an arrogant plebe, a mangy stud,
A young sparrow, a matchless playboy,
An unknown hero, a real cowboy,
He hasn’t a clue, who will serve him next
Afterwards, quiet descends
After the heavy spiked port-wine.
His wife is a white fish,
A fool with a belly that’s been cut open

by Elena Fanailova
translated by Genya Turovskaya

from THE RUSSIAN VERSION

(Shades in Paradise)

They come home,
They lie down together.
They don’t give a damn about anyone,
About themselves for that matter.
It’s all the same to them.
They lie down on the bottom.

They sit in a circle,
They lie down on the snow,
Like North and South,
They lie down crown to crown.
As if on chalk water,
As if in a world at war.
They lie down without words,
They kiss on the eyes,
They don’t remember why,
They leave no trace.
Nothing keeps them in place:
Not honor, not valor, not duty.

For them cities are voids,
Facing the skies.
The air returned the embrace
Of their midnight wings.

On the whole, they lack strength.
No justification at all.
Nothing other than water
That will carry their features away.

by Polina Barskova
translated by Anna Halberstadt

“Only a lazybones got no smell”
Gianni Rodari, translated from the Russian version by Samuil Marshak.

O.

It smells of smoke and of citrus
This is the nature of things
To be a beloved or a no one
To be a no one and be loved
To dream of touching the sun rays
Whose are you?  It’s possible, no one’s
These rays-miraculous-wounds
Had been invented by you
Remnants of childhood abuse
Time is flowing like speech from one’s mouth.
No, it’s impossible, I’m someone’s
No, it’s impossible, yours.
A little lousy flute of wind
Wails along passages and crossings,
It licks the monk’s palm,
Beats against the stones,
It carries and puts out the fire.
It smells of quince and dung,
Of stones, of leaves and dusk,
Of the black monks’ perspiration,
Of a child’s sadness in the night,
Of all I feel ashamed of and desire,
Of a tender, tender wound
That should flourish on a palm,
Full of knowledge, full of warmth.

by Polina Barskova
translated by Anna Halberstadt

The winter (my beloved)
is about to stay here
for a while
to host
night camping grounds
for vagrants,
with their
smelly garbage bags,
sticky Mohawks
their dirty sins
and chamber pots.

Like December birds
all soaked in piss at dawn
lying on ice
covered by barf
with their honeys
and concerns
they blow
in their disastrous
trumpets

Their stinkat dawn
spreads like a fire:
don’t you dare
to touch!
or maybe—
dare

Beggars are lying
back to back,
like stumps in dark
and dirty sleeves
like bonfires
on city squares
wind sweeps around
and round them
their lives—a short measure

They lie in the dark
head to feet
frothing at their mouths.
You see a newborn Dante
a severe looking
dapper and lively cop
rushing their way,
but taking note

of the revolt
and speeding
right away

Winter winter, Earth’s groom,
embrace them
hug them to your chest
in the winter cold
we surely will not
allow them
to squeeze in
amongst us,
but when your solemn hour
finally reaches us,
do mix us all
together
and bury under snow.