and when among the slightly broken turns
by Arkadii Dragomoshchenko
translated by Genya Turovskaya
and when among the slightly broken turns
of the street, when there’s a window, in it a dead man’s linen, chalk
and clement weather, when you recall that it was never.
Then—it’s improper. Anyway, “then”—the sudden
plummet beyond the bounds of vision, nothing in the retina,
no nabokov, no hades, only the paradise of blindness, the swarm of p/rose
discouraging both you, iridescent one, and me—
vision, love, and further—go there, to where I know
a tree grows cold, the wormwood, and as you go, you go straight and go
among.
Depiction of Achilles at Patroclus’s Bonfire
Arkadii Dragomoshchenko
translated by Anna and Alex Halberstadt
In vein… The Sun is leaving. Soon a breeze will begin to blow softly from the sea and it will refresh the eyes, that look like coals or like wild boar’s meat, billowing smoke, like a rag, “soaked in wine.” Remember?
In one instant, by moving the shaft of a spear beyond the elbow, with already darkened and wet copper to rip open the stomach up to the very throat, where the snore is frozen, to the crotch with tics stuck to it. And the roar has been spreading in the fins of spurs.
Smell of blood. Growing beautifully from the sound of the ribs being torn apart, oblivious to sin, mixing with morels, the scent of thyme. Dryness was irritating the throat after a long run, and tendons were aching under the plectrum of pain. Perspiration was running down the backs of the ones, that had been not so lucky, following the dogs, that were spreading themselves flat, merging with oaks rumbling, boiling with a thunderstorm approaching. At the sound of thunder,
to rip out the liver in
one stroke.
With torn leaves in a fist to wipe dirt from the hips, knees, stomach in a snowy spasm. Phthia, honey, remember?—Roads, a strap of the coarsened sandal, moss in low-lying ant-inhabited pastures.
What could remember that, what you had become, in front of my eyes, eaten by smoke? Slush. Flakes of soot on Hekkata’s fat lips.
Heroes are burdensome for the gods, their fun with them brief, and, imagine, no cool shade. Slow is the wine-colored sea.
It does not send us any breeze.
Heat of incarnation destroyed skillfully, multiplied by burning wood, even though it continues the task that goes on for a week, spreading such stink, that your leader, most likely, squeezing a butterfly in a fist, uses another fist to close his nostrils. It ought to be done earlier, instead of having waited for proper weather. Having waited for flies, the industrious neck of the retinue: they eat the leftovers patiently. Thus, having avoided swine, you turn into loot for some other spawn.
In other words, run, after the dogs, down the slope,
of a different kind.
Lower.
Simplified so, that a root will not injure your foot. So plain, that eternity leaks through you, pours, as if into a hole,
and you are not even drowning,
more transparent than a gesture
it’s easier to notice a torch burning in sunlight, than you waving a hand—silent,
invisible
A doll of strange battles, leaking soot.
A metaphor, that has opened its effort.
Silicic embryo of a star in the black crown of smoke.
Speak, but be cautious
Arkadii Dragomoshchenko
translated by Serguey Artiushkov and Anna Halberstadt
Speak, but be cautious.
Soaking wet guests knock on the doors as simple as faith
giving their names and the years, as if tearing petals from flowers.
Slouching and old, they resemble my father, whom I have now outgrown.
But how poor are my guests! And how poverty’s tender!
Only youth can compete with it in tenderness,
and lake lilies, and, possibly, somnambular snow,
that is burying slowly the evening groves.
Oh, how poor are the guests.
And my youth is departing,—I said to my father, spread on the bed of
his winter
(he was diminished in half by his illness, and crying,)—
Who would have guessed it departs in this way?
For this are shadows to blame—the shadows, that lure us: of clouds,
of plants and of lovers,—
We studied the structure of shadows like wizards study the element of fire.
So does water reflect on the stem of the Sun on a moonlit night—
first with a long curve of unknowing, then parting, then memories,
singing in murmuring roots.
Now I know why the swing creaks and whose baby cries in a snow-drift.
Knots of cupolas flake,
a passerby flies above hunchbacked bridges over the wormy canals.
Carefree smoke’s getting killed over the melting darkness.
The day is being composed in an intricate way, weaved from the nightly
conversions.
And, speaking of which, always—stay on the cautious side.
Spent by the sun
by Victor Sosnora
translated by Genya Turovskaya
Spent by the sun,
soaped its clothes in the sea,
went toward the pines to dry off,
and—lies—on the sand.
Maybe in each dune
you and I are buried
with the ants, wearing helmets
for—three—thousand—years.
It will pass and we’ll exit,
this sea will vanish,
just two little turtles,
going—different—ways.
This life is not needed,
by cause of, because of,
we won’t know one another,
I wash—the traces—away.