Poems in English

In this world, so poorly cut and sewn with white thread,
In the icy, needled, lonely wastes, where impossible to find a spark,
We reckon at least not to vanish entire (as once planned the trilobite)…

—Quench thy hot fire, O daughter of drakes,
The flame of thine eyes burns through the blue ice,
Where winter reigns, no rivulets are needed,
This bitter salt water is frozen twice…

here are the verses when the head strikes a gray stone wall
feeling that one can still live, find something to lean upon…

She – so that water turns to transparent flame around,
One sip will lift you high where ringing stars are streaming,
She – so that sky embraces with pearl wings that astound,
With iridescent chords, black dotted line through air are gleaming…

And what is this creeping shadow? But look up at the sky:
There, through the sky, a fish is flying and striped tail aglow.
It flies, but why does it fly so high? It speaks of love in flight.
And why are you silent? You too are silent about love, I know…

the air folds its wings takes flight from my throat
I plead “stay – don’t leave don’t take that road”
but it will not stay nothing here will not cease
I say “my hands still ache from the anaesthetic’s lease
give me some summer – oh give me at least a piece”…

They say in twenty-seventeen Rome’s court decreed
That Ovid could – finally – return from exile’s pain.
I see it now: how the skeleton takes heed,
How his bones march homeward through wind and rain…

Beautiful Galatea stands confused, looking around, smiling out of place,
Says: “I can’t understand, can’t comprehend – why you vanished without a trace?..

This Cassandra knows perfectly well what the GULAG is,
Drinks bad instant coffee and smokes silently at the pane,
She reads the last news, and her voice feels like a haze,
And outside the sunset, and soon it’ll be dark again…