Pre-Christmas time

fish swim not seeing water.
birds flying not knowing a country.
time passes not hearing a clock.
people live not feeling the ground.
let another layman
read about Herod the Great.
today we will pray for
a donkey, lambs and an old ox.

Translated by Sofia Dudla 



A butterfly 

one wing is a flourishing spring,
the other is a faded autumn. 
once a butterfly strikes 
a match head of a flower petal – 
its summer has burned up.

Translated by Sofia Dudla 



You are waiting

you are waiting when you have your dinner cooked, 
when you have your garbage taken away 
and your blinds pulled down. 
you are waiting 
when the light is turned out and you will be asked:
“what is your music worth?” 

Translated by Sofia Dudla 



An old man

I was asked about the way
by an old man near the road crossing.
the old man was miserable.
he smelled like 
fried potatoes and onion. 
I showed him the way
like it was shown in Yandex Maps.
he thanked me. 
at this moment it came into my mind
that if I had met him near this road crossing
20 years ago 
without a single sound 
he would have killed me with a knife. 
the old man went home
and I went staying alive.

Translated by Sofia Dudla 



A choice

there is always a choice
between a needle point and an eye of a needle — 
a choice to be
a butterfly or a camel.

Translated by Sofia Dudla 



Derbent's builders

at the beginning people invented the sky. 
then people erected mountains. 
after it people created the sea. 
from that time people are building houses: 
two and a half thousand years 
people are building houses among 
mountains, the sea and the sky. 

Translated by Sofia Dudla 

 

A walk around the city

 

walking around the city

I met a group of policemеn. 

they were moving through the sidewalk

and carrying handmade posters:

"say "no" to civil arbitrariness".

"stop pubertal lawlessness".

"we are your dads".

"our past belongs to us".

"Sunday is our weekend".

 

also policemen were carrying

bunches of flowers and balloons. 

wearing their black uniform and white helmets

they looked like plush pandas...

suddenly two dozen of people

ran out of the subway station,

those, who belonged to the generation of YouTube and Instagram. 

kids started beating up policemen,

they were throwing plastic glasses towards, 

pouring carrot juice over them,

and they spat in one officer's face

with a gum. 

 

this bacchanalia took about five minutes. 

teenagers disappeared as soon

as they had come. some policemen

were dragged in the subway station with teens. 

going back home I was thinking:

"poor policemen,

their work isn't a picnic,

moreover, some pimply bastards

bully them..." 

 

in the evening I read on Facebook

I became a witness of making

an advertisement

about a vegan burger of a new generation. 

"how good it is - I thought, -

these cases

can't happen in real life".

 

Translated from Russian by Sofia Frolova 

 

 

 

Monuments 

 

let us destroy all the monuments 

to the slavers, commanders, 

revolutionaries, tyrants, quadrigas, 

centaurs and cowboys. and then let us bring 

to the main square of the city 

all our sores, mental disorders, 

inferiority complexes and insomnia. 

let's build the monument of generation from all these things. 

and when our barefoot children learn 

how to say the word "pendulum", 

we'll lead them to the monument 

and say: "we were trying our best 

to make the monument to the future. 

here are you, children, crowbars and ice-axes, 

destroy this monument 

of our weakness, build 

another monument to yours". 

 

Translated from Russian by Sofia Frolova 

 

 

 

Seizing the space 

 

after moving to a new city 

you put things in their places – 

cars street lights houses neighbors 

sky planes 

after the space is filled up 

you can't find a place to yourself 

and you move again 

 

Translated from Russian by Sergey Tenyatnikov 

 

 

 

Midnight

 

a train approaches One like a Zero

and crosses out the field.

if the train was melted into a bullet,

it would follow a crazy trajectory and pierce

each country, be it a whole continent or an island of monkeys,

like a forehead.

but at the beginning of its journey,

the train expands into a snake,

crawls from nest to nest,

swallows one city after another

like eggs, gains slowly speed.

to some extent, each train

writes its own novel.

and when the narrator hears a Choo-Choo

he sticks panicky to the window

fearing that his journey

will end in some hole

where the rails are twisted into spirals.

the train moves from mountains

to the sea across the plain,

fills the emptiness with itself,

steals time from space,

divides the world into this side and that one.

the narrator strains its eyesight,

peers into the approaching darkness.

the claws of rain scratches at the window.

the driver, a star wiped off from his shoulder,

says: next station - Midnight. 

 

Translated by Sergey Tenyatnikov

 

 

 

Non-selected work

 

how does the earth keep people ...

trampled by the living,

paved with the dead,

filled with citations of the streets

and prose of the landscapes.

how does the shelf keep books ...

shabby covers,

mold, ashes, dust.

and as flat as the shelf without books

is the earth without people.

 

Translated by Sergey Tenyatnikov

 

 

 

Sofa

 

let us buy a new sofa –

the color of wet sand.

we will fold it away and

fold it out,

will make love on it,

spill wine and tea,

jump on it.

and after we will lie like Jacks from a deck of cards,

as if we were kids again

and our heels are

not hooves shod with callused skin.

let us buy a new sofa

like Hollywood actors buy islands.

let us make a home on this sofa by the sea

which has been oversalted by the God

who is in love with us.

 

Translated by Rob Compton

 

 

 

A soldier is buried with honors

 

a soldier is buried with honors

live on all channels

without gun, without splinters

in a sunset-red uniform

one hears no rain, no grievance

one sees no faces, no stars

the soldier lays himself into the grave

embracing his empty stomach.

he is a key which has found no door

he is a God who did not father his son.

his heart becomes loam

and has no place for peace.

 

Translated by Rob Compton

 

 

 

I don't live in New York City

 

I don't live in New York City,

I do not count killed ducks.

my name (twice as long as that of Lorca)

does not turn the corner like a limousine.

I extending my arms, want to touch this world

which has been discarded into the gutter, 

stand for a long time at the clanking intersection

and cannot resolve to pick up the bunch of keys.

 

Translated by Rob Compton

 

 

 

Free interpretation of a supper in a doner kebab shop

 

The sun is falling over the town

like a tennis ball over a playing ground

and lands as a stain on the green wallpaper.

The sky’s bathtub is filling up with water.

The meal is flavoured with separation.

Ingredients: cabbage, carrots, meat and onion.

The rain is scratching at the window, grinding

beetroot on the sunset- grater.

Outside – 50 degrees Fahrenheit –

not too hot, not too cold. The plate

is being emptied like post-season Antalya.

A customer armed with knife and fork

leaves but the onion rings.

The Turkish feel cramped in the snack bar.

The customer shuts the door. The sun

is fading away like light in a fridge. Wearing an apron

the Janissary attends his integration course.

 

Translated by Carolin Hristev & Joanna Carle