Soft subtle touch
clutches from back to front
About face switched place
in role reversals
Airways are open
Feel a rawer version
of your person
Entrust this thoughtful lust
sought from top to bottom
Moving in sync as your
yearning burns
Deep frictionless sin
lived within bare skin
Born below the belly line
Sing as bells ring
Breathe in the aftermath
This beauty won't last

Take me back to a time
when a vow
was the color of
everyone's tomorrow

Take me back to a place
where a promise
never led to
man's great sorrow

Where the breeze
would linger in the grass

No one ever questioning
how long it would last

Dedicated to Angela Merkel

Mother Germany in word and deed!
The Eurounion’s motor of motors,
As a physicist, she put deeds right, indeed
Laying special stress on economics.
The Lady Wonder: she’s existing again,
In Marvel there was no tale personage.
The foe’s calling her Valkyrja in vain,
She is well- known but not for epatage.
There are no more any Roman Empires,
And Karl the Great’s partially  forgotten.
But as before (we know from popular beliefs):
Over Europe a black eagle is soaring.
{02.12.2019}

КАНЦЛЕР ЕВРОПЫ

Ангеле Меркель

Мать-Германия: слово и дело!
Евросоюза железный мотор
Меркель, как физик, наладила смело,
На экономику сделав упор!

Женщина-Чудо: она существует –
В Marvel не сказочный был персонаж!
Враг называет Валькирией всуе:
Меркель известна не за эпатаж!

Нет уже римских великих империй,
Карл Великий частично забыт.
Но, как и раньше (как знаем с поверий),
Чёрный орёл над Европой парит!
{02.12.2019}

Translator - I. Toporov

Ordinary Valaam nursing home
For the good and the poor but not for saints.
There are a lot of crowded wards home,
For old people with neither arms nor legs.
Here the nurses can’t keep track of everything—
That’s why there are always  stench and doom here,
Everybody has a look depth carrying
In which is visible renunciation mere.
Here lived the hero of the USSR.
Wounded in battle under Krasnodar.
Like everyone else, a Soviet officer,
Just cynically called “a samovar”.
He was never discouraged for everyone—
He joked of everything and laughed heartily,
He gave useful advices to everyone,
And he only smiled at rudeness daily.
They took  veterans “out for a walk”, they
Attached the veterans to fir trees on sackcloth,
In the evening old men were removed from fir trees , they
Had to sleep. Was  forgotten the hero’s
Life. He didn’t die from multiple wounds,
He died quietly, without a cry or a sigh.
Died here so, having frozen veterans.
Together with them died the epoch, great and high.
{2020}

СМЕРТЬ ГЕРОЯ

Обычный валаамский интернат –
Не для святых, но сирых и убогих.
Здесь много переполненных палат
Для стриков безруких и безногих.
Сиделки тут за всем не уследят –
А потому здесь смрад и обречённость.
У каждого - глубокий очень взгляд,
Видна в котором только отрешённость.
Тут жил один герой СССР ,
Израненный в бою под Краснодаром.
Подобно всем, советский офицер
Цинично назывался «самоваром».
Он никогда для всех не унывал –
Шутил про всё и искренне смеялся.
Советы всем полезные давал.
В ответ на грубость – только улыбался.
Однажды «выводили» всех «гулять» -
На мешковинах к елям прицепили.
И к вечеру с деревьев сняли - спать.
А про героя начисто забыли!
Он умер не от множественных ран,
По-тихому – без крика или вздоха.
Вот так ушёл, замёрзнув, ветеран.
И с ним ушла великая эпоха!
{25.02.2020}

Translator - I. Toporov

It’s hard to see this world when you don’t want to see anything in it.

The only thing you want is to make this world less scary.

But this world will never give you the second chance to make everything right.

I visited that place
where I was the loneliest,
Where I became a corpse,
Where I wasn't me but
like mirror glass,
Only reflection!
my presence was just
my hopeless depression.

This does not seem right.
Because,
this definitely does not feel right.
I do not feel right.

As if
I am a puzzle piece
forced into the wrong puzzle hole.
Losing its edges.
Sacrificing its shape.
Suppressing its whole.

I can't seem to master the control.

replica of the statue of liberty, made of
concrete, a beacon for weary motorists
stranded on route 66, endlessly
drifting in the dusty abyss, stands in front of entrance
with her readymade torch.

she mumbles into a phone, then hands us a key.
a tiny room for breakfast goes unused
and the swimming pool is cloudy,
the concrete walls reverberating
empty chlorine
pleasantries, a watered down
hotspring dream.

above the headboard
is a long mirror, spanning
the length of the smoky room's
back wall, a silvery strip
reflecting faded yellow wallpaper
with subtle unspecified flowers.

the side exit leads to an empty lot, long
grass growing out of neglected potholes, a cyclone fence
blocking off a direct route to the sonic
drive-thru.

the sky is orange, it's always been
orange, it always will be
orange, looming over distant mountains
with narcissistic strata.