A wind like razors in a blackened night
Walls of air, blades of light on feeble shadows
A taunting wind scars a hunter’s moon
a song of death and disease
Love like famine, streets filled with bodies
walls of bones like catacombs
Rains of ash burn on wet cheeks
The wind catcalls and the shadows vanish
The stained smell of sulfur and smoke
A midnight sunrise on the horizon
Warriors charge forth with glowing eyes
Teeth like fangs, looting their own tombs
Faces of gold melted to blanks
Traitors to their own names
Sold out and surrendered for a generation
Faithless and furried loveless and shamed
They march for a calling, they fall on deaf beliefs
For centuries they cried in the darkness, alone
Tear apart their clothes, their children are all dead!
Left to rot beneath the old and rich
Now only the rich are old, and the young bleed
The streets run black and blue with broken promises
Mother Nature turned savage with envy
Had to remind us *******
We cannot howl like wolves, roar like lions
We are weak and feeble, no claws or fur
Foolish insects without the shell
The true prey, the final ****

I’ve stuck myself into the Earth teacher’s,
I’ll dedicate my life to service to children.
I’m not afraid of agonizing death
Under bullets, block, infirmary then.

I’m keeping my heart from the storm of fates,
From any bad luck, adversities, experience.
And I do tell to children: “You are not slaves—
Strive for fulfilling of your dear wishes.

And do receive joy from everything—
Experience’s burden’ ll destroy carelessness,
You’ve got everything, you’ve got nothing,
You’ve a moment, eternity in hands blest!”
{2013}

ДЕТЯМ

Воткнул себя в учительскую твердь
И посвящу всю жизнь служенью детям.
Мне не страшна мучительная смерть
Под пулями, на плахе, в лазарете…

Я свой очаг храню от бурь судьбы:
От невезения, невзгод, переживаний.
И детям говорю: «Вы не рабы –
Стремитесь к исполнению желаний!

И получайте радость от всего –
Груз опыта разрушит всю беспечность.
У вас в руках есть всё и ничего,
У вас в руках – мгновение и вечность!»
{2013}

Translator - I. Toporov

On a shore where the waves embrace the sand
Lies the hug land.
“No words, please, we only hug and kiss”
is all you will find,
speaking there is only with mind!
They were not late
To know words only complicate,
Make a mess
Of what the heart says.
Rotten clichéd stale
They more often fail
To make the desired sense,
More potent is silence.
Lover, sister, brother
Each hugs the other
In this faraway retreat,
They hug anyone they meet.

i bare myself in word-song to share
in rhythm and sound,
to release this pressure in crisp,
light notes-- palatable.
to share sordid beauty
that i've yet to understand,
to let you know you're not alone.
to dig to the core of something likely awful,
nasty, and stupid, and reason with it to
kindness and love.
i bare myself to understand
and be understood.

it's weird, now
i can sleep when i'm tired

I am ashamed
At how broken i am.
I apologize
For the amount of stress
I may cause in the midst of your
Efforts of trying to keep me held together.
I apologize
that i continue to fall apart
Before your glue has time to dry.
I apologize
That every time you pick a piece of me up,
Yet another breaks.
I am trying.
You are fixing me slower than i am breaking,
And i am ashamed.
Thank you.
Thank you for not giving up
On a broken piece of nothing.

Hidden
between the flames that
flicker across her eyes
are the names of every man
she's ever known.