No Higher Power

You suppose it wasn’t a horror at first
To think there’s no god and another force
Exists in the godless universe
To drive the planets along their course?

Maybe you think it was very simple —simple as drinking a glass of water—
For a soul of medium, average calibre
To acknowledge itself to be mortal?

No, it wasn’t easy one day to awake
And watching the stars roll down from their heights
To behold infinity and not to quake
At the thought that we, men, were simply mites!

Not so simple to break through the mist of frustration
For a human, in love with this life and this earth,
Finding out that thousands of generations
Long before him were doomed to death from birth.

No, it wasn’t easy to realise
Hard and clear, that you had to die
And all this beauty before your eyes
Would fade together with your restless I,

That life could go on without Allah or Saviour,
Heaven’s enticement or Hell’s torment,
So just overcome fear of death and brave your
Destiny with your head unbent.

Only boldly dispensing with the last of chimeras
That cut through the heart like the blade of a knife,
Can you put back your shoulders and in full measure
Know all the joy of this earthly life.

Hearing a human song resound
You’ll understand, stirred by Nature’s call:
No higher power or idea can be found:
Man alone is almighty after all.

Translated by Dorian Rottenberg


ALEXEI SURKOV

Strength of Metal

The Goths of old at baptism meekly wore
A look of doom.... But when the holy waters
Washed over them, aloft they held their swords,
Their fists unbaptised left for ever after.


Whatever the commandment’s stern behest,
Humility, like patience, has its limit.
Though kind at heart, yet clenched I’ll keep my fist—
And may there be the strength of metal in it.

Translated by Irina Zheleznova


YEVGENI VINOKUROV

Life's Beginning

There were no toasts, no loaded tables,
No songs were sung when we were born,
And just our mothers at our cradles
Crooned over us a tune forlorn.


They carried us to work each day,
With none an eye on us to keep,
And while they stacked and forked the hay
They left us in the shade to sleep.


They toiled till dark and knew no rest
When night-time came and day was done,
For then they rocked us at their breast
And hushed us: "Sleep, my baby son.”


Some days they could not nurse or mind us,
And so we wouldn’t fret or weep
They stopped our mouths with pacifiers—
Rag dummies soaked in syrup sweet.


When harvest-time was at its height
They could not take us to the farm,
They left us, bundled very tight,
And prayed we wouldn’t come to harm.


We wriggled free and crawled outside
Into the sunlight and the heat,
And on the prickly stubble tried
To learn to walk on shoeless feet.

The world seemed strange and very new,
All things look different when you walk,
Familiar things you thought you knew:
The cat, the chickens, and the dog...

And stranger still—the rustling trees,
The moon, the thunder and the rain,
The silence and the rising breeze,
The creaking of the bucket chain...


Day followed day... The years rolled on.
Our shoulders broadened, arms grew strong.
With faces washed by many rains,
Dried in the morning wind and sun,
We started out upon our own.


Petrus Brovka


Translated by Olga Shartse

Everything Changes

Everything changes. you can make

a fresh start with your last breath.

but what has happened has happened.
And the water

you once poured in wine cannot be 

drained off again.

What has happened has happened. the water

You once poured in wine cannot be

Drained off, but

Everything changes. you can make

a fresh start with your last breath.

Bertolt Brecht

Narcissus

Child!
You’ll fall in the river!

In the depths there’s a rose
and in the rose another river.

See that bird! Look
at that yellow bird!

My eyes have disappeared
into the water.

Oh!
He’s slipping! Little boy!

… and I myself am in the rose.

When he was lost in the water
I understood. But I shan’t explain.

Lorca

Radiation sickness

Radiation sickness!

                    Humanity

puts it bluntly:

          learn to endure.

The treatment

Takes an eternity,

and there’s little chance

of a cure.

Judgement’s passed.

No hope,

not a glimmer.

Is it fair—

          come, speak up and say—

that the heirs

of the Hiroshimas

for their fathers

                    are made to pay?...

Drops of dew

have a poisonous glitter,

and the air

pretends to be clean.

The complaints

          of the guiltless

                    are bitter,

malformed infants

moan and scream.

Mauled by time,

          our ancient planet

is a gaping wound.

 You are

omnipresent,

          and many-handed,

radialion sickness;

                    your scars

never heal.

Look!

    The calendar, grinning croukedly,

sheds its sheets....

          The deadly blast

fades away with the years,

                    but, wickedly,

time itself

you seek

to outlast.

In our blood-stream you rove,

                    sowing panic,

to our marrow

          you eat

                    your way,

like the germ

of an epidemic,

like the curse

of a blighted day.

You attack us in secret.

                    Your villainy,

like your sores,

is not pretty to see,

radiation sickness

          of calumny

swagger,

cowardice, spiteful glee!

It’s a fact,

          not a fruit of fantasy,

I am not

          sending words

                    down the drain.

Look how beardless

          these days

                    is hypocrisy:

it’s a sign

you’ve cropped up again!

 

Radiation sickness—

 how lavishly

You bestow your bounty.

                    Alas!

Exhortations won’t help

                    to banish you

from the planet’s

tormented face.

There’s no drug

in the medical cabinet,

there’s no doctor

          to spell your doom.

Time will kill you

                    in time.

That’s definite.

It’s a pity

it won’t be soon.

Translated by Irina Zheleznova

ROBERT ROZHDESTVENSKY

Night

Night
Lamp, candle,
firefly, lantern.

The saeta’s
constellation.
Little windows of gold
tremble,
and in the dawn the sway
of cross upon cross.


Lamp, candle,
firefly, lantern.

LORCA