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Defend yourself! They’re woodcutters,
those whistling axes
moving my tongue.
Watch out!
Sickles of evil winds
biting my soul.
You,
tower of distrust.
You, tower of gold, greed.
Wall up your windows.
Better yet, look.
Men devastated, still,
in the fallen cities.
Ask them.
Better yet, listen.
A sky, green with envy,
overflows from my mouth and sings.
I, a sky…
Neither look nor listen. I…
Wall up your windows.*
*
ЗАВИСТЛИВЫЙ АНГЕЛ
Защищайся! — это дровосеки
свистящими топорами
двигают моим языком.
Берегись!
Это серпы злых ветров
кромсают мою душу.
Ты,
крепость недоверия,
Ты, крепость из золота и жадности.
Зашторь окна.
Или нет, смотри.
Опустошенные, неподвижные люди
в разрушенных городах.
У них спроси.
Или нет, слушай.
Небо, зеленое от зависти,
льётся из моего рта и поет.
Я, небо …
Нет, не слушай и не смотри. Я…
Зашторь окна.
Russian translation by Nina Kossman
*
The original
EL ÁNGEL ENVIDIOSO
Leñadoras son, ¡defiéndete!,
esas silbadoras hachas
que mueven mi lengua.
Hoces de los vientos malos,
¡alerta!,
que muerden mi alma.
Torre de desconfianza,
tú.
Tú, torre del oro, avara.
Ciega las ventanas.
O no, mira.
Hombres arrasados, fijos
por las ciudades taladas.
Pregúntales.
O no, escucha.
Un cielo, verde de envidia,
rebosa mi boca y canta.
Yo, un cielo…
Ni escuches ni mires. Yo…
Ciega las ventanas.
*English translation by Jose A. Elgorriaga & Martin Paul from “100 Poems by Rafael Alberti” (San Francisco: Kosmos, 1981)
Rafael Alberti (16 December 1902 – 28 October 1999) was a Spanish poet. He is considered one of the greatest literary figures of the so-called Silver Age of Spanish poetry.
Launched in 2012, “Four Centuries” is an international electronic magazine of Russian poetry in translation.
Ilya Ehrenburg (1891–1967) was one of the most prolific Russian writers of the twentieth century. Babi Yar and Other Poems, translated by Anna Krushelnitskaya, is a representative selection of Ehrenburg’s poetry, available in English for the first time.
Young readers will love this delightful work of children’s verse by poet William Conelly, accompanied by Nadia Kossman’s imaginative, evocative illustrations.
A book of poems by Maria Galina, put together and completed exactly one day before the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is Galina’s seventh book of poems. With translations by Anna Halberstadt and Ainsley Morse.
The first bilingual (Russian-English) collection of poems by Aleksandr Kabanov, one of Ukraine’s major poets, “Elements for God” includes poems that predicted – and now chronicle – Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
A book of poems by Yulia Fridman.
“I have been reading Yulia Fridman’s poems for a long time and have admired them for a long time.” (Vladimir Bogomyakov, poet)
