Retorcedme sobre el mar,
al sol, como si mi cuerpo
fuera el jirón de una vela.
Exprimid toda mi sangre.
Tended a secar mi vida
sobre las jarcias del muelle.
Seco, arrojadme a las aguas
con una piedra en el cuello
para que nunca más flote.
Le di mi sangre a los mares.
¡Barcos, navegad por ella!
Debajo estoy yo, tranquilo.
Rafael Alberti. Marinero en tierra, 25
* * *
Выкрути меня над морем,
на солнце, будто мое тело —
лоскут паруса.
Выжми из меня всю кровь.
Повесь мою жизнь сушиться
на такелаже пирса.
А высохну, брось меня в воду
с камнем на шее,
чтобы я не всплывал.
Свою кровь я отдал морям.
Плывите по ней, корабли!
Я спокоен, лежу на дне.
Перевод на русский Нины Косман
* * *
Wring me out over the sea,
in the sun, as though my body
were the shred of a sail.
Squeeze out all my blood.
Spread my life to dry
over the rigging of the pier.
Once dry, throw me into the water
with a stone around my neck
so that I’ll never float again.
I gave my blood to the seas.
Sail through it, ships!
I’m down below, resting.
English translation by Jose A. Elgorriaga & Martin Paul; 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)