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Every night I hear planes
Flying over our house
I count them like sheep
One, bringing death to a village
Two, bringing death to a city
Three, bringing food for the soldiers
Who will finish the job
Four, bringing back the bodies
Every night I hear planes
Flying over our house
They hum like a swarm of bees
One, making a U-turn
Two, heading back at high speed
Three, what if this one is coming after us
Four, aren’t they all
Every night I hear planes
Flying over our house
I asked around, no one else is bothered
Every night I hear planes
Flying over our house
Not once they woke up my child
Smiling in her sleep
Every night I hear planes
Every day I hear planes
I shout over them
What I can’t whisper into your ear
ГРУЗ
Каждое утро летит самолётик:
Закрывай глазки, открывай ротик.
Каждую ночь летит самолёт
Горе в чужую деревню несёт.
Будем считать их, будто овечек.
Был человечек — нет человечка.
В гонке за смертью — только вперёд.
Раз самолёт, два самолёт.
Видишь, кружатся три и четыре?
Вспомни, что нам говорили о мире.
Пять самолёт, шесть самолёт.
Мёртвых обратно никто не везёт.
Зайке не слышно мотора, он спит.
Над ним самолётик, как пчёлка, жжужит.
Каждое утро и каждую ночь —
То сына, то дочь.
То сына, то дочь.
Both versions are the author’s. The English version was first published in Poetry for Peace, an online anti-war campaign launched by Smashing Times International Centre for the Arts and Equality. The Russian version is published for the first time.
Polina Cosgrave is a bilingual poet based in Ireland. Her debut collection “My Name Is” was published by Dedalus Press in 2020. She is a recipient of the Arts Council’s Literature Bursary Award for 2021. Polina is featured in the Forward Prizes Book of Poetry 2022 (UK).
The collection includes poems by the author written in 2020-2023. While they are distinguished by thematic and genre diversity, and the metrical form is adjacent to free verse, they are united by the author’s characteristic style and recognizable intonation. (Russian edition)
“The Lingering Twilight” (“Сумерки”) is Marina Eskin’s fifth book of poems. In Russian.
Launched in 2012, “Four Centuries” is an international electronic magazine of Russian poetry in translation.
A collection of moving, often funny vignettes about a childhood spent in the Soviet Union.
“Vivid picture of life behind the Iron Curtain.” —Booklist
“This unique book will serve to promote discussions of freedom.” —School Library Journal
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.
A new collection of poems by Ian Probstein. (In Russian)
