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When I am half a breath off from your lips,
When I am half a step away from you —
Your pupils are all woven out of wonder
And in your eyes, it’s all boundless and blue.
You whisper something quiet and bewitched.
That whisper bluely cuts my quiet through
And I forget that I know how to breathe,
And I forget my feet can walk to you.
Your eyelids’ raven rises black in flight
And whisks my confidence somewhere remote,
Now half a step is left behind unwalked
And half a breath is stuck here in my throat.
Your pupils are all woven out of wonder
And in your eyes it’s all boundless and blue
But there is half a breath left to your lips
And half a step left from my lips to you.
~ ~ ~
The Original:
Коли до губ твоїх
Коли до губ твоїх лишається півподиху,
Коли до губ твоїх лишається півкроку –
Зіниці твої виткані із подиву,
В очах у тебе синьо і широко.
Щось шепчеш зачаровано і тихо ти,
Той шепіт мою тишу синьо крає.
І забуваю я, що вмію дихати,
І що ходити вмію, забуваю.
А чорний птах повік твоїх здіймається
І впевненість мою кудись відмає.
Неступленим півкроку залишається,
Півподиху у горлі застрягає.
Зіниці твої виткані із подиву,
В очах у тебе синьо і широко,
Але до губ твоїх лишається півподиху,
До губ твоїх лишається півкроку
Hryhoriy Chubay (1949, Bereziny – 1982, Lviv) was a Ukrainian poet and translator, one of the most prominent representatives of the Lviv underground of the 1970s. In his lifetime, he published only in samizdat and abroad. Posthumously, his poetry books To Speak, to Be Silent and to Speak Again (1990), Crying of Jeremiah (1999) were published in Ukraine. He translated poetry from Spanish, Polish, Czech and Russian.
A.Z. Foreman is a linguist and translator of poetry from Arabic, Catalan, Chinese, Dutch, French, Greek, German, Hebrew, Italian, Latin, Occitan, Persian, Polish, Spanish, Serbian, Russian, Romanian, Romani, Ugaritic, Ukrainian, Urdu, Welsh, and Yiddish.
A blog of his translations: https://poemsintranslation.blogspot.com/p/my-poetry-translations.html
A book of poems in Russian by Victor Enyutin (San Francisco, 1983). Victor Enyutin is a Russian writer, poet, and sociologist who emigrated to the US from the Soviet Union in 1975.
This collection of personal essays by a bi-national Russian/U.S. author offers glimpses into many things Soviet and post-Soviet: the sacred, the profane, the mundane, the little-discussed and the often-overlooked. What was a Soviet school dance like? Did communists go to church? Did communists listen to Donna Summer? If you want to find out, read on!
“Cold War Casual” is a collection of transcribed oral testimony and interviews translated from Russian into English and from English into Russian that delve into the effect of the events and the government propaganda of the Cold War era on regular citizens of countries on both sides of the Iron Curtain.
Julia Wiener’s novels focus on those moments when illusory human existence collapses in the face of true life, be it spiritual purity, love, old age, or death.
Evgeny Pinelis, an intensive care physician in a New York City hospital, was born in Moscow to a family of doctors, graduated from medical school, and works in the United States. “Vsyo Nichevo” (literal translation: “All Nothing” or “Everything’s Okay”) is his debut book.
