Tatters of rock-crystal foliage
torn from the jittery night
by a garden light, shudder slowly
hiding their wind-driven fright.
The witchy Greek neighbor’s shadow
swings upward, viciously tall,
bird-headed, evil, stupendous,
breaking in half on the wall.
In the dry throat of a lampshade
a drumroll, a night moth’s unrest.
In a pickling jar vodka splashes
steeping with orange zest.
Darkness colluding with emptiness,
Sweet bitterness making mischief.
Into the present continuous
Eternity sneaks like a thief.
~~~
Лампа в саду вырывает
ночи испуганной клок
со слюдяною листвою,
прячущей ветреный вздрог.
Злобной старухи-гречанки
птицеголовая тень
вымахнет ростом отчаянным,
переломившись у стен.
В горле сухом абажура
гулкая дробь мотылька.
На апельсинных кожурках
водка внутри бутылька.
Сладкая горечь проказит,
тьма с пустотой заодно.
Вечность в мгновенье пролазит,
словно воришка в окно.
Valery Chereshnya was born in Odessa, Ukraine, in 1948, and now lives in St. Petersburg, Russia. He has authored five collections of poetry (among them “Recognition”, 2018), a book of essays “A View from Himself”, as well as many other publications in major Russian literary magazines.
Dmitri Manin is a physicist, programmer, and translator of poetry. His translations from English and French into Russian have appeared in several book collections. His latest work is a complete translation of Ted Hughes’ “Crow” (Jaromír Hladík Press, 2020) and Allen Ginsberg’s “The Howl, Kaddish and Other Poems” (Podpisnie Izdaniya, 2021). Dmitri’s Russian-to-English translations have been published in journals (Cardinal Points, Delos, The Café Review, Metamorphoses, etc) and in Maria Stepanova’s “The Voice Over” (CUP, 2021). In 2017, his translation of Stepanova’s poem won the Compass Award competition. “Columns,” his new book of translations of Nikolai Zabolotsky’s poems, was published by Arc Publications in 2023 (https://eastwestliteraryforum.com/books/nikolai-zabolotsky-columns-poems).
A haunting dystopia some readers have called “the new 1984.” In a society where memory is rewritten and resistance is pre-approved, freedom isn’t restricted; it’s redefined. As systems evolve beyond human control and choice becomes a simulation, true defiance means refusing the script, even when the system already knows you will.
A new book of poems by Nina Kossman. “When the mythological and personal meet, something transforms for this reader…” -Ilya Kaminsky
This isn’t self-help. It’s not a parody either. It’s something stranger and smarter: a satirical, uncategorizable book about belief, leadership, algorithmic power, and the performance of divinity in modern life.
