* * *
I don’t like and I don’t feel like getting dressed.
I cannot tell a nightshirt from all of the rest.
Yes, I can go shopping and lose my keys on the way,
But what is the purpose of that exercise anyway?
Dear listeners, tomorrow, no later, all of you
Will wake up in a Universe perfectly new,
Where Pinocchio dreams of becoming a real log, against all odds;
Where an astronaut is served as the breakfast of gods.
That’s because, dear listeners, for a long time and a day
We threw up in our mouths when we looked at your ugly faces.
That’s because you’ve been asking for it, time and again,
With your love of the same old words, actions and places.
When inter-star draft, to soundless prayerful sobbing,
Rips and tears the curtains of atmospheric lace,
Like a love leaf, the door to each house will begin throbbing
And the lock will explode, a particulate fountain in space.
June 9, 2020
~ ~ ~
Я не хочу одеваться, я не могу отличить
Ночную рубашку от всего остального,
Можно пойти в магазин, по пути потерять ключи,
Но к чему это делать снова и снова?
Дорогие радиослушатели, не позднее, чем завтра
Вы проснетесь в совершенно новой Вселенной,
Где Буратино мечтает стать настоящим поленом
И на завтрак богам подают астронавта,
Потому что долго, дорогие радиослушатели,
Нам сводило скулы при взгляде на ваши рожи,
Потому что вы давно этого заслуживаете
За привычку говорить и делать одно и то же,
И межзвездный сквозняк под неслышные всхлипы молитв
Оборвет занавески атмосферного шелка,
Двери каждой квартиры дрогнут, как лист любви,
И фонтаном частиц разлетится в пространство защелка.
7 июня 2020
Yulia Fridman, b. 1970, is a researcher at the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow. Her poetry and prose appear in various online journals. Her published translations into Russian, done jointly with Dmitri Manin, include several works of Dr. Seuss and a memoir of a prominent French mathematician Alexandre Grothendieck.
Anna Krushelnitskaya (b.1975) lives in Ann Arbor, MI. Anna’s original texts and translations appear in Russian and in English in various print and online publications. She has authored two collections of poems in English. Anna’s most voluminous work is the 700-page bilingual interview collection Cold War Casual/ Простая холодная война (2019).
This collection includes poems written in 2020-2023. (Russian edition)
“The Lingering Twilight” (“Сумерки”) is Marina Eskin’s fifth book of poems. (Russian edition)
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)