Переводы на английский-D. C. Nisula

Vyacheslav Kupriyanov


TO THE STATISTICIANS

Be more interested
in the quantity
of souls
per head
of population
 
the quantity of brains
per capita

the quantity of ideas
per brain

the quantity of opinion
per idea

the quantity of rumors
per opinion

the quantity
of lies
per quantity
of truth

be more interested
in conversion of quantity
into quality






HISTORY OF MAIL

For 300 years
Russians claimed
oppression by the Mongols
who it turns out
were just delivering the mail
for 300 years
Russia received letters
it couldn't read
that's why Moscow
had to be burned intermittently
in order to free itself from the darkness
of unread letters

finally Ivan the Terrible
went East
took Kazan and began
to send letters West
to the runaway Prince Kurbskoy
these terrible letters
were answered by Peter the Great
from Holland overseas

then Catherine also the Great
arranged a connection with the better world
of Mr. Voltaire then Napoleon
the very Bonaparte in continuous burning
of Moscow helped introduce
the elegant French epistolary style
for nobility so as not to confuse
the common folk
too early with
freedom equality and fraternity

With better delivery of mail
Decembrists sent their letters
about reforming Russia
from Siberia to awaken
Herzen in London
they were answered by
Vladimir Ilych squinting his
farsighted Mongolian gaze
from Geneva from Zurich

then the October Revolution
came to pass
as an inevitable consequence
of Mongolian mail
as an Eastern
reply and a challenge to the West

in the next 300 years
something will come to us as a response
from the West
by electronic mail


Vyacheslav Kupriyanov


SONG OF ODYSSEUS

When my ship moors at the shore,
a poem will come ashore with me,
To which before only the sea was listening,
as it was competing with the call of the sirens.
It will have only soft vowel sounds,
That sound like this in pale translation
From the language of roaming to the language of mooring:

I love you with the hoarse cry of the seagulls,
With the scream of the eagles, flying toward the scent of Prometheus' liver,
With a thousand year silence of the sea turtle,
With a click of the cachalot that wants to be a roar,
With a pantomime, executed by the tentacles of the octopus,
Before which all seaweeds stand on end.

I love you with all my body coming from the sea,
With all its rivers, tributaries of the Amazon and the Mississippi,
With all the deserts, considering themselves seas,
You hear their sand sift through my desiccated throat.

I love you with all my heart, lungs and the medulla,
I love you with the earth's crust and the star-studded sky,
With the fall of the waterfalls and conjugation of verbs,
I love you with the invasion of Europe by the Huns,
With the One-Hundred year war and the Mongolian Horde,
With the uprising of Sparta and the Big migration of people,
With Alexander's column and the Tower of Pisa,
With the speed of the Gulf Stream to warm the North Pole.

I love you with the letter of the law of gravity
And the sentence of the death penalty,
To the death penalty through the eternal fall
Into your bottomless Bermuda triangle.
 



Translated by Dasha C. Nisula



Vyacheslav Kupriyanov


CONTEMPORARY MAN – 2

Contemporary man
extends himself through the wire
together with the murmur of the sea
jams himself into the shell of the telephone
compresses himself
seeks immortality
on a phonograph record
becomes a sea monster
a prisoner of the television aquarium
he becomes more portable
more compact
more contemporary
already he can be switched on
switched off
made louder softer
he doesn't see you
doesn't hear you
he doesn't know you


Vyacheslav Kupriyanov


POETRY

Poetry
is natural
like a window in a house

artificial
like the glass in a window

unexpected
like the world beyond the window

regular
like science

appearing at the juncture
of rising and
declining knowledge


Vyacheslav Kupriyanov


RUSSIA'S DREAM

Russia sleeps in cold dew
and dreams
that it is America:
its chatterers are congressmen
its loafers are the unemployed
its hooligans are gangsters
its drunkards are drug addicts
its profiteers are businessmen
its Russians are Blacks
and it must fly to the Moon

Russia awakens in cold sweat
everything appears to be in place
chatterers are chatterers
loafers are loafers
hooligans are hooligans
Russians are Russians
only it must land
in the right place

and Russia again falls asleep
and stirs a Russian idea -
that America sleeps and dreams
that it is Russia

 


Vyacheslav Kupriyanov


ODE TO TIME

Oh!
Oh, half past six!
Oh, quarter to seven! Oh, five to!
Oh, seven in the morning!
Oh, eight! Oh, nine! Oh, ten!
Oh, eleven, twelve, one!
Oh, lunch break! Oh, after-
noon nap! Oh, after
the afternoon
of the faun! Oh, the last news hour!
Oh, horror! Oh, supper hour! Oh,
the last straw! Oh, the last cloud
of dispersing storm! Oh, the last
leaf! Oh, the last day
of Pompeii! Oh, never!
Oh, after the flood! Oh, half past
eleven! Oh, five to!
Oh, midnight!
Oh, midday!
Oh, midnight!
Oh, hit! Oh, miss!
Oh, Moscow time!
Oh, Greenwich time!
Oh, for whom the bell tolls!
Oh, the hour strikes! Oh, the happy ones!
Oh, half past six!
Oh, half day!
Oh, half night!
Oh, five to!




Vyacheslav Kupriyanov


LANDSCAPE WITH POLYPHEMUS

All this is reflected:

Sisyphus is pushing his rock
Icarus is falling into the sea
Prometheus is chained to a cliff

while carelessly rollick
indifferent nymphs
and apolitical fawns
in ecstasy
of a fleeting life

all this is reflected
in the blood-shot
single eye of Polyphemus

that is just about to be gouged
by a wanderer
seeking his homeland
Odysseus

 




Vyacheslav Kupriyanov


MASS MEDIA

Global
guff
traverses
the great ocean

Intercontinental
nonsense
runs between
the east and the west

Super highway
misunderstandings
cross
all the borders

The world's sense
of moderation
is in transatlantic
trance





Vyacheslav Kupriyanov


OPTIMISTIC GEOGRAPHY

North America
still hasn't slipped
into South America

Asia Major
still hasn't crushed
Central and Asia Minor

Europe still hasn't fallen
through the Mediterranean
onto free Africa

Africa still
hasn't been swallowed
by the Sahara

Icebergs of Antarctica
haven't succeeded in
merging with the ice
of Greenland

Forces of gravity
still surpass
any
armed forces

The political map of the world
hasn't been destroyed
by the physical map











Vyacheslav Kupriyanov


TRANSLATION OF POETRY

The flash of the birds' flight
Translates to somnolent scurrying of the fish

And back

From the ancient language of fish
To the contemporary syntax of the birds' flight

And so on

From the dark language of the ocean
To the clear language of the sky

And back