Poems in English

DEATH OF A HERO.

Ordinary Valaam nursing home
For the good and the poor but not for saints.
There are a lot of crowded wards home,
For old people with neither arms nor legs.
Here the nurses can’t keep track of everything—
That’s why there are always  stench and doom here,
Everybody has a look depth carrying
In which is visible renunciation mere.
Here lived the hero of the USSR.
Wounded in battle under Krasnodar.
Like everyone else, a Soviet officer,
Just cynically called “a samovar”.
He was never discouraged for everyone—
He joked of everything and laughed heartily,
He gave useful advices to everyone,
And he only smiled at rudeness daily.
They took  veterans “out for a walk”, they
Attached the veterans to fir trees on sackcloth,
In the evening old men were removed from fir trees , they
Had to sleep. Was  forgotten the hero’s
Life. He didn’t die from multiple wounds,
He died quietly, without a cry or a sigh.
Died here so, having frozen veterans.

Translator - I. Toporov
Together with them died the epoch, great and high.
2020

IN JOSEPH BRODSY’S 80 YEARS’ OCCATION

I’m not a son or a grandson. I’ll say
Politely: I have not memories’ ton!
Only my soul is sad night and day
That our beloved poet is gone!
In New York he left at the dawn of years—
In January it was snowing hard.
I read his books of poetry and prose
From cover to cover for the mind.
I know even his  number of phone
And his home address for writing.
But I’m afraid very much of bad form,
There’ll be no one letters reading.
His memory’ll be memorized, I believe,
So that the text in bronze runs
On home: “Never be sad, people, time treats grief,
Joseph Brodsy lived here, this memorize!”
2020

TO MOTHER

My heart aches—something is wrong again—
My old mother’s fallen ill. The fast
Train. I ‘ve just started boarding the train
Being  now about to depart.
But my work. Day-to-day work. As always.
And I’m whirling in the cycle of days.
Daily I’ve many worries. It’s a matter, of course.
“Mom, how are you?”-I’m thinking of her  nowadays.

Meantime, time passes quickly. I’m in
My production an advanced worker.
The master, in the past a Bolshevik being,
Dubbed me once Industry’s minister.

But came from the Post Office a telegram.
And I read it my own head drooping,
Pulling my hands to my throat…it was stuffy. “Mum!”
The chest was torn by a cry grieving.

I didn’t save my dear person! It was late.
I was in a hurry. All things considered.
A century won’t be enough to expiate
My sin…how indifferently I lived!

Having something we don’t appreciate it for,
It. We don’t keep it (the point is also this).
Mother is one, we won’t replace her.
So let’s take care of mothers. Please.
2011

THE IMAM’S EXHORTATION

I

Imam Shamil who grew in mountains’
Region, valued all his life Liberty, spaciousness
Preferring to gold good deeds, after that
He turned the whole Caucasus into Imamat.

The imam joined the mountains’ peoples
Not in vain, he waged war the tsar’s Empire with,
And he said it’s better to die battle giving
Than to be a despised slave being living.

He could not find peace for many years,
And every day he led his Murids,
To battle, all the warriors got to know,
His spirit in battle under Ahulgo.

The imam was praised by the Persian shah,
His deeds carried the good will of Allah!
And if you permit me, reader, we will
Open all Shamil’s exhortation’s will.

Any part here’s a small story true,
Ignorance’s always decay, dust anew.
I am sure it may happen one day that
Wisdom can prove useful to your mind.

 


II

How many years have passed after that
When Shamil happened to drive subject at?
He wanted to make his children understand,
It isn’t worth speaking with any drunkard.

He said: “Once the Murid was walking
And found a drunkard under the tree lying,
“Get up!”the Murid cried at him, indeed,
“You can’t drink so if you are Shiit!””

That drunkard looked at him by a glass glance
As if he were not working at wall, the man chance.
The Murid asked  him: “How dare you live so?
Allah prohibited us to drink long ago!”

The drunkard answered him: “I mind my own business,
Let a ban be placed on it a hundred timed. Yes!”
That drunkard forgot the truth of the Koran,
The mind stuck in that argument as the mutton.

If only you look at it from  the sides all,
This parable’s sense’ll be single after all,
Discourse is bad with an inadequate
Person, it’s like talking to the wall, indeed.   

III

Everybody knew one language once,
Every  beast got used to association, at last.
And every beast studied language that
The bear used the bull as brother to understand.

Once walked the fox, the wolf and the lion to get
Dinner—to the nearest country  cattle- shed,
In which there was a mutton at that moment
He died in battle from wounds the lion rendered.

But how our heroes  to live now?
And to share their  legal dinner how?
As beasts’ tsar the lion began the food’s sharing,
The wolf took food a bit prudent become having?

Beasts’ brave tsar began to fight with him,
However, the fox was the sliest thing,
And that slyness saved her, after all,
She took the mutton to her own hole. 
 

IV

Once upon a time there lived
Father who most of all his children loved,
Two kind, twin brothers—one and another
One were th’splitting images of their father

The brothers yielded each other in nothing,
They were matched for each other in everything
They were in power to shoot as snipers,
And as Dzigits to ride as no one else/

Suddenly the foe came to their aul as
The conqueror. And Naib took  father’s
Sons with him and any of the brothers
Wanted damask steel to cut heads off shoulders.

But their father had an only sword,
In old times being young and na;ve he chopped
His foes by it, and his sons anyway
Had to buy a sword to enter Naib’s array.

The sword bought was shining as emerald—
A master foreign worked at it too hard,
He covered its haft with gold thinnest—
Then that damask steel was very expense!

One brother took that foreign sword with
Him, another one took his father’s
Sword that turned out to be the safest,
Battles years verified safety its.

But the first brother told him: “I’ll bid
Defiance to shaitan himself, indeed!
It is all nothing to me having such
A new sword, I am making of it much!”

But his beloved brother did not agree
With him:”I’m madly glad to hear it but, you see,
By mastership the warrior always wins,
Then the sword plays important role its.”

After battle he came home native with
Father’s sword and grandfather’s shield, arm’s use is
Not in its charms, we need to know it,
The dead brother came back upon his shield. 

 

V

Once upon a time there lived an old
Man, my teacher, besides, the wiser called
Jamalutdin. When I was ten years,
He gave me a piece of priceless advice:

“Do always respect all people, please, but
At times against something  yourself regard,
Altruism and excessive toil’ ll wear out
Your organism, mind it in no flat!”

At early dawn do your morning exercises
And always sweep the yard by your own house
And then run perkily after the herd,
Health striving for something more is for what?”

And I have been following his example since
Then—I’m not afraid of cholera’s viruses,
Although I’ve been over forty for a long
Time, I’m the strongest of the same age persons among.

VI

God’s not the assistant of all our deeds,
Although we accuse him of our sins,
As our wise men do always tell us:
We all are our fates’ smiths  to the last.

Now and then we envy the rich’s receipts,
To our names when we don’t have copecks,
Now and then we ourselves’re guilty in
Our constant poor life bearing.

Now and then we waste our lives
Gifting our own youth to holidays,
Strong drinks’ drunkenness is always luring us
We are living not setting goals, alas.

VII

Once Basangur walked with me on mountains—
We walked together to Benoi, aul his,
A beautiful wife happened to meet us,
He was crazy about her to the last.

He was fascinated by her eyes’ blackness,
To describe her—there were not enough phrases!
There was not a nicer girl in the whole Caucasus
And then she met cordially her guests.

Ten years passed since then, and there weren’t
Letters from Basangur too of old,
Allah settled everything in his fate—
Gazi- Muhammed took him to his estate.

Basangur was ready for everything—
In the name of Allah he was chopping
His foes and in battle he lost his hand
And an eye of his was once knocked out.

A year after troubles came to the house:
The cannon- ball tore off his foot at once,
Our naib was taken as a prisoner
By crafty foes. Shamil saved him an hour after.

The Murids delivered him home, he had
Only one foot and only one hand,
But he was living laid by one wall
And whispered: “To die’s terrible on the whole!”

“You won’t die!” wife answered him, “the war has
Made you the cripple! But remember just:
You are a beloved husband in my fate!
I won’t quit you in trouble, my honey friend!”

But Baisangur said: “You are still nice and young,
For all men you are dream’s chosen one!
I’m burden to you with all my wounds,
Do quit me, and find your own happiness!”

His wife said bending her head: “My honey,
I must say, you are not too courteous to me—
It is inscribed to both of us by fate
To be together until our death’s date!”



VIII

A sufiy who did read a lot of books
To people’s praise and honor did get use
As noticed once an aksakal old:
He  thought he was the brightest in the world.

He gave people pieces of advice,
How to live, to love, to have a very nice
Time, there were not people in the aul at all,
Who he did not happen to advise this all.

But misfortunes came to him at one time in the past:
He run out of water in his well to the last,
But he was proud to ask for help others,
Though it’s impossible to live without water’s wealth.

He lived without water for four days,
To be thirsty is to be without a fire’s
Life being proud of himself he did not ask
For help he gave up the ghost, alas!

IX

An Iranian shah did love to hunt
Allah always with favour did regard
Him. The shah always caught a lot of game
And never empty- hand he home came.

A falcon was presented him once
From the town called proudly Shiraz,
The falcon from Shiraz on the branch was sitting
And even no once having  taken wing.

The Iranian shah was very much surprised
And the master on birds was invited,
He had to reveal the secret of the bird’s
Not being able to fly afterwards.

And that master cut off the brunch off the tree,
And suddenly the falcon soared in its free
Flight, now and then to soar from happiness,
It’s necessary for us to change our lives!
 

X

In the world there lived so long a wise man,
He kept so many mysteries, information’s mine,
And once I had dinner together with
Him and he did tell me a story of his.

He was young and he wanted to understand
Life and he had a goal to succeed it and
The globe’s being round his being
Ignorant in  his trying its edge reaching.

All his life he walked through woods, mountains
He got through a hundred countries seeing wonders ,
He met his future wife  being on his way,
And he led her to his dream one day.

And he walked so in forty years’ course,
Absolutely grey, he understood the Earth
Had no edge, it’s terrible to live
With a beloved wife by dream deceiptive.

XI

Shamil gave children some paper’s sheets, and
Everybody was ready to write,
The imam said: “Turn over your sheets, please,
And describe your reverse sides’ appearance. ”

The sons saw on each side black smudge’s traces
Be visible in their paper’s sheets’ centres,
And each of them began to describe in prose
How he could, what was like that spot, of course.

In the smudge one saw woods and mountains,
Another one saw wide spaces at once,
The third one gold and stones,
And father said with grief: “I must say, of course,

I absolutely agree with you, children, but
Only your world is so diverse and
You can’t see mountains’ peaks in the spot
Without describing space’s graying world!

You have described only your spot, but it
Is scanty on each of your paper’s sheet
 On shallow misfortune concentrating
Then Life and happiness’ll avoid your being.”

XII

One bourgeois loved just wealth, and all his
Life he just laid up coins valuing his
Granary. He could not live calmly a day
Not to increase some more silver, anyway.

But his income was a dishonest thing,
He drove profit from everything
To obtain always super- profit for wealth,
He was ready to sell his own parents.

He came to the temple—to pray to the skies
For everything what haram denies.
But he wished to become more prosperous,
Praying, he dreamt of to own gold countless.

Then opened wide before him  the skies,
And suddenly came into force wonders.
The rich man got petty as he was, a coward
He turned into green moustashe, that is the plant.

XIII

The Dzhigit happened to win the races,
The lucky man won one of the greatest
Prizes. All those stones would be enough
For him to live comfortably his all life.

Suddenly he met a woman on his way
Sobbing she did tell him on that very day:
“You’ve won a prize exactly, I know it,
Will you help me? Mum’s dying now, indeed.”

Believed he her, gave her all his values
And he did not learn of cheat bad piece of news
At once when friends came to meet him he told
The following to all his comrades old:

“Now I feel sorry for nothing, there is
No ill man, of the doctor worrying’s needless,
That’s why I’m so mad from happiness,
Because of having such ever- beloved friends!”

 
XIV

Allah told us to love our mothers,
He may punish all of us for love’s absence.
She does not know any dearer things
Than her beloved children’s stolen glances.

My great- grandmother lived  for a hundred years—
She was wise and was full of happiness.
Once I asked her reading my grammar:
”In what’s your secret, dear, great- mother?”

“My Shamil”, then her answer followed,
“My eyes’ light, there is no secret.”
“But how can you do tell me, please, live,
As young at all not knowing any grief?”

“I’ll never leave my dear people in
Trouble, I live a grudge never nursing,
In my heart I mark always all my good deeds!”
My great- grandmother was such full of kindness.
 

XV

“Here I’ve finished the cycle of parables,
Thank you for hearing out their sense!
Fairy- tales, though, far from true, teach good lads,
Dzigits, let tale a lesson teach them, thus.”

I told of what father, grandfather knew, there
Are no fables created by the Lord, wiser.
The East’s whole wisdom is coming to the same—
The prophet’s all saint thoughts, intentions on them.

And his stories’ thread having accomplished,
The imam Shamil stopped speaking if  did
His doctrine happened to reach all souls—they
Understood exhortation’s wisdom one day.
2019

1 Ahulgo’s assault is a military operation conducted by the “Chechen” detached forces of the Separate Caucasus corps of the Caucasus army under the general- lieutenant Grabbe’s command, the aim of which was the imam Shamil’s Headquarters’ blockade and capture, the very Headquarters that were situated in the aul called Ahulgo on the plateau of the same name in Dagestan. The assault happened in July- August in 1839 and it lasted in 80 days’ course.
2 Gazi- Mohammed’s philosophy’s followers seeking for purification from sins by means of sacred war for faith against the Russians were called the Murids. The Murids can be translated as “seeking for the way of saving”. Muridism doesn’t differ from classical Islam in rites and philosophy.
3 Jamaluddin Kazi- Kumuh (1788, or 1792, Kumuh- 1866, Istanbul) is Dagestani spiritual and public agent, scientist, Nashkabad tericat’s sheih, the imam Shamil’s tutor.
4 Baisangur Benoe. Chechnya’s national hero. The imam Shamil’s Naib. By 1846 he had lost his hand and eye in battle, and in 1847 in battle for Gergebil his foot was torn off by the cannon- ball. According to the people’s  legend he could not hold on to the saddle and he was tied to the horse.
5 Gazi- Muhammad (Gazi- Muhammed) is Dagestan’s first imam, a Muslim scientist and theologian, the Montagnards’ Weyrleader in fight against the Russian Empire.

Voltaire

Once Aron was born in France, in Paris,
In an official family as Fran;ois- Marie.
A literary world was closer to his
Soul. Don’t confuse him with Walter that’s Henri.

He began his literary path in aristocrats’
House, covering  with mockery, satires—
For this then he joined the number of expats,
His annual income was twenty thousand Lires.

He did live in England for three years
Never to be forgotten, studying poems, prose.
But then Voltaire belonged to that sort of persons
Who could not find his moorage in Britain, of course.

And thus he lived: wandering, returning,
France’s spirit lured him as before. He was
So tired for many years of wandering,
And bought the estate in Geneva’s outskirts.

And Voltaire settled there living in
Boarding- houses off noble ladies, nobles’
All kinds, his income was grey, although he knew laws,
And was admitted to monarchs their match being.

And when at eighty he came back to Paris,
And there he passed to his rest further,
In Paris you can never avoid love’s bliss,
Here lived Voltaire, a poet, a philosopher.
2019   


To the Queen Elisabeth II

I know Raymond’s a court poet. To dedicate
Odes to monarchs’s survival. Raymond as
A philosopher valued life’s democratic state,
I honour monarchy as any man, at last,

In whose heart the Empire’s spirit beating,
Long live the Commonwealth for time all!
By Nika for all time became blessed Britain,
The country army scare foes all!

And the Queen is the brand for all the world,
All ministers’ll retire but not the Queen!
I have not seen a monarch nobler from of  old,
Who honours just so traditions’, honour’s being.

Thank you for giving inspiration to the poet
For his poems, by your own greatness.
Thus, rule for the population’s good great,
Setting an example for other rulers.
2019

 Europe’s chancellor
Dedicated to Angela Merkel

Mother Germany in word and deed!
The Eurounion’s motor of motors,
As a physicist, she put deeds right, indeed
Laying special stress on economics.
The Lady Wonder: she’s existing again,
In Marvel there was no tale personage.
The foe’s calling her Valkyrja in vain,
She is well- known but not for epatage.
There are no more any Roman Empires,
And Karl the Great’s partially  forgotten.
But as before (we know from popular beliefs):
Over Europe a black eagle is soaring.
4/XII 2019

FRG’s piece

I did bring the Berlin wall’s piece on my magnet,
And for thirty years its days have been numbered,
Tourists always take Berlin’s part  with them, the wall
Is with a complex, magnetic fate being not plain at all.
Powers did change in FRG more than once,
The wall was delivered for ever to other countries.
Every day I come to my refrigerator for eating,
And look at the magnet, the Berlin wall holding.
And if I decide to write a letter to somebody and
Send  the Berlin’s part in a picture post- card?
And let the Soviet power’s dictatorship exist
No more, let everybody have the Berlin wall’s piece.
12/I 2020

To Margaret Khristyushina

From the same univer we graduated—
Policemen by spirit and calling. They
Would hold you up as an example. But you did
Happen to tell your colleages:”Good- bye!” One day
You won’t be missing without should- pieces,
In the Trade Union your job is great,
And let youth be educated by others—
You will back their rights better, I bet!
Worker’s rights’ violation’s scorge evil,
Policemen are infringed at work. Grandfather
Ilyich would “For rights!” in his speech appeal,
And add: “You’re going on a right road farther!”
And let democratism die. Colleagues,
We dare not be depressed, we dare not,
In the country is prospering putinism,
That is why we have got what we have got.
22.01.2020

TO CHILDREN

I’ve stuck myself into the Earth teacher’s,
I’ll dedicate my life to service to children.
I’m not afraid of agonizing death
Under bullets, block, infirmary then.

I’m keeping my heart from the storm of fates,
From any bad luck, adversities, experience.
And I do tell to children: “You are not slaves—
Strive for fulfilling of your dear wishes.

And do receive joy from everything—
Experience’s burden’ ll destroy carelessness,
You’ve got everything, you’ve got nothing,
You’ve a moment, eternity in hands blest!”
28/I 2020

WHY SHOULD WE REMEMBER KATYN?

Why should we remember Katyn? We can say
After all, as before, everything has remained to this day.
The air is still the same, the sun’s yellow, the sky’s blue
But, as I recall it,  blood in my veins is getting cold anew.
In Starobelsk and Kozelsk there were many prisoners,
There they executed professional soldiers!
And then they wanted to bury them in oblivion,
To cover up the crime’s scale and horror unforgiven!
Rudolf-Christoff von Gersdorf was very stunned:
The discovered shootings’ scale was terrible and
The special commission confirmed this in time:
The USSR did commit this terrible crime!
The Union admitted this crime before the collapse.
Then it was necessary for policy’s sake, thus.
Here, it’d seem the hour came for ovations,
Only the Kremlin did not give Poland reparations.
2020

To Vladimir Vladimirovich Pozner

You, like Nabokov, are also a polyglot!
An intellectual with French roots, and how nice
That “Pozner’ programme’s again truly lot,
And which year you’ve been on the screen with us.
You’re as an ideal for ladies:
You’re Alain Delon’s Russian pattern.
Your youth’s fuse can’t be extinguished nowadays.
And the audience welcomes in you a hero then!
If only Nabokov were living!
Then you would play chess together with him,
And in welcome and again coming spring,
You would collect  butterflies just for him!
But the epoch’s consciences are passing away
In silence—who’s the next, we don’t know, will leave,
It looks as if we were in war every day,
Unfortunately, we’re losing someone coming to grief.
How many outstanding people have died,
How few outstanding people have remained,
So prosper to the envious out of spite,
Live long—bringing us happiness being great.
2020-03-17

IT IS A GREAT HONOUR TO SERVE FATHERLAND

It is a great honour to serve Fatherland,
To die for Motherland is honour greater,
So that all say: “It’s necessary to live in that
Manner!”So that roths’ hundred came to funeral feast later!
But, it stands to reason,  is in dreams all this,
In practice, this is so fierce reality,
Often die at their posts soldiers,
Not in war’s day—this is terrible banality.
A  commander cynical, satisfied
Will send a letter to a soldier’s mother
That Ivanov “disgracing his uniform died,
Setting explosives to blow himself up and
It’s not the military unit’s fault farther…”
And the grief-stricken mother washing down with
Corvalol  her terrible heart attack,
Will begin to die quietly at home time this,
By the letter as by a judgement struck.
And the local policeman’ll come to her
Once to question her neighbours in time.
Her neighbours’ll say: “Perhaps, she’s not living more,
We have not heard her walk for a long time.”
The local policeman will open her
Door, the soldier’s mother seeing one day,
He’ll describe her body. Believe it or not any more
“The military unit’s right”, they say.
2020