translated by: Anna Idelevich
Krivoshlyapov brothers
First shift in Sosnovy Bor,
In the morning things don’t go well – myshel-myshel –
In step with a knock, they will walk through the yard
The Krivoshlyapov brothers, Misha and Tisha.
They say that their dad drank himself to the bottom
Everything that the driver made from the devil’s servants.
If you look from the side – there is only one leg,
If you look at the front, there are two more in front.
At the stand there is some hero of labor
He looks into a hole the size of a penny coin.
Brothers Krivoshlyapov, where are you going?
Misha and Tisha, you’re not here?!
Fish out the squash with a fork:
To childhood again, drunk with love,
It’s easier to admit that it’s a bad dream
Better than life
and much more clearly.
Blue cup
Blue cup with hemlock flavor,
Gaidar, littered with the mouths of the masters:
Their kiss lasted fourteen
hundredths of a second –
Makarov’s bullet would have missed too
forty meters
Before I entered someone else’s body.
Everything lends itself to love – whether in Moscow, Izhevsk, Tula,
Like a bullet, even if it
didn’t fly anywhere
And she remained in the hole.
Two planes
Somewhere behind the scenes there is a cornflower blue sunset
Together they meet Marina Raskova.
Zina Portnova, as in present-day Nice –
Like not from a coffin but like from a hospital.
– To be honest, my little scarlet ray,
As a pilot, you are a hundred times better than me:
I couldn’t do that much from any military aircraft
Orphan combat aircraft,
How much – without oil, gasoline, metal –
Did she wrap their pilots around the propeller?!
It’s a pity that you never flew…
– No, I then – low, flat…
After interrogation they were allowed to fly,
Immediately such flying happened –
I forgot how to walk and breathe at the same time,
I even laughed that this was for victory…
Have you… ridden a bicycle?
The evening turns from blood to copper,
The sun makes a curved figure.
– Zinochka, Zina, forgive me, fool…