Translated by Evgeniia Shabaeva
That dream will hardly ever be forgotten: The fish lay on the floor, its head half-rotten, We were receiving visits from the folks Who were the right ones in the whitest cloaks.
The rest, who’d been with us in the beginning, Now stood like block posts right on our way. They were all crying, whispering and screaming To warn us what might happen in a day.
And what about us? We were exhausted by revelations, scared of getting numb, The city smelled like spring, though it was frosty, And our loudest songs were yet to come.
When something bad would happen then, remember, It used to shatter into fine debris, Burst into flames, or vanish, or surrender, Or fly around like birds; and we were free.
As you hear something hum, As your arm is getting numb, There’s suddenly a river in the window, here, come!
As you’re watching lampposts glide Down the streets, without a guide, All is different around, all is different inside.
Whether you believe or not, It’s your hometown and your spot. I get up to find the kitchen.. Where’s the door? And where’s the knob?
Day has come to shift the night, Brought along its daily grind. City’s melting, city’s fading, I could help it—do you mind?
Houses are crumbling down, Winter’s reigning, in a crown, Mountain summits pierce the heavens, Kolyma is roaring, brown.
Kobzon’s songs come through the wall, Prison towers are so tall, Icy desert is devouring the horizon and us all.
Banks erode as waters flow, Legs get numb as train cars go, In the air there’s an icon of the everlasting foe.
We were writing, for a start, What we could, out of the heart: Poems of severe blizzards And the places miles apart. In the quick blink of an eye, You were tired—so was I, Our children got mature, Chose each a trade to ply, And an iron bird to fly…
We were writing, at all costs, Notwithstanding what we lost, Poems of a monstrous silence Prose on souls that have no voice. Then we all got somehow trapped, Round a little finger wrapped, Slandered, threatened and arrested, Held as hostage, told crap, Cleared of charges, to recap.
Anyway, we wouldn’t stop, Though we felt like we could drop, Mighty is the force of habit, We would write whatever’d pop: Skidamarink a dink a dink Skidamarink a doo, a doo, Wrapped in blankets, drunk and sick, Skidamarink, I still love you. Wine and validol at hand, We were writing…
The city’s hidden in the smog, I’m in the midst of dust and fog, I can’t distinguish Kostromah, Where I was loved, with love unmarred.
Look, manna falls, the sky is wide, And Kostromah is getting white, Its little houses are white, The fog is white, and all is white.
And if you look through all this white, You’ll see in it—at least you might— A tank that’s on its way to fight Those who are on the other side, Where my mother was a child.