Снег лежит… (Snow Lies) by Alexander Vvedensky

snow lies
earth flies
lights flip
to pigments night has come
on a rug of stars it lies
is it night or a demon?
like an inane lever
sleeps the insane river
it is not aware
of the moon everywhere
animals gnash their canines
in black gold cages
animals bang their heads
animals are the ospreys of saints
the world flies around the universe
nearby the white hot stars
flits imperishable bird
seeks a home a nest
there’s no nest a hole
the universe is alone
maybe rarely will pass
time as poor as a night
or a daughter in a bed
will grow sleepy and then dead
then a crowd of revelations
enter in and cry alas
in steel houses
howl loudly
she’s gone and buried
hopped to paradise big-bellied
God God have pity
good God on the precipice
but God said Go play
and she entered paradise
there spun any which way
numbers houses and seas
in the inessential they
what exists in vain perceived
there God languished behind bars
with no eyes no legs no arms
so that maiden in tears
sees all this in the heavens
sees sundry eagles
appear out of night
and fly sullen
and flash silent
this is so depressing
the dead maiden will say
serenely amazed
God will inquire
what’s depressing? what’s
depressing, God, life
what are you talking about
what O noon do you know
you press pleasure and Paris
to your impetuous breast
you dress like music
you undress like a statue
the forest then roared
in lonely despair
it saw through earth’s tares
a meandering ribbon
a strip curvilinear
curvy Lena you are
Mercury was in the air
spinning like a top
and the bear in the bush
sunned his coat
people also walked around
bearing fish on a platter
bearing on their hands
ten fingers on a ladder
while all this went on
that maiden rested
rose from the dead and forgot
yawned and said
you guys, I had a dream
what can it mean
dreams are worse than macaroni
they make crows double over
I was not at all dying
I was gaping and lying
undulating and crying
I was so terrifying
a fit of lethargy
was had by me among the effigies
let’s enjoy ourselves really
let’s gallop to the cinema
she sped off like a she-ass
to satisfy her innermost
lights glint in the heaven
is it night or a demon

by Александр Иванович Введенский
(Alexander Ivanovich Vvendensky)
(January 1930)
translated by Eugene Ostashevsky

The poem set to music.
Исполняют: Владимир Кузнецов и Константин Учитель / Performed by: Vladimir Kuznetsov and Konstantin Uchitel

Снег лежит…

снег лежит
земля бежит
кувыркаются светила
ночь пигменты посетила
ночь лежит в ковре небес
ночь ли это? или бес?
как свинцовая рука
спит бездумная река
и не думает она
что вокруг неё луна
звери лязгают зубами
в клетках чёрных золотых
звери стукаются лбами
звери коршуны святых
мир летает по вселенной
возле белых жарких звёзд
вьётся птицею нетленной
ищет крова ищет гнёзд
нету крова нету дна
и вселенная одна
может изредка пройдёт
время бледное как ночь
или сонная умрёт
во своей постели дочь
и придёт толпа родных
станет руки завивать
в обиталищах стальных
станет громко завывать
умерла она – исчезла
в рай пузатая залезла
Боже Боже пожалей
Боже правый на скале
но ответил Бог играй
и вошла девица в рай
там вертелось вкось и вкривь
числа домы и моря
в несущественном открыв
существующее зря
там томился в клетке Бог
без очей без рук без ног
так девица вся в слезах
видит это в небесах
видит разные орлы
появляются из мглы
и тоскливые летят
и беззвучные блестят
о как мрачно это всё
скажет хмурая девица
Бог спокойно удивится
спросит мёртвую её
что же мрачно дева? Что
мрачно Боже – бытиё
что ты дева говоришь
что ты полдень понимаешь
ты веселье и Париж
дико к сердцу прижимаешь
ты под музыку паришь
ты со статуей блистаешь
в это время лес взревел
окончательно тоскуя
он среди земных плевел
видит ленточку косую
эта ленточка столбы
это Леночка судьбы
и на небе был Меркурий
и вертелся как волчок
и медведь в пушистой шкуре
грел под кустиком бочок
а кругом ходили люди
и носили рыб на блюде
и носили на руках
десять пальцев на крюках
и пока всё это было
та девица отдохнула
и воскресла и забыла
и воскресшая зевнула
я спала сказала братцы
надо в этом разобраться
сон ведь хуже макарон
сон потеха для ворон
я совсем не умирала
я лежала и зияла
извивалась и орала
я пугала это зало
летаргический припадок
был со мною между кадок
лучше будем веселиться
и пойдём в кино скакать
и помчалась как ослица
всем желаньям потакать
тут сияние небес
ночь ли это или бес

Additional information: Alexander Ivanovich Vvedensky (Алекса́ндр Ива́нович Введе́нский; 6 December 1904 – 19 December 1941) was a Russian poet and dramatist with formidable influence on “unofficial” and avant-garde art during and after the times of the Soviet Union. Vvedensky is widely considered (among contemporary Russian writers and literary scholars) as one of the most original and important authors to write in Russian in the early Soviet period. Vvedensky considered his own poetry “a critique of reason more powerful than Kant’s.”

In Tufanov‘s sound-poetry circle he met Daniil Kharms, with whom he went on to found the OBERIU group (in 1928). Together Kharms and Vvedensky, along with several other young writers, actors, and artists, staged various readings, plays, and cabaret-style events in Leningrad in the late 1920s. Vvedensky, as written in the OBERIU manifesto, was considered the most radical poet of the group.

Vvedensky, like Kharms, worked in children’s publishing to get by, and was also quite accomplished in the field. He wrote vignettes for children’s magazines, translated books of children’s literature, and wrote several children’s books of his own.

Editor’s note: If you are reading this on 1 January 2023 then Happy New Year! С новым годом! Blwyddyn Newydd Dda!

Theme for a Story by Daniil Kharms

A certain engineer made up his mind to build a giant brick wall across all of Petersburg. He thinks over how this is to be accomplished, he doesn’t sleep nights reasoning it out. Gradually a club of thinker-engineers forms and a plan for building the wall is produced. It is decided that the wall will be built during the night and in such a way that the whole thing is put up in one night, so that it would appear as a surprise to all. Workers are rounded up. The job is divided up. The city authorities are lured away, and finally the night comes when the wall is to be built. Only four people know of the building of the wall. The engineers and workers are given exact orders as to where each should go and what each should do there. Thanks to exacting calculations, they’re able to build the wall in one night. The next day Petersburg is all commotion. The inventor of the wall himself is dispondent. What this wall was good for, he himself never knew.

 

by Даниил Иванович Хармс (Daniil Ivanovich Kharms)

a.k.a. Даниил Иванович Ювачёв (Daniil Ivanovich Yuvachov)

(1930)

translated by Matvei Yankelevich

It’s Good That Russia Has No Tsar by Georgy Ivanov

It’s good that Russia has no Tsar,

it’s good that Russia’s just a dream,

it’s good that God has disappeared,

 

that nothing’s real, except the stars

in icy skies, the yellow gleam

of dawn, the unrelenting years.

 

It’s good that people don’t exist,

that nothingness is all there is,

that life’s as dark and cold as this;

 

until we couldn’t be more dead,

nor ever were so dark before,

and no one now can bring us aid,

nor even needs to any more.

 

by Георгий Владимирович Иванов (Georgii Vladimirovich Ivanov)

(1930)

translated by Stephen Capus

Marina by T. S. Eliot

“Quis hic locus, quae regio, quae mundi plaga?”

 

What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands

What water lapping the bow

And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog

What images return

O my daughter.

 

Those who sharpen the tooth of the dog, meaning

Death

Those who glitter with the glory of the hummingbird, meaning

Death

Those who sit in the style of contentment, meaning

Death

Those who suffer the ecstasy of the animals, meaning

Death

 

Are become unsubstantial, reduced by a wind.

A breath of pine, and the woodsong fog

By this grace dissolved in place

 

What is this face, less clear and clearer

The pulse in the arm, less strong and stronger –

Given or lent? more distant than stars and nearer than the eye

 

Whispers and small laughter between leaves and hurrying feet

Under sleep, where all the waters meet.

Bowsprit cracked with ice and paint cracked with heat.

 

I made this, I have forgotten

And remember.

The rigging weak and the canvas rotten

Between one June and another September.

Made this unknowing, half conscious, unknown, my own.

The garboard strake leaks, the seams need caulking

This form, this face, this life

Living to live in a world of time beyond me; let me

Resign my life for this life, my speech for that unspoken,

The awakened, lips parted, the hope, the new ships.

 

What seas what shores what granite islands towards my timbers

And woodthrush calling through the fog

My daughter.

 

by T. S. Eliot

First published September 25, 1930 in Ariel Poems.