How One Man Fell To Pieces by Daniil Kharms

“They say all the good babes are wide-bottomed Oh, I just love big-bossomed babes. I like the way they smell.” Saying this he began to grow taller and, reaching the ceiling, he fell apart into a thousand little spheres.

Penteley, the janitor came by and swept up all these balls into the dustpan, which he usually used to gather horse manure, and took the balls away to some distant part of the yard.

All the while the sun continued to shine as before, and puffy ladies continued, as before, to smell enchantingly.

 

by Даниил Иванович Хармс (Daniil Ivanovich Kharms)

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

(23 August 1936)

translated by Matvei Yankelevich

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Moithered by Mike Jenkins

She used it totally out of place

but natural as calling an infant ‘Babes!’

The poet’s moithered by all that pollution

like herself annoyed at my constant questions.

 

The word was her, chewing-gum twirler

giving so much lip and jip,

a desk-scribbler stirrer

using her tongue as a whip.

 

It was perfect for flustered:

I could imagine the artist

as all the complex phrases whirred

and churned, his hair in a twist.

 

No examiner could possibly weight it,

no educationalist glue and frame it:

it leapt out like her laughter

and my red mark was the real error.

 

by Mike Jenkins

from Red Landscapes