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Igor Pomeranzev

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      *

In England there is no consolation for death.
O, fortunate Russians!
How their frantic efforts cheer one:
flying back and forth to some other city after Hungarian
medication,
phoning New York and securing an invitation for a dying man,
rousing all the Christians of Europe.
Now you’re the hero,
and what’s more, a lyric one.
But in England
there is no consolation for death.

     *

Sometimes, all the same, one wants
to write poetry in English.
I know, when this “sometimes” is.
It’s when one has committed some tactless
or shameful act.
One may begin with “Actually”
and then continue in English,
soi-disant humorously, narrating
how, for instance, in London, I was once introduced to a
female from Thailand,
and she held out her hand and, fool that I was,
I shook it vigorously, but her fingers
were beset with rings, veritable hoops,
and I squeezed so hard that in the Thailander’s face
there was an expression of pain,
and her eyes filled with tears.
Actually . . .

*

Here’s something:
it was May,
after many entreaties and requests,
I was at last permitted to go out
lightly clothed.
But in this country
the months stick together,
like ravioli.
You’ve just got to live and die
in a mac.

     *

I kissed her, well, approximately five and a half times.
And each time she squinted and turned into
a bird: as if to say, it wasn’t me any longer, I’d nothing
to do with it . . .
Since then, my usual answer to the question “Have you ever
kissed a bird?”
is in the affirmative.

Translated by Daniel Weissbort

Page(s) 230-231

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