Transitions №1

Author: Igov Levshin

Translations by Tatiana Bonch-Osmolovskaya

 
   Versicolor incredible fish
are birds
on branches of corals
mice with red fins
in flooded galleys of ships
and multinasal mines and treasures of course.
   In a village 100 km from Moscow
an eagle lived in a hencoop
a buffalo lived in a dog kennel
a tiger slept with alcohol instead of blood.

   A giant once came to moscow
volleyball player height up to the sky
with a flick he felled a 9-story building
drank a lake of cheap 9% alc beer
where he dropped his sperm
there a suburb has grown.

   Magister of magic semiconductor sciences
a historian but not an academic mole a real historian
who got into stories and created stories of his own life and i
grew inside his stories and had grown up to his ankles
but suddenly the story parted like a zipper on his blue jeans.

   Was it possible?

   A tiger in a hutch with a portable heater
water in a pipe at crossroads
illegal electricity
winter evening, waiting for the suburban train
to leave a trash bag in car vestibule of a train
a sec before the doors would close
and come back to make mint tea
which i brought but i had not brought mint
only wine and some money.

   But i owed him more like gazprom and rosneft for his stories I lives in
and his son owed him like shell and his daughter like jpmorgan
barclays creditswisse and hsbc
then but now the debt has grown.
   He called people to chat before taking a bath in asphalt
but nobody came as it was not the season and he was foolish
and it was not any record not deserving a mention in guinness
from the 6th floor and i had a friend a woman made it from the 12th
but there is a suspicion that this swimming under the moonlight
is more important than two world wars and three future ones
though no one can know anything for sure.

*
underground and phone
this is my life
underground a place of solitude
phone is a director of dramas
underground is my office
phone is my pen
but whose phone am I myself?
whose underground am i?

*
Assuming you are a master
                              to skip
    stones over water
but what does water care
about you?

But looked into the water
and saw

Possibly thought
that
    ducklings
    little mice
    running kitties
    those ducklings and kittens
they are a little bit eternal

You have well fed dreams

But you are a master to skip
                                   Stones over water
    and the shadows of the soldiers
    the shadows of old women cooks
    the shadows of children
    the shadows of reflections
    projections
they all applaud you from there

And watermarks in the water are responsible
    for the authenticity of the fake

And i
    have admired you