Transitions №1

Author: Vladimir Aristov

Translations by Tatiana Bonch-Osmolovskaya

Life on a new Landkarte
To look into the depth
Only through the slots of the rivers
At baked cinnabar on the images

Disguised by the heady pine needles
The times, smoothed from above by a flatiron of the hand
Transparent wrinkles of the sea
On the ruined diorama we hover over
Having submerged anchor in amber

***
I saw a key in a forgotten fumy dress
                                        a small iron key somewhere
                                               beyond the substance
                                    though there was no pocket
                           on a hanger on a platen it was flattering
                        almost unbeknownst imponderable in the darkness
painted into peacock gloomy stains
                        into woody backwaters
that darkness was obedient and quiet there
                         much narrower than your shoulders
                         that dress was and yet
it could reunite with everyone even in this murk

*** 
       in your trousers, sewn not for centuries
  you have arrived here on a bus’ worn out soles
with an intermediate finish for some reason
                                        in a cafe dedicated to Elvis Presley
at a stone’s throw to Ierusalem
   but you don’t feel anything
    in an absurd hand with porcelain
                             mug belonging to not yours guitar’s
                                                          idol
   you cleared your feelings perfectly
   why was you longing to come here
                      through half of Russia and all of Ukrayna
                                                       you crossed them
                                to cry here then
                                              at the bus’ wheel
everywhere in some places almond trees blossomed
  and you can’t even see the mountain behind sobbing
      you became ready, … as if you had been getting ready

***
All is under the blue carriage blankets
With smiles of various persistence
They float in their heavens.

The general sleep hit us all
There seems to be no direction when dreaming
And still
The icy arrow awaits for us all.

One-armed life looms there
And asks for mercy, and we
Give her the little we have in a dream.

*** 
After the rain, on the kids playground
                                                          there is no one
                      only four blueish doves
                      are walking in about the same direction
             I cross obliquely their path

The sun! The magical sun!
   drawn by a child’s hand
   kneaded on this wet sand
  it’s moving probably here underground

*** 
We met in the crossing hallways of history
He was walking with the back of his head to the front
On the saucer of his face, there was all horror of the vision of the future
But the dark fire from the past still illuminated it