Four Poems
вряд ли ты сможешь
(я бы удивился если б ты смог)
объяснить все наречия тумана
но
по крайней мере
вода налитая тобой
долго хранит прохладу
it is unlikely that you would be able to
(I would be surprised if you were able)
to explain all the adverbs for fog
but
at least
the water you poured
extensively stores cold
с такой простудой можно достичь
глубочайшей неуверенности окунуться
в неё как в озеро полное зыбких теней
увидеть шаткую телевышку
и уже на пределе подводного зрения
оттаявшее серебряное веко
with such a head cold it is possible to reach
the deepest insecurity dip
into her like into a lake full of unsteady shades
to see a rickety broadcasting tower
and already in underwater sight’s range
a thawed silver eyelid
угаданное имя
и та изначальная лёгкость
которую сменит плотность
и тяжесть
простёганное подозрение
и где-то на краю
бесцельный волос
а если наоброт: тишина
усыплённых туч и между ними
холёное солнце?
радоваться ли последнему первенцу
или первому последышу
нотным деревьям
филологическим поездам –
всем тайным сотрудникам
не оформленной в ветер надежды?
знаешь
как плоть двоится
и знаешь что боль
неизбежна
и обратима
видишь: такое сирое место
где любовь – двенадцатый присяжный
an identified name
and that incipient lightness
will be replaced by mass
and a weight
a quilted suspicion
and somewhere on the margin
an aimless hair
and if on the contrary: silence
of slumbering clouds and between them
a slick sun?
should we rejoice over the ultimate firstborn
or the first final
over rhythm trees
philological trains —
over all secret associates
hope unratified in the wind?
you know
how breadth doubles
and you know pain is
inevitable
and reversible
you see: such a damp place
where love — a twelfth juror
Наши тела образовали иероглиф,
непрерывно меняющий значение:
речная слепота,
колокольная ночь,
взятое на поруки забвение.
Our bodies formed a hieroglyph
uninterrupted change in meaning:
a river blindness
a bell tower night,
an oblivion in custody.
∩
Stanislav Belsky (Станислав Бельский) is a Russian language Ukrainian poet born in 1976 in Dnipropetrovsk. He is also a translator of contemporary Ukrainian poetry to Russian and works as a programmer. He has published thirteen books of poetry in Russian, including most recently: Quarantine Times (2023), On Sunny Concrete (2023), and Friendly Conversations with Robots (2024). His poems have been translated into Italian, Polish, Hebrew and Czech, and published widely in journals nationally and internationally. Belsky is a curator of the poetry book series Тонкие линии [“Thin lines”] and is co-organizer of a Dnipro and Kyiv poetry festival Чернил и плакать [“Get ink and weep”].
olga mikolaivna was born in Kyiv and works in the (intersectional/textual) liminal space of photography, word, translation, and installation. Her debut chapbook cities as fathers is out with Tilted House, and “our monuments to Southern California,” she calls them is forthcoming with Ursus Americanus. Other works can be found in mercury firs, LitHub, Metatron Press, Cleveland Review of Books, and elsewhere.