Managing Editor Lisa Ampleman: I’m floored by the breadth of the images in this poem by Dmitry Blizniuk: mermaids drinking cod-liver oil, whales spouting out dust, a Cyclops crushing sheep. But also a woman headed to the basement, a body of a dog, artillery shells. Blizniuk, in this translation by Sergey Gerasimov, expands the vocabulary of war writing and makes war’s horrors even more stark through juxtaposition and irony.
A Boy Lies Face Down
explosions release heavy fountains
of brick and dust
like sperm whales.
here’s a woman with a bag: cereals, canned food.
she harvests shellfish
at low tide of shelling.
received humanitarian aid
and has to get back home, if there is any.
has to take her time to shower and change,
take her passport, her medications,
before going down to the basement.
people scatter like hares running from hounds.
the body of a dog in the grass: the earth is surprised
and doesn’t want to swallow it.
it feels like a mermaid forced
to drink cod-liver oil.
a boy lies face down,
two ladybugs
make love on a piece of brick.
somewhere, not far behind, the Cyclops crushes houses.
crushes sheep, groping for Odysseus,
for his wife and children.
and some sick, insane aim
drags the boy back like a huge wave
rolling from the shore.
scratches the body against the sand, hauls.
you should jump up and run,
but where to? the messiah
could walk on the waves,
but what about the ground and asphalt
under artillery shells?
in Russian:
взрывы-кашалоты
тяжко испускают фонтаны
кирпичного крошева и пыли.
женщина с кульком: крупы, консервы.
сборщица моллюсков,
отлив обстрела.
получила гуманитарку.
нужно быстро вернуться домой, если он цел.
принять душ, переодеться.
взять паспорт, лекарства.
спуститься в подвал.
люди разбегаются как гончие от зайцев.
труп собаки в траве: земля удивлена,
ей не хочется ее глотать.
так русалку насильно заставляют
пить рыбий жир.
пацан глазами в землю лежит:
две божьи коровки
занимаются любовью на куске кирпича.
а где-то за спиной циклоп давит дома.
ощупывает, крошит овец. ищет Одиссея,
его жену и детей.
и некая больная безумная цель
втягивает пацана за собой
точно громадная волна у берега.
царапает тело о песок. наждак. волочет.
вскочи и беги.
но куда? а мессия
мог гулять по волнам,
по земле и асфальту
под снарядами?
Dmitry Blizniuk is a poet from Ukraine. His most recent poems have appeared in Rattle, The Nation, Prairie Schooner, Plume, The London Magazine, Guernica, Denver Quarterly, Pleiades, and many others.. A Pushcart Prize nominee, he is also the author of The Red Fоrest (Fowlpox Press, 2018). His poems have been awarded RHINO 2022 Translation Prize. He lives in Kharkov, Ukraine. More at the Poets & Writers Directory.
Sergey Gerasimov lives in Kharkiv, Ukraine. He is a writer, poet, and translator of poetry. His stories have appeared in magazines all over the world. His book about the war in Ukraine, Feuerpanorama, in German, can be found on Amazon. NZZ, in Zurich, has published as many as 540 of his antiwar nonfiction pieces since February 24, 2022. A couple of them can be read in English in Another Chicago Magazine.
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