LEV RUBINSTEIN, POET ~

 

L E V    R U B I N S T E I N

MASHA GESSEN

EUGENE OSTASHEVSKY ~

 from The Feeling Sonnets

49.

Some say poetry is already translation.

Thought worded, bordered and ordered. Incorrect.

The word is its own reward in poetry. It reigns over itself.

It is sovereign. The word is weird. It is foreign.

Poetry is when you don't understand the language.

When you don't understand, you stand under. You listen.

What you don't understand is poetry.

What you understand is translation.

Is that true. Or is it just poetry.

If it were true would it be just translation.

"The doubt that is not doubted is not the ever-fixed doubt."

I am reading a study of Laozi, which positions his lines as        

        propositions.

Is there a poetry of propositions.

Is there a poetry where words don't contradict each other.

________________

Eugene Ostashevsky

The Feeling Sonnets

New York Review of Books

2022

EARTHLY SIGNS ~

[ On a second reading

and finding the cloth edition from Yale

I find this an even more powerful reading from Tsvetaeva

as well as a lively translation and revealing

portrait of the Russian poet by Jamey Gambrell ]

WINTER REVELS ~

About One More Wood

From this little wood,

at last,

for ever or for years

the mushrooms have gone.

This happened slowly,

over thirty years.

And now, as I think back,

this disappearance, their "going"

seems one single action,

like the dying away

of a long-lived orchestra

of a long-lived choir.

————————

Gennady Aygi

translated by Peter France

VERA PAVLOVA ~

The Hand Organ Man





Mommy bathed her girl,

Daddy dried her off,

Grandpa hurried with

a nightie for her,

Grandma smoothed the sheets,

brother fluffed the pad,

Mommy laid her down,

Grandpa tucked her in.





[ Pain ]




Pain, you are the sole proof

that my body exists.

You have made your point;

now cease. But I

will never believe

the body is all

there is to me.








[ Crossing ]



Crossing a meadow of daisies,

pushing the pram along

a jolty path (a tiller

behind the plow),

singing peasant-style,

I pluck a daisy: Look!

From the pram a pair

of wide-open eyes

stare back at me.









[ ever ]



ever so gently

the cradle rocks

a bumblebee naps

inside a rosebud

in a puddle the rain

fell asleep like a drunk

where is she loafing

that daughter of ours









[ Making ]



Making love as much as we wish,

skinny-dippy whenever we feel . . .

How is life, naked kids?

Life teems in every cell!

All alone, as in an Eden,

no laws, as in dreams . . .

I spread my skirt on the grass:

life of mine, come to me.









[ I am ]



I am

a nail

being driven in

while I try

to keep

straight

hoping

the carpenter

will get tired

or the hammer

will break

or the board

will crack and I

will roll

into a cozy nook

and will find you there

my love

my love









[ Remember ]



Remember me the way I am

this very instant: brusque and absent,

with a word beating against my cheek

like a butterfly caught in a curtain.









[ at twenty ]



at twenty

to fuck



at thirty

to love



what will I do at forty?



will look lively

will work

will be prod:

see, straight As!



will hope

to be pardoned

at fifty









[ I got ]




tanned all over

on a nameless island:

not a spot omitted,

not a single defect,

I am all like chocolate,

of fresh-brewed tea

from Sri Lanka, but

for one pale streak

under the wedding band.








[ lots ]



lots of knives

but only one cuts

lots of pens

but only one writes

lots of men

but I love only you

maybe at last you will

sharpen the knives?



——————————————

Vera Pavlova
Album for the Young (and Old)
Knopf 2017
translated from the Russian by Steven Seymour

OSIP MANDELSTAM ~

Voronezh Notebooks



25



Goldfinch, friend, I'll cock my head —

Let's check the world out, just me and you:

This winter's day pricks like chaff;

Does it sting your eyes too?



Boat-tailed feathers yellow-black,

Sopped in color beneath your beak,

Do you get, you goldfinch you,

Just how you flaunt it?



What's he thinking, little airhead —

White and yellow, black and red!

Both eyes check both ways — both! —

Will check no more — he's bolted!

                                          December 9-27, 1936



__________________________ 

O S I P     M A N D E L S T A M 
Voronezh Notebooks
translated by Andrew Davis

New York Review of Books 2016

Mandelstam wrote this beauty two years before his death in 1938, still a young enough man. Fearless and unpopular with the Soviet authorities (Stalin), he was sentenced to hard labor in Siberia and last seen in a transit camp near Vladivostok.