How the granite is covered in ice - Boris Ryzhy

How the granite is covered in ice,

and a frost lies on the ground –

This town, frosted with memories,

I want to leave it for ever.

There’ll be warm station beer,

there’ll be a cloud overhead,

there’ll be melancholy music –

I’m saying farewell for good.

More than sky, warmth, humanity,

more than dark sorrow, the poet.

Pointless discussing the eternal,

or anything that simply isn’t.

On the river Kama this happened,

the blue-black Kama’s wings,

where Mandelstam screamed his toothless song

at the Pushkinites for free.

A prisoner pulls off his coat at the end of the carriage

knocks out a pane with his fist

(like Grigor’ev drunk with the gypsies)

and stands barefoot on the glass.

For a long time the blood pours across the floor.

For a long time the blood drips from his fist.

And the sky rushes in through the opening

and the clouds rest on his head.

I was born – even now can’t believe it –

in a labyrinth of factory yards

in that dove-like land, divided

between crooks and the nick a thousand years.

That’s why I hate diminutives

and when someone comes round mine

and asks with a smile for vinegar

I always comply.

Bedjackets, bookshelves,

photos of Dad – all revolt

the ones who squat on the bare earth

and know how to sit it all out.

The memory-heap: all different, different,

as the one who is dead once foretold,

what doesn’t fit in is beautiful,

what can’t find a place in the soul.

Too much of everything can’t find a place.

There are trains standing in the station –

Time to go. A boy and his mum say goodbye.

They’ve enlisted her poor boy. ‘Now you write –

A letter at least or we’ll worry, my pet.’

At partings dawn is way worse

Than sunset. Give me a kiss, then!

More than dark sorrow, the poet.

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Boris Borisovich Ryzhy (1974 - 2001) Russia

Translated by Sasha Dugdale

Source: Modern Poetry in Translation Series 3 No. 1 - 2004