ГРАД НА ПЕРВОЙ МЕЩАНСКОЙ

by Arseny Tarkovsky

Бьют часы на башне,

Подымается ветер,

Прохожие – в парадные,

Хлопают двери,

По тротуару бегут босоножки,

Дождь за ними гонится,

Бьется сердце,

Мешает платье,

И розы намокли.

Град

расшибается вдребезги

над самой липой…

Все же

Понемногу отворяются окна,

В серебряной чешуе мостовые,

Дети грызут ледяные орехи.

Hail on First Petit-Bourgeois Street

by Arseny Tarkovsky

tongues in the tower

pound the bells to sound

wind lifts everyone

rushes into entrances doors

slam along the sidewalk sandals

patter rain chasing behind

her heart pounds

her wet dress itches

& the roses are soaked

hail

shatters

above the very linden

still

little by little windows open—

cobblestones slick in silver scales

& children gobble up the nuts of ice

translated from Russian by Philip Metres & Dmitri Psurtsev

Arseny Tarkovsky lived from 1907 until 1989, and spent most of his life as a translator of Turkmen, Georgian, Armenian, Arabic, and other Asian poets, only publishing his own poems after Stalin’s death (beginning in 1962). Of a younger generation than Akhmatova, Mandelstam, and Tsvetaeva, he absorbed the Silver Age tradition yet hearkened back to the primordial music of Pushkin. He was wounded in World War II, lost a leg to gangrene, and wrote some of the most powerful poems about the Second World War. Later, his son Andrei became an internationally celebrated filmmaker; in a number of his great films, Andrei features his father’s poems, demonstrating the aesthetic continuation of the Russian tradition from poetry to film.

Philip Metres has written a number of books and chapbooks, most recently A Concordance of Leaves (Diode 2013), abu ghraib arias (Flying Guillotine 2011), winner of the 2012 Arab American Book Award in poetry, To See the Earth (Cleveland State 2008), and Behind the Lines: War Resistance Poetry on the American Homefront since 1941 (University of Iowa 2007). His work has appeared in Best American Poetry, and Inclined to Speak: Contemporary Arab American Poetry, and has garnered two NEA fellowships, the Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, four Ohio Arts Council Grants, the Anne Halley Prize, the Arab American Book Award, and the Cleveland Arts Prize. He teaches literature and creative writing at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio. See http://www.philipmetres.com and http://behindthelinespoetry.blogspot.com for more information.

Dimitri Psurtsev (b. 1960) is a Russian poet and translator of British and American prose-writers and poets (to name a few, Dylan Thomas, James Aldridge, AS Byatt, L.F. Baum, John Steinbeck, L.H. Hix, Dana Gioia). His two books of poetry, Ex Roma Tertia and Tengiz Notebook were published in 2001; these and later poems can be found online. Dimitri teaches translation at Moscow State Linguistic University and lives with his wife Natalia and daughter Anna outside Moscow.