Mairamkan Abilkasimova's future-faith

The world is scared of overpopulation,
and I know it has been said

this is the end of evolution,
we have sliced the world into destruction.

But these superfluous babies
keep getting born, and I am calm:

spring keeps coming round
and children keep running out into it

with their faces wiped clean
by mothers who believe it matters,

and so far the old sun keeps shining
on the new era, tanning our babies,

helping along our landscaping,
making our work worth while.

page 244

Vladimir Mayakovsky's kindness to horses

It sounded like the hooves were singing:
sto
ste
sto
ste;
it must have been the street that skidded!

Perhaps the street tripped
on the horse: anyway, the poor horse
hearse
horse
hearse
horse
scooted on its rump along the street
like a coffin scooting into the fire.

Nobody had any reason to be out anyway,
except to show off their flares
and laugh
ha
he
ha
he
at the horse,

oh come and see! But I, I alone
did not merge my voice
in the chorus,
no, I
walked up
and saw the horse's eyes …

page 245

The street had fallen over and nobody had noticed
but the horse: I saw large drops
were rolling down its face
here
there
here
there
burying themselves
in its hair.

Oh horse, you mustn't, oh horse, listen horse:
don't think you are worse than they are!
We are all of us horses, to some extent! Horse?

Perhaps it didn't think it needed a nurse
horse
nurse
horse
nurse,
perhaps my thought seemed trite to the horse,

at anyrate, up it got with a jerk, and a flick
of its tail, and cheerfully returned
sto
ste
sto
ste
and stood in its stall,

and all the time it felt like a colt,
and that life was worth living, and work

worth
while.

page 246

Mayakovsky's five-rayed hands

1.
She loves me? She loves me not?
I wring my hands and scatter my fingers

one one one one as I pull them off.
No good! I need eleven fingers, but

my hands are five rayed,
left
right
left
right
she loves me not.

2.
It is past one o'clock.
She must have gone to bed.

There is no point
in materialising with telegrams,

bleaching out the walls
of her flat.

3.
The sea is retiring, it is late,
the incident is closed.

page 247

Love's boat has shattered
against the frou-frou of the everyday,

we are both washed down the gutter,
I won't be suing her, I'm hosed.

4.
It is past one o'clock.
She must have gone to bed.

The milky way spills across the sky
like a daisy chain.
I'm in no hurry.
One
one
one
one:
I'll pick them off.

There's no point
in waking her with telegrams,

the incident, as they say,
is closed.

I won't be suing her,
drawing up a list of sorrows and pain—

Look! See how the sky holds onto the stars:

you'd almost think you could address history,
and the future would be listening.

page 248

5.
I know the power of words,
not the words they applaud in the theatre,
one
one
one
one,
never breaking out of their coffins,

I don't mean those, I mean when words
discard you, unprinted, unpublished,

and gallop off, tightening the saddle-girth,
ringing for centuries,
sto
ste
sto
ste,
and railway trains creep up to lick poetry's
calloused hands.

I know the power of words,
though they might look (at times) like petals

trampled underfoot.

page 249

Bella Akhmadulina's umbrella

I let you go like an umbrella,
pulling into the wind.
I won't look to see where you are going—
anyway, all I can see
is the rain.

It hasn't been at all hard to live
in someone else's house.
There's a cicada I listen to
sto
ste
sto
ste—
an insistent singing
the whole family
has had to get used to.

If I can't sleep, I look out the window.
There is always some sleepless star to reply.
And my dreams, you want to know
where they live? Are you thinking
they are homeless?

They are right there where I left them,
where the tallest young man in the world
used to stand between
the rain and me.

I let them go like an umbrella,
north to north.

page 250

Bella Akhmadulina's motor-scooter

It is your scooter I am looking at,
your scooter I would follow
from traffic light to traffic light,
café to café,
loitering with intent
to look:

those flying wheels, that red paint!
I am a poet, I haven't even got a cell-phone.
I follow your scooter with my eyes
like a little daughter,
wanting to touch.
I even envy your shiny raincoat.

I feel like a snail, my poetry around me
like a dirty shell.

Still the future will reach us both
just as soon, here it comes
sto
ste
sto
ste
bearing down on us
with metal feet.

At least when the future has squashed me
onto the tarmac of today

I will leave behind me
a silver trail.

page 251

Raisa Akhmatova's happiness

Nothing in life came easy to me,
this pewter plaited through my hair

is my award for getting up in the morning
and sometimes even doing the dishes

and sometimes even speaking my mind.
I have had tantrums, oh I have had tantrums.

I won't draw up a list of sorrows
and pain; when I skid like a horse on ice

I'll get up, trot off, sto, ste, sto, ste.
It is the happiness that is hardest to bear.