Two Poems
Julia Samorodova
Alpha and Omega
The city is the same. The nagging pain
still lingers.
The winking of the windows.
A shard of the sun,
sliding to nowhere. The lazy claret red beans
are thrown up into the sky.
Yes, an evening is an exhalation.
A heavy sleep laminated like mica
is already on its way.
The cold inside of a rectangular honeycomb cell.
An open sofa, a bad novel:
to read a bit and drop in the middle.
Yes, Pale Blue Dot is all the same: so many countries,
so little use. And a big block of ice.
I want to be where villages
have replaced cities,
and auls have replaced villages.
The water will stop
and rest on the sharpened crests,
turn back and flow away.
The grace of night
and the skiffs of clouds
will catch on mountainous aerial moorings.
And your life as simple as a ledum flower
will begin from the start.
Alpha and Omega is
the warm side of a yurta
and the big secret place of the sky
that has spread a beaded girdle
above the motionless, sleepy aul.
The night frost.
The heat of your soul.
And your cheekbones scratched by the wind.
Wide Awake
I think I’m wide awake,
but still I’m dreaming.
I float and push apart with my hands
the immature spring.
I push off from the trees.
Dream or no dream,
I need to stay afloat,
not to drown.
You’re supposed to have my back.
Look, all the trees are naked.
Dishonest nudes,
and the birds,
bristling their feathers,
shout into their deaf phones.
Oh, it’s so good that I’m in love with you!
And it’s so good
to hurry along the streets, across the parks,
to see you.
And the world
seems not so foul.
(Translated by Sergey Gerasimov from Russian.)
Julia Samorodova is an author from Russia. Her most recent poems have appeared in Triggerfish Critical Review and PRESENCE.