A Nativity Poem by Valentin Berestov

Valentin Berestov (undated photograph) / Image courtesy of Pskov's Centralized Library System

[NOTE: As I have done in previous years, I'm posting a nativity poem for the Christmas season. Enjoy!]

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Yuletide
by Valentin Berestov

Every year, when Christ is born,
beauty comes into the world.        

January icicles
flood with light.      
January ice-crust  
holds your weight.

January snow grants you speed.
It glitters and blushes at noon,  
it gleams in the half-light of the moon.
And every January day
outstretches its own yesterday.
And each night feels just the time  
for feasting, revelry, and wine.

1985

Translated from the Russian by Jamie Olson

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Translator’s note: Russian Orthodox Christians, who follow the Julian calendar for all church holidays, celebrate Christmas on January 7, not December 25.

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Slutsky's Gaze

Boris Slutsky (1963) / Image courtesy of Radio Svoboda

Holding a Gaze

   by Boris Slutsky

An honest man

should look others straight in the eye.

We don’t know why.

What if the honest man

has watery, bloodshot eyes?

What if the dishonest one

has terrific eyesight? 

Somehow, those who served as safe-keepers

in every time and place

learned to judge truthfulness

by firmness of gaze.

Did the spies who protected,

say, Sulla really have the right

to sort dishonest from honest?

And was Tamerlane’s secret service,

for instance, really

made up of moralists?

Everyone who sees has the right

to run their eyes madly up and down

and be judged not by their gaze,

not by scent or sound,

but by word and deed.    

Translated by Jamie Olson

Pineapples in champagne!

First edition of Severyanin's Pineapples (1915) / Image courtesy of allpix.com

Overture

Igor Severyanin

Pineapples in champagne! Pineapples in champagne!

Spectacularly sparkling—tasty and zesty!

I dive into Norway, I’m swimming in Spain!

With a mind-bolt of vision, I jump for my pencil!

The whirr of airplanes! The buzz of racecars!

Wing-beats from iceboats! Wind-claps from train cars!

Hey, someone got beat up! Whoa, someone got kissed!

Pineapples in champagne—the nighttime’s own pulse!

With nervous girls, in a crowd of tough dames,

I’ll change life’s tragedy to dreamlike farce…

Pineapples in champagne! Pineapples in champagne!

From Moscow to Nagasaki! From New York to Mars!

January 1915

Petrograd

Translated from the Russian by Jamie Olson