Translation of Anya Logvinova, Contemporary Russian Poet

So, hiena. I have returned to our town.
I am comical in this leather topgoat.
From beneath my legs jump buckyards
and cardinalleys flutter.
We live in Moscow, therefore we’re mosquitos,
used to drinking at the Red Mare.
I leave my doormice open
and my windoes also.
I don’t write my credo on crossfox
or on hary leaves of cabbage.
We cockle every Wednesday
so therefore on Thursdays we’re mouserable
Once the allitator wanted anarchy
but now boardom makes him squint.
Tell me about my minxoft cheeks
in the language of kangorussian.

Ну, жирафствуй. Я в наш город вернулась.
Я смешная в этой кожаной куртке.
Из-под ног выскакивают кулицы
и вспархивают переутки.
Мы живём в Москве, мы - москиты,
впившиеся в Красную лошадь.
Оставляю все медвери открытыми
и волкна тоже.
Я на зебрах не пишу своё кредо.
Лишь на заячьих листочках капустных.
Мы змеёмся каждую среду,
но зато по четвергам нам мангрустно.
Раньше буйвольски хотелось анархий,
а теперь глаза от кротости узкие.
Расскажи мне про мои щёки хомягкие
на языке кенгурусском.

- Translated by Larissa Shmailo

"Skin" by Larissa Shmailo

Skin


My tongue is bruised
My nude is creaky
Like a cabbage I sit and wait for you
I stutter like an old gun:
Take me
Know
The fast love of my hair.

Your beady little eyes transfix me
Like rats at the foot of my bed
Your limp pendant wrists still hang on my door
You snicker: Get a grip.

You own too big a piece of me
Your eyes say spare some change and I
Don’t want to I
Take and give no quarter and I’ve
Already cut my hair.

Skin is just sausage we call home.
Skin is just sausage we call home.



- Larissa Shmailo

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Larissa Shmailo is a poet and a translator. Her book In Paran is available from Amazon.com and Small Press Distribution. Her poetry CDs Exorcism and The No-Net World, with music by Bobby Perfect. are available from iTunes and CDBaby. Larissa translated the Russian transrational opera Victory over the Sun by A. Kruchenych; a DVD of the original English-language production is part of the collections of the New York Museum of Modern Art and the Hirshorn Museum.