Dmitry Blizniuk
(translated by Sergey Gerasimov from Russian)
Autumn is a hungry scorpion
with a sticky hatch of babies on her back.
No one cherishes her, no one gives her shelter,
and only a poet reaches his hand out and says, “Hop to me!”
In autumn, one in every two is, if not a poet, then an embryo of Homer.
Three read-haired weeks have passed, without rains or shiver,
and one in every three is poisoned with the gorgeous poison,
and maple leaves crunch and rustle underfoot
like autumn chips with Alexander Pushkin flavor.
And the city, the city,
gradually and heavily and sadly goes into pre-winter hibernation.
A janitor sucks his nicotine paw,
satiating himself with the bear fat of homely dreams.
I’ll never forget all these landscapes –
urban, terrestrial, autumnal,
with their worm-eaten chambers and heaps of decaying gold,
with crooked nails in a rotten frame,
with the naked wind, strolling barefoot on the leaves
like someone invisible on the sharp shells on the beach.
I’ll never forget them, no matter where I end up tomorrow:
in any inferno or paradise, or on a strange planet.
Thank you, thank you, thank you…
***
Dmitry Blizniuk is an author from Ukraine. His most recent poems have appeared in The Pinch, Press53, Magma Poetry, The Nassau Review, Havik, Saint Katherine Review, Star 82, Naugatuck River, Lighthouse, The Gutter, Palm Beach Poetry Festival and many others. A Pushcart Prize nominee, he is also the author of “The Red Fоrest” (Fowlpox Press, 2018). He lives in Kharkov, Ukraine.