Poems of Ihor PAVLYUK

Translation by Yurii LAZIRKO (English)

A GIRL

The doorway leads to Granny.

A barefoot girl, she cries.

Wraith-wristed, in its waning

The fall is foiling eyes.

A rooster’s crow stops pouring

When coolness fills her soul.

"For whom do you feel sorry?”

The girl replies,

"For all…"

THE RIGHT TO BE A LONE WOLF

The right to be a wolf, a lone one – costs me,

Paid through the nose,

As skies would pay with whitish silk and closely

Watch how it glows.

There was a paw, the front paw trapped and throbbing,

Shots reached my back.

The fall rain falls, my heart receives the sobbing

Thought white-round cracks.

From times of yore, presumably, black-listed

In lefts and rights

I am among den-brothers coexisting,

No-picking-sides.

Oh mother, you aren’t here to melt the curses,

As well as toots…

A cross that on my chest is thin as mercies

And tall as flutes.

The shadows come of legendary writers

In waves and ranks.

They are as out of space, as autumn-gliders,

As Lethe’s banks.

Their honest glory – posthumous and ceded,

Partaken wealth.

The right to be, the right to die as needed,

As being Self.

TO FLY AND FALL

To fly – it’s easy, to fall – to slam well.

Who is the scratcher of doors to trammel?

Who is the beggar for fame or money?

Here, all are givers – from fools to honeys.

The mix of water and blood – old vintage.

You fell; the homeland takes up with drinking.

It goes with songs out, returns are salty.

Three deaths, one wedding – seems odd and faulty.

The honey-moon is a footless fighter.

Out of three hundred – three left, oh Mighty…

This is a white dove, my father’s grayness.

He is so lonely, his charms amaze me.

To fly – it’s easy, to fall – to slam well,

To break the doors and to feel the trammel.

TOO LATE TO RALLY

Too late to rally,

The game – a battle…

My song is sallied,

The prayer settles.

While snow gets sleepy

Because the lute chants

The past is leaping,

As chasing future.

The heart is savvy,

Became a bell ring.

Inertias – bevies.

One crown to once-win,

One empty pocket,

One love – you must-mean.

You sense how lucky

Last moments have been.

And honey’s darker,

Less honest pain is

For great the markers

When silence reins us.

The wind is endless,

A star – a mortal.

The shirt of candle

Torn by black-portals.

Too late to rally,

The game – a battle…

My song is sallied,

The prayer settles.

NOW IS FUMING

This snow still fumes.

It’s time to make a horse.

A will looks really cheap without revolts.

A stubble field

Was shaved, and now it’s coarse

that stabs, as Love once tamed but never sold.

This life goes fast, much faster than the time.

It hardly touches happiness and smiles.

It leaves no traces, only bells to chime,

to roam through native places and exiles.

I’ll trample down the snow for "easy go”.

Such way diseased are kissed and those with wings.

I recognize myself among my woes

As wines of pristine rivers do begin…

Whatever’s funny – comes with bits of jolt,

And what is broken – would be hart to bend.

Perhaps, the time will catch us after all,

Look straight in eyes, and leave for After-Land.

The world is simply simple, such as snow,

But its complexity – in every flake.

So, therefore you’ll see a frosty brow

Of roadside-flowers windows try to make.

A tiny wick

becomes a blood-streamed vein,

Groves to transparency –

a mystery…

This snow still fumes,

I hear an endless say –

How in advance is written

history.

INVENTED

The wind was invented

As well as those waters and stars.

Enjoyable paintings

of crying, presented by cheeks.

The joy is a river,

The left arm embedded so far.

I call it – a giver

Of pure salty droplets, a shriek.

More scars on the right one

That loves holding crosses and pens.

For being a knight once

I know how to grip tight the hilt.

The strings were invented,

As tendons, so endless and tense.

Bread pulp, slugs to enter

And seal ruby entrance with guilt.

The hole from the bullet,

The pulp can’t repair it or plug

When grounds are truly

Hot lavas that flow under feed.

You destined to follow

The steps of ancestors to snug.

Return from the hollow

As spring weeps of cranes, as a seed.

And someone will greet you…

And candles, as chorus, shall sing

About how "I’m freed” used,

About what you cherished the most.

Create then the bloom-floor,

Caress barkless maples and think

Again you will die for

What others would keep for a toast.

A WOMAN

Neither joy nor sorrow to restore,

Dreamed about her as a crane to soar.

Do you see the woman? She’s a sea

And I love her as a song to sing.

On the blue porch of a tale, on hay,

On the right side of a tsar she lays.

She’s the woman which received the grace

Such as monastery icons face.

Look – a fox sleeps on her pallid neck,

And a sable plays with tresses – you can check.

She is neither holy nor a slut

For she’s blessed with children, in a rut.

And when Fate was changing finger-rings,

As a willow all its golden strings,

Falling down – like bleeding heart in size,

Going up – the Passion of the Christ.

Who’s the one who should embrace her now?

Angel binds the Satan as tree boughs.

She’s the sea to wander and address,

In a black-white sail she should be dressed.

CHRIST

The wind of subway – the tunnel smell,

eternal ways for masqueraded souls to fly.

When Christ stepped in, as to a desert from a dell,

they sat

and ate,

they laughed at him

but didn’t crucify.

They blamed on rulers – the heavens’ ones and plain.

Before the crowd calmed down, it was as tight as fists.

Then someone slapped him gently on the shoulder, "Say,

be honest only – who are the winners, losers on your list?"

He, who was tired of endless revolutions, came

and threw a branch into the ancient fire’s arms.

He asked them, as Barabbas once, their names.

He was a carpenter…

And nails were blooming

on his palms.

MADE OF STONE OR SNOW

It’s winter time.

I see the rowan berries

as drops of brilliant red.

A bellowing of bullfinches –

the harvesting on blood.

I should expect a woman –

mysterious  and sad.

She’ll brighten all my thoughtlessness,

enlighten ways to spud.

Then somewhere in a forest

we’ll make a lady out

of snow. She’ll look ridiculous,

unlikely to abhor.

She’ll bring the same rejoinders

as that – with stony pout.

But which of two is timeless more?

…the one who’s poignant or…

IN A GLASS PUB

The North is flickering

Like pupils in a fox.

It’s autumn.

I am sitting in a pub.

Where are we going now?

What is this pointless vox?

The strata –

Flawless sadness in a hub.

The smoke of modern songs

contaminates the air.

The livid

Tunes come out in steady waves.

But we are breaking codes

Of secret signs and share

The spirit

And above-the-people Grace.

The light is light and sad,

The light is gloomy, chalks.

Perfumes eat

Crowded space and search for more.

And someone says to me

That trains go "West” and flocks

Resume its

Fall routine, the destined soar.

A candle as the tears

of old and ailing elks,

It’s trickling

Till the dawn when manners – gone

For everyone who’s here,

For those who buy and sell.

Keep drinking,

take your time to pull a gun.

They wear their scars, tattoos.

Their bitches bitch... and blue.

I’m wordless.

I am senseless to their pains

For what they feel and do

For poems,

fatherlands, and flying cranes.

Or maybe they still drink

Because the sorrow shows

as church is –

women age that no one tells, 

Or hungry children who

Forgot the touch of love

And searching…

Barrels with the blank-bang shells.

The door’s a coffin lid,

Wide-opened for sunrays.

I welcome

Plans the world possesses, brings

Its Likeness to God’s soul.

As mercury – dawn’s gray

and stays calm.

Choose to go by any means.