A Poem in Translation: Ravenous Russia (A Bestiary)

In Acapulco at the airport,

standing in line

to get on the plane

to Newark,

I heard that language,

flappy like a worn shoe

on a naked foot,

spoken by our fellow cellmates

from the prison of nations,

perhaps even from Kyiv,

spoken with such gusto

that my ears hurt from it,

got sick to my stomach,

threw up right there,

nearly coughed up my guts,

people said, look at that!

Montezuma’s revenge!

it’ll get you sooner or later,

even on the stairs to the plane,

language of vomit

spewing out of the mouth of the coal miner

Saturday night

because there’s no place

for his despair to go,

when he’s lying face down on the dirty sidewalk,

pressing his cheek to it,

that of his only friend,

and sees with his eye full of blood

that’s like tears

running down his face

the monotonous sopka hills of days

on the horizon of life,

language of the rotten moonshine vodka,

drunk day, after day,

by the proletariat nations

in the gray barracks of their republics,

language of the refined Stolichnaya lie

made in Moscow,

that’s distributed to all republics of the Union,

language of motherfucking

that’s stuffed in the mouths

of the people of other nations

so that they wouldn’t talk in their native language,

language of the breaking of fibers

of tongues being torn out

from the mouths of the people of other nations

so that they wouldn’t talk in their native language,

language of the babbling

coming out of the mouths of people of other nations

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after their tongues have been torn out,

language of the garlic sausage

sewn on in place of their tongues

after they’d been torn out,

language of the color of blackboards

after their identity has been wiped off

the minds of the children of other nations,

language of the blank stare of Ukrainians

when they are spoken to in their native language,

language of the Ukrainian child who thinks it’s spoken to in Polish,

when it’s addressed in Ukrainian,

hearing it for the first time,

language you hear last before being shot,

language which he heard for the first time since childhood,

the deaf Vlyz’ko

when the bullet entered his brain,

language of the color of carnation

with which Vlyz’ko’s brain exploded

as he was shot in the back of his head,

language of the violet color of Kosynka’s screaming

before his being shot,

language of violets to which Kosynka was calling out

before being shot,

language of violets which shot up on the horizon

at the instant Kosynka was shot,

language of the lilac color prisoners see

through window bars at dawn

after an endless sleepless night,

language of the rose-colored dawn

reflected on the fingers of a prisoner

white from clutching the window bars all night,

language of the shape of window bars

on the other side of which the lily of the horizon bends

in the direction opposite from the head of the prisoner,

language of the lily of the head of the prisoner

which bends in the direction of the horizon

on the other side of the window bars,

language of the cement floors

that lightning-fast fly into the mouths

of those at the instant of being shot,

language of cement floors

stuck forever in the mouths of those who’d been shot,

language of the permanent taste of concrete

of those, who’d been shot,

language of the water

used to wash down the cement floor after an execution,

language of cold water poured over prisoners during interrogation,

language of cold water poured over prisoners

to bring them back to life before the execution,

language in which Hayet yelled,

punching Pluzhnyk in the face during interrogation,

language, which Pluzhnyk heard

while falling down like a brick tower in a Surrealist film,

punched in the face by Hayet,

language, in which Stalin gave orders

to create famine in Ukraine in 1933,

language, in which Kaganovich

ordered how to create famine in Ukraine in 1933,

language of his smile that spread from ear to ear

as he followed the famine in Ukraine in 1933,

language of his eyes that shone with pleasure

as he followed the famine in Ukraine in 1933,

language, which made the feet of Ukrainians

take on the color and weight of lead to stop them from moving

in order to save themselves during the famine in Ukraine in 1933,

language, which made the bodies of Ukrainians light as feathers

so that they could flee the earth and fly to heaven

during the famine in Ukraine in 1933,

language, which made Ukrainian’s swollen feet

crack and ooze stinking liquid during the famine in Ukraine in 1933,

language, which made Ukrainian children whine like spoiled brats

while dying during the famine in Ukraine in 1933,

language, which made the eyes of Ukrainians who were dying

roll under the forehead like smoke of censors rising to heaven

during the famine in Ukraine in 1933,

language of the plan to exterminate the Ukrainian nation,

one of the largest in the world,

language of the groping with his pale hand

of the blind Yuriy Shukhevych,

language of the barbed wire of cancer

in Vasyl’ Stus’ stomach,

language of the quiet death of Tykhy, Lytvyn

and ten million of other Ukrainians,

language of the ten years of silence of the exiled Shevchenko,

language of the sound of his pencil

which was forbidden to touch paper for ten years,

language of the sound of the pen scratching the paper

while signing the order forbidding him to write and paint,

[…]

you’re nothing but a huge mouth, Russia,     

from the Baltic Sea to the Bering,

from the White Sea to the Black,         

you devour everything—space, matter,

ideas, philosophy, religion, language,

culture, topsoil, granite, sand, wheat,

air, water, coal, iron ore, electricity,

nations, people, their family life, you

keep on swallowing, your eyes bulge out of

your head, tears run down your cheeks from the

strain, you mumble that you can’t go on, that you

want more, you’re an addict, Russia, you

can’t kick the habit of the drug called

empire, you suffer from the priapism

of imperialism, your borders bulge constantly like

pants up front, you’re not Third Rome, you’re

the Last Empire, look in the mirror—your face is all

gray and your cheeks sunken from the imperialist

cancer, when will you get well, when will your

De Gaull finally be born? time

creaks like old boards, it’s that famous

actor (Kremlin star) playing his lonely

role on the stage of history, he struts

around and proudly sticks out his hump like chest, a

minute more, and out, out will go his short

(brief) candle and silent will fall his

language, full of sound and fury that signify

nothing (there’s no doubt he won’t be able to save

the empire), it’s the May of nations, only

two in the morning, and sooner or later you’ll

have to sell that Chekhov cherry orchard of the empire

left for you by your forebearers tsars you’ve

gotten to like so much, Russia, you’ll pack your

bags and will wait in vain for the new

owner to ask you for your daughter’s hand in

marriage and for you to stay on, the noise on the

gravel path made by the wheels of the

carriage taking you to the station, from

which you’ll go on a journey you’ll never

return from will barely die down, when there’ll

be heard the sound of the ax chopping down a

tree (the cherry tree of nostalgia), which

will not worry about what’s going

on in you stone-hard sentimental

heart!

“Ravenous Russia” is Yuriy Tarnawsky’s own translation of an excerpt of Chapter 5 of his book-length poem U RA NA, first published in 1992 by M. P. Kots Publishing and reprinted in his second volume of collected poetry in Ukrainian They Don’t Exist in 1999, published by Rodovid. The title alludes to a neon sign on a decrepit hotel, in which some letters have gone out. So, for Tarnawsky, Ukraine is like a 1983 welfare hotel with the letters “K” and “I” dark. The poem was prompted by the 1986 Chornobyl explosion and deals with the situation in Ukraine during the Perestroika years. But if the situation for the country was alarming then, it is much more so now, and the author’s rage and lamenting are doubly justified to be made public today.

NOTES:

Oleksa Vlyz’ko (1908-1934), poet, and Hryhoriy Kosynka (1989-1934), prose writer, prominent authors, two of more than 300 other outstanding Ukrainian cultural figures executed by the Soviet regime in the 1930’s purges.  According to a witness report, Kosynka behaved as described during his execution. 

Yevhen Pluzhnyk (1898-1936), poet, another prominent Ukrainian author, who, gravely ill, was sentenced to a labor camp, where he died soon after being committed.  M. Hayet, Pluzhnyk’s brutal interrogator.

Yuriy Shukhevych (1933-2022), son of Gen. Roman Shukhevych, commander in chief of UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army). While teenager, was committed to a prison camp, where he lost his eyesight.

Vasyl Stus (1938-1985), Ukrainian poet, who died in a prison camp under suspicious circumstances.

Oleksa Tykhy [Ukr. “quiet’] (1927-1984) and Yuriy Lytvyn (1934-1984), Ukrainian dissidents, who perished in Soviet concentration camps.

Famous actor, Kremlin star – Mikhail Gorbachev [Rus. “gorb” – “hump”], hence he sticks out his hump like chest.