We find pieces that have been translated from a different language to be especially demonstrative of the wide reach that writing of all kinds can have, and Dmitry’s poem (translated to English by Sergey Gerasimov) is no exception. Enjoy.
It is Almost Dawn
The pillow is soaked in tears:
your face has wetted itself like a puppy,
and the eyelashes flutter, ashamed.
I pierce our seventh heaven
with my congealed madness,
like with a piece of rusty wire.
Tears sparkle like glass wool.
I push you away to see you better.
I’m a tree, you are a branch on my body.
You blindly grow around the iron fence
like a wooden, knobby snake.
We argue; we pick up a fight.
A cat bites its own shoulder.
Like kids or stray dogs,
We run across the highway –
it’s wet and black after the recent rain –
and the semi trucks of cruel words
swish past, honk their horns, powerful, angry, roaring.
Chitin-plated maniacs
race around on the motorbikes of interjections,
hit the guard rail and ricochet,
and cut the bloodied plastic.
Gosh! We’ve nearly killed each other with words.
It is almost dawn…
—
Dmitry Blizniuk is an author from Kharkiv, Ukraine. His most recent poems have appeared in The Pinch Journal, River Poets, Dream Catcher, Magma, Press53, Sheila Na Gig, Palm Beach Poetry Festival and many others. A Pushcart Prize nominee, he is also the author of The Red Fоrest (Fowlpox Press, Canada 2018).
Sergey Gerasimov lives in Kharkiv, Ukraine. His writings span the gamut from philosophical poetry to surrealism and tongue-in-cheek fantasy. His stories have appeared in Adbusters, Clarkesworld Magazine, Strange Horizons, and others. Also, he is the author of several novels and more than a hundred short stories published mostly in Russian. Translator of Russian poetry and prose.