Modern Russian Poetry/Not by Hands Created

←

Piotr Oreshin

Modern Russian Poetry

Not by Hands Created by Pyotr Oreshin

Anatoly Marienhof

→

1562506Modern Russian Poetry — Not by Hands CreatedPyotr Oreshin

NOT BY HANDS CREATED

1

Fall on your face,

Drop
Mug-forward into the swamps.
With your old were-wolf's eye,
Cataract-blinded,
Look
What a blade I am!

2

Carrot-haired

Big-browed dawns,
And the darkness of forests,
Rye,
And the sheaves behind the village,—
My body.

3

Long ears,

Tufted with red hair,
Wag
Like asses' ears
Through the heavens!

4

Two

Convulsed eyes—
Two
Oceans resting in me,

And thick
Bulbous lashes
Burning green
On my cheek-bones.

5

My stone mouth

Is stretched with song
From east to west.

6

Legs

And hoofs
Kicked skyward
And
The claw
On my hairy paw
Blazes.

7

Gorged

And motionless,
Like a bull,
I have squatted, rock-fast,
In a long shirt
Of sunsets,
And I sit now
Sprawled out
On the fat hill of the universe.

8

Dark forests

Grow
On my hairy belly,
And in the stony fir-trees
Gray wolves,
In cope and coif,
Having lit a taper,
Serve
The mass.

9

Eternal,

Not by hands created,
I roll my eyes heavily
As roll the mill-stones
Of the blue
Mills
Of heaven.

10

Slowly

I chew the cud of gray clouds,
And
Think
Of perishing brothers
With my wise
Cheerful belly.

11

Through closed lids

I see
Between my legs new rivers
Heave
New ground
Upon golden
Crests.

12

Listening to the earth,

I spit
With out-thrust, lower lip,
And lo!
Rains
Pour with the sound of spears
And, clinking,
Pierce the earth.

13

Eternal,

Not by hands created,
With the spirit of Life-giving Spring
I sweep
The tilled field,
And
On the naked knees of the universe
I pour
The blue waters
Of My Eternal Triumph.
Hosannah in the highest!

This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.

Original:

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.

The longest-living author of this work died in 1938, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 85 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse

Translation:

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.

This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse