HALLUCINOGRAM

Elena Georgievskaya
Translated by Alex Karsavin

a woman clothed with the sun uplifts the fallen
tears off a piece of her robe, hands it to him
but the saved says to her: woman, your sun will not fit
i will don the black sun of the pig’s uniform
i was launched by the light’s developer, i came round
looking for desolation’s cobwebs, but it was clear
splendid things brimmed in each corner—there was nothing to cling to
now there’s someone to look up to
now there’s plenty to pick from​—the new seriousness of buttons and ​peaked caps
the subtle irony of collaboration

so die for us, black sun of the pig’s uniform
i would like to gaze upon each, in whose head
the mongolian wind whirls the gypsy’s wheel
under the downpour of russian hatred
to gather them up and lead them out
they are obscured by the black sun of the baltids, grey uniform grey being the new black
i enumerated him: element A, element B plus element C
to me he’s the elements, to him we are lemmings
kicking the bucket under the water’s grey surface
we are reborn as worms under the bark of a needlessly felled tree;
reinventing the wheel, we close our eyes
so as not to see the black sun of the pig’s uniform
but it’s a hallucinogram, it flares up
and spawns into phosphenes, breaking our labyrinth
and now, ahead of us, we have a graying road, an immense straight road
to the sun
ze
xenos


жена, облеченная в солнце, подхватывает падающего
отрывает кусок одеянья, протягивает ему
и спасенный ей говорит: не подойдет твое солнце, жена
я надену черное солнце ментовской формы
свет-разработчик запустил тебя, ты очнулся
ища паутинки пустоты, но было так ясно
что прекрасные вещи заполнили каждый угол — не за что ухватиться
есть на кого равняться
есть из чего выбирать — новая серьезность пуговиц и фуражек
мягкая ирония коллаборации

черное солнце ментовской формы, умри за нас
я хотел бы увидеть каждого, в чьей голове
монгольский ветер крутит цыганское колесо
под дождем русской ненависти
собрать их и увести отсюда
их закрывает черное солнце балтидов, серая форма
серое, новое черное
я считал его: элемент А, элемент B плюс элемент C 
он для меня элементы, мы для него лемминги

подыхая под серой землей воды
рождаясь червями под корой напрасно срубленного дерева
заново изобретая колесо, мы закрываем глаза
чтобы не видеть черное солнце ментовской формы
но оно — галлюцинограмма, оно вспыхивает
и множится фосфенами, разбивая наш лабиринт
и вот перед нами седая дорога, великая прямая дорога
к солнцу
кс
xenos

Elena Georgievskaya was born on June 9, 1980. They studied philosophy at Saint Petersburg State University. In 2006 they graduated from the Maxim Gorky Literary Institute. They reside in Kaliningrad and Moscow. They’ve been longlisted for the Dramaturgy biennale Liberated Theatre prize, shortlisted for the Astaf'eva prize (2010), and Nonkonformizm prize (2012, 2017). Their work has been awarded prizes by the magazines Futurum Art (2006), and Vol'nyj Strelok (2010), (2006). They’re on the editorial board of F-Letter and the online publication Nihilist.li. Their work has appeared in the following publications: Vozduh, Novyj-mir, Volga, Interpojezija, TextOnly, Polutona, Dvoetochie, Cirk ‘Olimp’, Artikuljacija, Stenograme, Literratura. Their work has been translated into English, Polish, Slovak, Bulgarian and Estonian. They’ve written the following books: Voda i veter (Moscow.: Vagrius, 2009), Haim Mendl (Franc-tireur, USA, 2011), Kniga 0 (Franc-tireur, USA, 2012), Stalelitejnye osy (Moscow.: Vivernarium, 2017).

Alex Karsavin is a translator and writer based in Chicago. They are the translations & poetry editor at Homintern magazine​, and occasionally the Zahir Review​. Their writing has appeared in The New Inquiry while their translations of contemporary Russian feminist texts have appeared in Homintern and the Columbia Journal and are forthcoming in the New Russian Feminist Poetry anthology. They are currently co-translating Ilya Danishevsky’s novel Mannelig in Chains with Anne Fisher.