{"id":15065,"date":"2018-12-01T02:16:01","date_gmt":"2018-12-01T08:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/?p=15065"},"modified":"2018-12-01T09:38:15","modified_gmt":"2018-12-01T15:38:15","slug":"two-poems-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/archives\/15065","title":{"rendered":"Two Poems"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two poems by Alla Gorbunova, translated from the Russian by Elina Alter<\/em><\/p>\n

THE TALE OF HOW HMIRYOV HAD HIS APPENDIX CUT OUT<\/h6>\n

They were supposed to cut out Hmiryov\u2019s appendix,
\na worm-shaped tube, 5-7 centimeters in length,
\nafter the anesthesia the chief physicians came to Hmiryov, conjoined twins
\nDrs. Tear-It-and-Toss-It, and they told him:<\/p>\n

Never before and all over again. That was
\nsomething\u2026 something\u2026 What a sight
\nyou have in there, we got so scared we nearly keeled over.
\nThe surgeon made an incision
\nin the right iliac region, parted the muscles, split the peritoneum,
\ngot, as they say, all up in it
\nand there, in the abdominal cavity, found an inhabited planet,
\nclouds floating around it, and we saw through our hand lens<\/p>\n

the ships cleaving its oceans, and so then we slit open your belly,
\nbut there was nothing inside it:
\nno intestines, no stomach, no liver,
\nas Nurse Sinichkina put it, well-fuck-me-silly,
\nonly in darkest space a system of planets revolving,
\nand sounding, as Nurse Sinichkina put it, the eternal music,
\nthough to us\u2014a horrific incomprehensible roar,
\nand we looked for a long time, gathered in the O.R.,
\nand decided to sew it up, leave it all like it was, so as not to rudely
\ninterfere in the evolution of creation,
\nwe\u2019re sending you home, and we honestly have no idea
\nwhat it is that\u2019s hurting you, Hmiryov.<\/p>\n

Hmiryov went home and lived as before,
\nplanets circled the sun in the Hmiryovian innards,
\nships cleaved the oceans in the Hmiryovian stomach,
\nages passed of hope and of torment,
\nfaith in the Holy Spirit, fault with the Holy Spirit,
\nplanes flew high beneath the full-bellied sky,
\nOdin hanged himself on the world tree,
\nin the corpses of horses fat worms were teeming,
\nrivers of blood spilled, people died like flies,
\nand this pain\u2014whether on earth it was or in heaven,
\nin space, in the body, inside or out there,
\nwhether it happened here or in the Hmiryovian belly,
\nwhether it happened in waking or dreaming,
\nwhere sound the strange speeches of insane physicians,
\nthe pain was there, the appendicitis was not there,
\nin the open window of the operating room
\nHmiryov\u2019s appendix crawls on the Moon
\nlike a cosmic worm.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

DANDELIONS<\/h6>\n

By the bombed-out missile shafts giant dandelions have grown, tall as a five-year-old child. Out of the boundless grasses their stems rise up, full of bitter milk, they nod and sway the enormous golden orbs of their sentient heads. \u201cWhy are we so big?\u201d one dandelion asks another. \u201cProbably because of the radiation,\u201d the other tells him. The sun-bright weave of their open buds conceals a sticky dandelion honey, jelly with a light bitterness, wine. Slowly they transform, changing into a fine flickering web, drawing on the thin celestial netting of their seeds. At night, they don\u2019t fold up their flowers, don\u2019t go to sleep as their kind used to do, but glow, like huge flowery moons. Gradually, in June, the dandelions lose their minds: all their reason goes into their seeds, and the seeds are blown off by the wind, and with each flown white-silver puff, a dandelion loses a part of its soul. Many of them stand there for some time half-mad, others\u2014still only a quarter crazy, but sooner or later all the seeds have flown and the dandelion loses what\u2019s left of its soul and reason. You could say that now it has become a plant. Or that it has serious diminished motivation syndrome. With no expression whatever, their deserted centers gaze into the sky\u2014heads pocked with little dots, to which the seeds had clung so loosely. Well then, they may have lost themselves, but they\u2019ve succeeded in scattering their soul over the fields and grasses. Flown in thousands of puffs, their souls will find themselves new shelter on the earth, their countless children will rise as furious suns, full of honey and wine, and they will inherit the earth.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Alla Gorbunova & Elina Alter<\/a><\/h6>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two poems by Alla Gorbunova, translated from the Russian by Elina Alter THE TALE OF HOW HMIRYOV HAD HIS APPENDIX CUT OUT They were supposed to cut out Hmiryov\u2019s appendix, a worm-shaped tube, 5-7 centimeters in length, after the anesthesia the chief physicians came to Hmiryov, conjoined twins Drs. Tear-It-and-Toss-It, and they told him: Never […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1704,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[54],"tags":[36],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Jypy-3UZ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15065"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1704"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15065"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15070,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15065\/revisions\/15070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp0.vanderbilt.edu\/nashvillereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}