Poetic Translations by Anna Polibina-Polansky out of Joseph Brodsky
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Polonez: a Variation. To Z.K.
1
In your semisphere the fall season cries like a bird of prey.
Beggars loose their warm quilt and mantle.
Windows are ajar, angles go astray.
So the center of the circle is the most concealed, at the metal.
Of domes. So you give out yourself, with a feater swift and a lamp.
You can't fix the nose of Frederic there at the covers of pianos.
So the cropfield of someone's fund at the midnight, is damp.
What is there, only the shaggy croupier knows.
Turn at a side, and the reveries, as they leak,
Will wait for you there, in shady troops.
So you follow behind, to watch the seeds reek
Through iron chains, into holes and loops.
For all are almost of the same face, get dirty.
Having overslept with one, you fall in love with thirty.
1981, the Boogh - Warsaw/tr. 2007, Lodz - Warsaw
2
Fachtworks and grovel and yellow yards...
Arched frames of reimburshed long windows.
Trolleys and stallions, serpents of hooves, swift carts.
Stocks are lurking over the Boogh, as splinters.
The elm-trees are weaved about to baskets.
The plough of the moon roves in clouds, asking
No harvest from upside.The linen apron
Scratches wild grass , so the space is sewed by the rain in April.
Oh Copernick of Torun, say your farewell to the sun.
Crystals get dim, the milky body gets done.
And a bunch of destiny points is brighter
Than a dress with hampsters and moles. Your silhouette is righteous.
You exhault yourself, in your perfect forms.
You need noone's hugs and touches. What for?
1981, Warsaw - tr. 2007, Torun (the Visla)
Post aetatem nostram (After Our Era)
To A.Ya.Sergeev
1
Empires are just countries for the fool.
The traffic is prohibited. The pool
Of vehicles is so huge, 'cos of the Emperor.
The crowd pushes legions off. The emerald
Cart of the worshipped object, is ajar.
The baldachine is shut, while yet afar.
A coffee-house is backwards the palazzo.
Greeks and wheel-chaired men exchange the glances,
They pay the shaggy cards. The light is spattered
Along. Laudations, all about, are scattered.
A loosing Greek counts up his drahms. The winner
Asks eggs and sault. He acts, as a beginner.
The old lombarder tells, so, to his young
Getera, how he met the Caesar. Drunk
The lady is. She laughs, in no creed.
Such is the game of love, of joy and heed.
1970/tr. 2020, the Moscow Region
8
The fountain is dry. It feighs a dolphin.
The stony fish can do without water.
The water, so, can do without that stone.
The verdict of the Court is well up loaded.
The shining marble columns of a palace
Comprise a handful of the mighty leaders,
Of sultry, darkened skin, in collored coats.
The crumpled mantles wait for their Caesar.
So flower bunches wait for glassy vases.
Their Caesar does appear. The spears bow
To him. So hugs and kisses baffle Him.
But darker skin gives out less of bloody
Streaks, so we ought consider its true merit.
A roving Greek calls up a skinny boy:
"What do they talk of?" - "Oh, they thank Him warmly". -
"For what?" - The boy lifts up his clear eyes:
"For the renewed strict laws against the beggars!"
1970/tr. 2020
9. A Menagerie
The grating does divide the lion's paws
From viewers. So the metal looks like jungles,
Reminding trunks and branches, leafy grass.
The moss. The metal's diew. The greenish streaks
Weave all about the worthy core of lotus.
The nature does remind the human passion.
The man is able for that kind of favor:
It makes a diff'rence where to loose the way,
There at a thicket or, say, at a desert.
1970/tr. 2020
The Venetain Stanzas (1): to Susan Sontag
Several Extracts
3
Here at nighttime none is to be done.
Neither Duze gives a voice, nor arias dull.
Diabaz of heels, shadows of carbonaries.
So inhale the fog, echoes the area.
So "riscalda" aquariums of glass.
Marble obscurity pays you a glance.
Hollow talks of the vessels marine.
So occurs all that vapory rhyme.
4
So the fines of the windows are blankly appearing
In the Channel. "Cornice", bronze panels with earrings.
Pianos, canvas are hidden. Sea fish licks the curtain.
So the Goddess lurks there, with her contours uncertain.
So under the ceiling, I go drunk and dizzy.
Strands are of ardent lamps, their throat is so teasing.
5
Oh those fish tails and those agile wiggy fines.
Mirrors are just like hay stocks, in their rays and lines.
So that decolte of a blouse
Get the feelings almighty, aroused.
So scirocco whips up the uneven Lagoon.
Pantaletti-calzoni are, so, no more good.
Where those masks, paltos and long coats?
Episodic, are floating boats.
6
Chandeliers get dim at a tall opera house.
So the dome shrinks up to a small, shady shell.
Streets are weavng like eels. Panoramas allow
Us to watch all the piazza - a conch on a shelf.
Combs out of hairdoes, that were tall and up whipped,
With the sea at a distance, all go up sipped.
At the bottom of mermaids, rest those free pearls.
Lanterns are left aside, with the waves, lightly twirled.
1982, Venece - 2015, Malta
