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Home  »  Modern Russian Poetry  »  Piotr Oreshin

Deutsch and Yarmolinsky, comps. Modern Russian Poetry. 1921.

Not by Hands Created

Piotr Oreshin

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!