Alexei Tsvetkov
Translated by the author
ashes
one more thing she says remember that curious notion of theirs they believe for some reason that they will live ever after and that the cats and the butterflies on the contrary die for good they believe she says that there is someone who owes them some of them even know precisely the sum total of this debt but we are something different she says yes i agree completely different for some reason with us it is we will never know why and it's ok so we keep walking in the tall grass where cats are chasing butterflies and leap catching with their paws only the empty bright air the butterflies laugh silently the cats smile in response another wonderful day of the unexpected eternity except for those ashes grinding on our teeth
the quiet ones
in a recurring dream i find myself stuck in a tiny town a green and neat affair the locals scarce and studiously silent for the most part avoid me and stay indoors although i dwell among them i assume myself to be a thing apart the town is strangely shorn of outskirts there's a river flowing from north to south and the main street cutting across with a bridge in the middle yet both are terminated in oblivion beset by this conundrum i've come up with a hypothesis perhaps the locals are candidates to be born on earth that never made up their minds about the matter shaped in human form already but afraid to take the plunge hedging their bets and this is what the actual limbo is like the river forever runs on the road likewise but both resolve themselves into the void the locals would find it pointless to wake up their green and tidy town remains the same no matter whichever side of the retina it's on the quiet ones within their silent walls what do they want of us they share no subject with us to serve them as a starting point for striking up a palaver it looks like a half-way house perhaps a railway station but with the waiting crowd resigned to the tracks having been dismantled so that no train will ever stop here they look alive but never having been actually exiled to our vale of grief there is no way for them to share our joy the only thing they envy us in earnest is death denied to the unborn it is a mystery for them and a temptation and i remaining stubbornly asleep fall into a confusion like a rabbit teasing a python on the eve of being consumed by the above and peeking under death's skirts then part of me awakens i recall the other's name but hush it up
the mirror
without fail our thoughts in these vexing times are with the emperor lonesome in his icy palace sunk in his unremitting silence a spy was trampled at the jasper gate the eastern garrison has run out of rice one hears of a decree to round up and butcher young maidens for the soldiers' stew i give it little faith although the neighbor's youngest's been missing two nights in a row the new servant took off was gone till midnight came back without his cap reeking of wine the jurchen are within the walls he says and at the plaza by the pearl shrine blood was ankle-deep glistening like a black mirror he's been too insolent of late the steward must be requested to apply the rod those jurchen are just a ruse for their ilk a visit from the venerable yi his brittle sheets of tang calligraphy obtained from a bookseller for a trifle trifle indeed but who would want to hurt a friend i had them fetch some wine and plums the last of the old stock but it was worth it never an evening was so full of mirth on his way back the venerable yi was torn out of his litter thrushed to death with canes those jurchen nothing but a ruse a conflagration this time in the west the guards will have their work cut out for them curse the old gown all matted and it's cold should have dispatched them to stock up on brushwood but there's no one to send and none for sale how splendid is the moon in the black velvet of the night sky in the black silk of smoke looks like the flare is aiming for the palace from where the stables should be and the harem i haven't cleaned my brush the ink is dry the emperor may be godlike but he feels the fear we know he is afraid for us but we alas have hardly any words left to console him