Игорь Чиннов
Igor Chinnov
(1909-1996)
Translation/Adaptation
by U.R. Bowie
Disney World
The castle’s sharp turrets float free
In a blue sky too blue to believe;
On a fairyland-fakery spree,
We’re here to have fun, be naïve.
In the Magical Kingdom a legerdemainist
Is huckstering keys to life’s happiness;
We’ve come here to play dumb, so scam us,
For moolah is king of the crappiness.
A charlatan dragon swims by,
Through subaqueous counterfeit labyrinth;
Do look, such a sight, my o my,
What a wondrousless wonder, this navigant!
Good day to you, surrogate marvelous!
So lacking in marvels c’est this vie,
Without them life’s burdensome, onerous;
He certainly sensed that, did Disney.
Fly on then, glow blue as you pass,
Delusive Blue Bird made of chintz;
Swoon on, Cinderella, sweet lass,
In the arms of your sham-bogus prince!
Translator’s Note
After long years of peregrination, living the perpetual life
of the émigré, Igor Chinnov retired from his last teaching job at Vanderbilt
University and moved to Florida. The poem “Disney World,” along with several
other poems set in the Sunshine State, is included in his collection titled Pastorali:
A Sixth Book of Verses (Paris: Rifma Publishing, 1976). Chinnov died in Daytona
Beach in 1996.
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