Translation of Poem by Vladimir Mayakovsky, Владимир Маяковский, "Тучкины штучки," Clouds Take Shapes Take Shapeless

 

Владимир Маяковский
(1893-1930)                                           

                                                                    Тучкины штучки

Плыли по небу тучки.
Тучек — четыре штучки:

от первой до третьей — люди,
четвертая была верблюдик.

К ним, любопытством объятая,
по дороге пристала пятая,

от нее в небосинем лоне
разбежались за слоником слоник.

И, не знаю, спугнула шестая ли,
тучки взяли все — и растаяли.

И следом за ними, гонясь и сжирав,
солнце погналось — желтый жираф.

1917-1918

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Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

 

Clouds Take Shapes Take Shapeless

 

Rain cloudlets across the sky floating.

Four cloudlets as if on pond boating:

 

The first through the third were homunculi, 

the fourth was a camel, his hump awry.

 

And then, curiosity tickling his haziness,  

A fifth cloud accosted them, bent on sheer craziness.    

 

In that fifth, through the bluest of blue sky,

ran a hippo and two hippopotami. 

 

And could be that fixth cloud

got all the rest stressed;

When the hippos took shape

all the clouds evanesced.

 

Then, scarfing up nebulous wisps for a laugh,

the sun rolled along like a yellow giraffe.

 

 

Cartoon for children based on this poem:

https://www.google.com/search?q=%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%8F%D0%BA%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9%2C+%22%D1%82%D1%83%D1%87%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%8B+%D1%88%D1%82%D1%83%D1%87%D0%BA%D0%B8%22&rlz=1C1UEAD_enUS1014US1014&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:d9c117b4,vid:gQgsjPjNtvY

Translation of Poem by Boris Chichibabin, БОРИС ЧИЧИБАБИН, "The Isle of Jumble," ("Меня одолевает острое")

                                                 Gravesite of Boris Chichibabin, Kharkov

БОРИС ЧИЧИБАБИН

(1923-1994)

 

Меня одолевает острое

и давящее чувство осени.

Живу на даче, как на острове.

и все друзья меня забросили.

 

Ни с кем не пью, не философствую,

забыл и знать, как сердце влюбчиво.

Долбаю землю пересохшую

да перечитываю Тютчева.

 

В слепую глубь ломлюсь напористо

и не тужу о вдохновении,

а по утрам трясусь на поезде

служить в трамвайном управлении.

 

В обед слоняюсь по базарам,

где жмот зовет меня папашей,

и весь мой мир засыпан жаром

и золотом листвы опавшей…

 

Не вижу снов, не слышу зова,

и будням я не вождь, а данник.

Как на себя, гляжу на дальних,

а на себя — как на чужого.

 

С меня, как с гаврика на следствии,

слетает позы позолота.

Никто — ни завтра, ни впоследствии

не постучит в мои ворота.

 

Я — просто я. А был, наверное,

как все, придуман ненароком.

Все тише, все обыкновеннее

я разговариваю с Богом.

 1965

 

 

d

 

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

 

The Isle of Jumble

 

Acute, oppressive and autumnal,

these feelings my sad soul besmirch.

I live at a dacha, on the Isle of Jumble.

My friends have left me in the lurch.

 

I share no drinks, philosophizing,

can’t even recall the amorous heart.

I pound and rend the dry earth, sighing;

reread old Tyutchev right from the start.

 

Into blind abysses I rush doggedly on,

and never a thought do I give inspiration.

My mornings I’m rattling as train moves along

to work at the Bureau of Tramcar Cunctation.

 

I slink through the flea market scene at lunch,

where some deadbeat calls me grandpa,

and my world is awash in heat and grunge,

and fallen leaves all gilt with awe.

 

I have no dreams, I hear no call,

I’m no bossman at work; I’m a paltry lackey.

I look at myself and I see others all,

or I look at myself and see odd ticky-tacky.

 

Like some twerp whom the gendarmes are grilling,

I toss off the persiflage gilded pure gold.

Nobody—tomorrow nor ever, Lord willing,

will knock at the gates of my humble abode.

 

I’m not no one but me, and most probab-ably,

like all, I was thought up to be by pure chance.

Ever more softly, chum to buddy, quite affably,  

I palaver with God, while He peers back askance. 

 

 

 

A Few Thoughts on Laughter

 

 

                                                          Laughter and Its Discontents

Any utopian scheme utterly excludes laughter, because laughter is implicitly anti-utopian and irreverent. “How dare you laugh at my utopian scheme to make the world a wonderful place, along with all the people in it!”

 

Har, har, har. “Okay, here’s what you get for laughing at my utopian dream: you get death in a concentration camp, along with all the millions and millions of innocent others I’ve had, reluctantly, to kill, in furtherance of my wonderful plan.”

 

Vladimir Lenin, The Great Ilyich, hero of the Great Socialist Revolution. A man who believed in utopian schemes. If there’s a hell where sinners burn, he certainly will burn for all time, wallowing in the flames.

 

Early Christian Condemnations of Laughter

Tertullian, Cyprian and John Chrysostom preached against ancient spectacles, especially against the jesting of the mime and against laughter. Chrysostom declared that jests and laughter are not from God, but from the devil. Only perpetual seriousness and sorrow for one’s sins befit the true Christian. The main idea is that pagans laugh, Christians don’t, and laughter is blasphemous, dangerous.

 

“Laughter is no laughing matter.”

Aleksandr Herzen

 

Derision Bespeaks Sinfulness

The Christian religion cannot get away from the idea that there is something sinful and shameful about laughing. Maybe because Christianity came to replace old pagan religions in which laughter and bodily sexual excess often went hand in hand. Sex is bad, then so is laughter. The Russian poet Zhukovsky once wrote, “With us [Orthodox Christian Russians] laughter is viewed as a sin, and, consequently, anyone who likes to joke and scoff must be a great sinner” (letter of January 4, 1845).

 

God’s Sense of Humor

“A divine sense of humor sounds sacrilegious to us, as though it would distract from perfection. But the cosmos is as comical as it is awesome, the product of a fantastical imagination. Whatever else the Creator may be, He/She is not dull, drab or ponderous. Consider the hippo, the orchid, the volcano, the purple-bottomed baboon, the shooting star and duck-billed platypus. Noah’s Ark alone is a comic opera of incredible inventiveness.”

Sydney J. Harris

 

The Paroxysms of Laughter

The folklorist Vladimir Propp said that primitive peoples danced before hunts, wars, sowing, with the aim of putting paroxysmal movements to work to influence supernatural spirits or Nature herself. “Dance is nothing other than a paroxysmal effort.” Shamans also go into paroxysmal seizures in aid of moving the supernatural to work for them. Laughter is paroxysmal as well, and this is why it is often considered to have magical power.

 

Laughter and the Hideous

In Nathanael West’s Miss Lonelyhearts a sixteen-year-old girl with a special problem writes a letter: “When I was a little girl, it was not so bad because I got used to the kids on the block making fun of me, but now I would like to have boyfriends like the other girls and go out on Saturday nights, but no boy will take me because I was born without a nose—although I am a good dancer and have a nice shape and my father buys me pretty clothes.”

 

“The reader who doesn’t laugh at this, even as the heart weeps, is not on West’s wavelength. The pathos is rubbed in by the punchline, the abrupt switch from the horror of the condition to girlish vanities. That kind of friction between thoughts or emotions that don’t quite belong with each other often ignites laughter, and West was a master of the technique.”

Walter Goodman in New York Times Book Review

 

Sure as hell, though, in our Time of The New Goody-Good, they’ll be banning and burning Miss Lonelyhearts.

 

Did God put us on earth to sit with clenched sphincters? No. Then why in our modern age are there so many sphincter clenchers?

 

Definition of Homo sapiens: the creature that can weep in the face of the pitiable, while laughing uproariously at the same time.

 

“In the Gospel there is neither laughter nor carnal love, and one drop of one or the other reduces all the pages of that wonderful book to ashes.”

Vas. Vas. Rozanov, Solitaria

[excerpted from the book by U.R. Bowie, Here We Be. Where Be We?]

Translation of Poem by Aleksandr Blok, Александр Блок, "Сусальный ангел," THE LOLLYPOP ANGEL

 

Александр Блок

(1880-1921)

Сусальный ангел

 

На разукрашенную елку

И на играющих детей

Сусальный ангел смотрит в щелку

Закрытых наглухо дверей.

 

А няня топит печку в детской,

Огонь трещит, горит светло...

Но ангел тает. Он – немецкий.

Ему не больно и тепло.

 

Сначала тают крылья крошки,

Головка падает назад,

Сломались сахарные ножки

И в сладкой лужице лежат...

 

Потом и лужица засохла.

Хозяйка ищет – нет его...

А няня старая оглохла,

Ворчит, не помнит ничего...

 

Ломайтесь, тайте и умрите,

Созданья хрупкие мечты,

Под ярким пламенем событий,

Под гул житейской суеты!

 

Так! Погибайте! Что в вас толку?

Пускай лишь раз, былым дыша,

О вас поплачет втихомолку

Шалунья девочка – душа...

 

25 ноября 1909

 

d

 

Literary Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie

 

 

 

The Lollypop Angel

 

The lollypop angel looks through a fissure

Of doors tightly closed for the day,

Peering at Christmas tree, gaping at dither

Of children engrossed in their play.

 

Old nanny is lighting the stove in the nursery,

The fire makes crackle and bright is the burn . . .

The angel is melting; he’s German, adversity

Affects him not; he’s quite warm, no concern.

 

First of all melt bits and pieces of wings,

The little head falls, breaks away;

Legs made of sugar and broken heartstrings

Become puddle of sweet on parquet.

 

Sweet puddle goes desiccate, soon disappears,

And mother is looking for angel—no luck . . .

Old nanny’s gone totally deaf in the ears,

She maunders and groans, foggy brains run amuck. 

 

Break apart, melt away; go on and die,

You creature of dreams ever frangible,

Beneath the bright flame of well-nigh,

To the roar of commotion intangible!

 

So be it! Perish! What good are you?

While one last time, wrapped up in wistfulness,

A pert little girl, with dear soul see-through,

Laments your brevity, your life of tristfulness.