Matvei Gungadín
Transactions
Because of you I no longer want to
Hole myself up in soulless hotel rooms
With hand towels and hand lotion
Spouting new archipelagos
In order to maintain an effective remedy
You must mutate like the plate faults that ail me.
Be Greece to my Turkey; Turkey when I am Greece,
Know when I am Jason and sing to be fleeced;
When I try to touch with fingers I never can
You detect me coming and close up like clams
Fear my harpoon gun - it is as drainless as Lake Van
Knidos
When the Persians came,
I tried to make an island of my peninsula –
but topography disagreed
When you came, I tried with one hand, two –
to make an isthmus of my island –
but physiology paid no heed;
I ran out of wood one night
before my mole could become bridge
But lightning striking littoral laurel leaves
Adrift, made tendril turn to snake,
that could swim, sing, fly –
Report your whereabouts –
and return home for the rosy-fingered spawn.
+ Mitos:
FLYING POEMS
Jaime Diez