Polystylistics is when a knight from the Middle Ages
wearing shorts
storms into the wine section of store #13
located on Decembrists street
& cursing like one of the Court's nobles
he drops his copy of Landau & Lifshitz's "Quantum
Mechanics," where it falls on the marble floor
Polystylistics is when one part of a dress
made of Dutch cotton
is combined with two parts
of plastic & glue
and in general, the remaining parts are missing
altogether
or dragging themselves along somewhere near
the rear end, while the clock strikes & snores
& a few guys look on
Polystylistics is when all the girls are as cute
as letters
from the Armenian alphabet composed by Mesrop
Mashtoz
& the cracked apple's
no greater than any one of the planets
& the children's notes are turned inside out
as if in the air it would be easier to breathe like this
& something is always humming
& buzzing
just under the ear
Polystylistics is a kind of celestial aerobics
observed upon the torn backpack's
back flap
it's a law
of cosmic instability
& one of those simple-minded idiots who always
begins his talk with the "F" word
Polystylistics is when I want to sing
& you want to go to bed with me
& we both want to live
forever
After all, how was everything constructed
if this is how it's all conceived
How was everything imagined
if it's still waiting to be established
And if you don't care for it
well then, it's not a button
And if it's not turning
don't dare turn it.
No, on earth no unearthliness exists
no pedestrian blushed as a piece of lath
Many sleep in leather & even less
than a thousand maps are talking about war
Only your love
like a curious grandmother
running bare-legged & Fyodor Mikhailich Dostoevsky
could not hold back from shooting a glass of Kinzmarauly wine
to the health of Tolstoy the fat boy riding through his home town
Semipalatinsk, on a screeching bicycle
In Leningrad & Samara it's 17-19 degrees
In Babylon it's midnight
On the Western Front there are no changes.
Translated from the Russian by John High