Category: society

AN OPENING FOR A NOVEL

AN OPENING FOR A NOVEL
(excerpt from my book “Extraordinary Story of a Turnskin”)

“…And suck the blood of all thy race.”
(George Gordon Byron)

“…and people do not, as a rule, believe in Vampires!”
(Stanislaus Eric Stenbock. The Sad Story of a Vampire)

 

In the summer of 1888, a group of good friends were travelling through Switzerland on their way to Italy, when, one night in August thunderstorms halted their journey. They were ensconced for a few days in Villa Lou Vieil on Lake Geneva, and after the companions had read aloud from the Tales of the Dead, a collection of horror tales, one of them suggested that they each would tell a ghost story to entertain and terrify his friends, and in order to pass the time. The names of the travelers were Lord Ruthven, Count Vardalek and Count Dracula. In theory, the competition was open to all three, but in actuality it was a test of rivalry between Lord Ruthven and Count Dracula to see which of them was able to attract the heart of the young green-eyed beau Count Vardalek…
The End of the excerpt

Photo off Vamires
Actors: Rathbone, Karloff, Lorre, Price.

blank verse

The Winter Tremble

blank verse by Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898),  my translation

 

Always slow, among flowers and deities, the clock striking thirteen. Who previously owned this Saxon clock? Picture them bringing it from Saxony by those old slow stagecoaches.

(Weird shadows looming over the old windowpanes.)

Who did ever look at oneself in the Venetian mirror, deep like a cold spring, enclosed in the snaky framing with the faded gilding? Surely, more than one woman used to sink the sin of her beauty in the stream of this spring and if I stayed peering for a long while I could see>The Winter Tremble

blank verse by Stéphane Mallarmé a naked phantom.

“Nasty, you can be so caustic…”

(The cobweb above the big windows.)

Our wardrobe trunk is very old too. Look how the glum woodwork shows purple in this lighting. Time has left traces on the faded curtains, on the embroidery of the chairs with the faded ruddy varnish, and the yellowish etchings on the walls, on all our old things. Don’t you think that even the Bengalee finches and blue bird are somewhat time-faded?

(Don’t think of the cobweb that trembles above the big windows.)

You love all this, that’s why I can live beside you. Didn’t you wish — oh my sister whose eye turned to the Past — the words “charm of all withering” to sound in one of my cantos? You detest new things. They frighten you with their meretricious harshness, making you feel like obliterating their counters and colours — which is so difficult to those who are tired by every motion.

Close the old German Almanach, which you read so attentively, though it is published more than a hundred years ago and the enumerated lords are no more. Lying on the ancient carpet with my head on the faded cloth that covers your lap, oh quiet child, I shall be talking long! No fields around; the streets have got empty; I shall talk about our furniture… What are you thinking about?

(The cobweb trembling above the big windows.)

Photo of painting by Julius Sergius von Klever (1850-1924)
Painting by Julius Sergius von Klever (1850-1924)

 

poem in my translation

The Butterfly

by Afanasy Fet (1820-1892)

 

You’re right. An outline of Air

I am so sweet.

My velvet with its living blinking–

only two wings.

Don’t ask me whence, what brought me,

where I speed.

I light the flower down, here,

and now I breathe.

How long, so aimless, so effortless,

I want to breathe?

That’s it now, flashing, raising wings

I fly away.

AG00130_

Time

Dark night has choked daylight. Day is dead.
It won’t come back to senses any more.
You killed the time again. You must be mad
To waste the only treasure you afford.

Time is for living not for false alarm
About future and the outcome
Of the events that are not bringing harm
Just now. So my old chum

There’s twink anon, so value twink
The future hell is not existing now
And it depends on what you feel and think
Will it take shape or just drop out.

 

I started the poem in one mood (first 4 lines). Then without any pause my mood changed and I just recorded the remaining part. The result was quite surprise to me. I have not changed a word and now submit this poem to your judgement…

Natalia Nikiforova I’m enamoured of you (flouncing soul)

Translated from Russian by Victor Sklyarov
(Russian original and her other poems are at www.allthelyrics.com )

I don’t want you to be neither lover, nor friend, nor the kind.
Remain sole like the wind got entangled low in dust.
And my words will empoison return route you wont find,
Our ships having touched sculls at last separated in dusk.

Let the howler shout out the warnings of dangers in haze
Our feelings will not be rescued by this tedious growl
In a desperate rage waves will raise over us in blind maze
And will scatter in vain never cooling the fever of soul.

This is when all the windows of heaven will suddenly close
And the sun will embrace all the seas with a hope and light
And the ships will turn back over wimpled bright road
Further route side by side will be easy not burdened by fight!

Mongol Yurt, a door never locked

An always open door
In a silver night
The sky is crowded with stars.
Green waves are surging and soaring
In the forest of wind

An open door is white like Mongolian yurts,
Is inlaid with blue sky and clouds.
Nomads are never lost,
They don’t like the tears of city people
Translated by Anthony Rudolf with the author

*Hadaa Sendoo is a multi-award winning poet from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
He is founder and leading figure of the World Poetry Almanac.

BLACK EYES

Translated  from Russian by Victor P. Sklyarow

Dark abyss of eyes, oh, what bliss of eyes
Penetrating eyes, and frustrating eyes!
I’m adoring you, I’m afraid of you,
I met your power in an ill hour!

Be that hour cursed, I met you for worst
Dark abyss of eyes, those wistful eyes!
Having not met you I would not abuse
Honest life I loose by the way you choose.

I have one same dream, deep at night I see
And feel happiness is obsessing me
But awake I find only lonely night,
Blank bedside, and what would console my soul.

Dark abyss of eyes, oh, what bliss of eyes
Penetrating eyes, and frustrating eyes!
I’m adoring you, I’m afraid of you,
I met your power in an ill hour!

Victor P. Sklyarow is an experienced translator and poet from Novorossiysk, Russia.

HEY MUSICIAN PLAY

Translated from Russian by Victor Sklyarow

Years and milleniums pass
No change in our die-cast
And in usual routine
Flow following at last.

Some exhausted, and some lazy,
Some about bread are crazy,
Over all sounds simple tune.
All discepancies erazing

Hey, musiciian, play, I’ll be believing,
That the better a day will come soon
Hey, musiciian, play, doors all leaving
Wde ajar to the future blue moon

lt is not an audience freak,
No French shouts, no Greek.
Missing curtains; and no prompters,
And the scene is narrow street.

Songs and fates and cities scores
That’s musicians’ en route chores.
And his empty pocket trite
Is the least of mundain woes

Hey, musiciian, play, I’ll be believing,
That the better a day will come soon
Hey, musiciian, play, doors all leaving
Wde ajar to the future blue moon

Victor P. Sklyarow is an experienced translator and poet from Novorossiysk, Russia.

OH RUSSIA by Igor Talkov

Translated from Russian by Victor P. Sklyarow

I’m ruffling leaves of old notes,
The general was executed,
I failed to reckon what behold
How the country had been sold
And let them all to have you looted

And from Dark Ages you emerged
Like giant to his feet arising
Your Petersburg prevented wars
By the superb effective force
In Catherine-age self-realizing.
Oh Russia

The sacred music of church bells
Lingering over Moscow air
To some it sounded like knell
And even slightest sounds spelled
The radicals to their despair

And golden domes of the Church
Were blinding their failing eye-sight
And irritated Evil’s serfs
To the extent that they decided
To tear your eyes out and to blind you.

Oh, Russia

The skies burst open with a crush
The mob of Judases appeared
Cutting away the churches’ heads
Proclaiming newest leader’s rush
New crucifiers of believers
They tied you down with red flags
They knelt you down to meet death
The carnifex then raised his cleaver
And your death-warrant had been read
By bloodiest king and greatest leader.
Oh, Russia

I’m ruffling leaves of old notes,
The general was executed,
The old hand-written texts, they oath
And resurrect the shot-down truths
They are so hard to be revoked
By generation that was looted.
Oh, Russia
(my continuation)
Again skies opened with a crush,
Again same Judases appeared
They now disguised as democrats
To shreds they Russia’s body tear,
To global aims they onwards rush
Sparing churches that they fear
They think that their aim is near,
But very soon they’ll disappear
Just owing to their tear and wear.

Victor P. Sklyarow is an experienced translator and poet from Novorossiysk, Russia.