Dark Madonna

By Boris Poplavsky

For Vadim Andreev

Were becoming blue, becoming violet;

Wondrous, hollow, and so darkened days;

In the streetcars people, nightingaling,

Lowered all their blesséd heads.

Each would shake their head so happy,

Asphalt slept where afternoon left steps,

And, it seems, across the air, in sadness,

Every minute train just left and left.

And would din the partying communal,

And the penny streetlamps on the strings,

And upon the poor, the beat-out glade would

Start to die the clarinet, violin...

And again they would, before the casket,

Birth and blow that all-enchanted sound.

And would start to cry, both-eyed, musicians,

Cry with beer out of their sweaty arms.

And just then would rush in, feeling fateless,

Melting down, for holidays unglad,

In their red coats all those horse-borne riders,

The artillery returning from parades.

And into the dust, colognes, and sweatdrops,

To the noise of arcs electric 'bove our heads,

Into things would blend the stench of vomit,

Of the fireworks' gunpowder smoking smells.

And the arrogant young boy, at once, would listen,

Kid with vast bell-bottoms of his pants,

To a flashing shot of joy, which flies by fleeting,

Summer's crimson crescent on the waves.

Quickly manifests upon the trombone's mouthhole,

Squeal of spheres, which spin within the dark.

Wildly would be the dark Madonna shout out,

In a deathly dream would toss her arms.

And across the heat, the nightly, hellish, blesséd.

Through the lilac smoke, where clarinet sings,

There would flutter snow, so white and ruthless,

Snow that's fallen millions of years.

- 1927