ORIGAMI OF CHILDHOOD*

Dmitry Blizniuk (Ukraine)

 

Hot radiators of iron amphibians

greedily suck tasty air out of the street

like juice out of an infected tooth.

Benches in the hot sun

turn into an instrument of torture,

assume the dignified bearing of the Middle Ages.

In the generous shadow of horse-chestnuts,

tireless kids

rustle,

drawing castles on the asphalt

with pieces of crimson chalk.

Carefully, I walk amid the fragile flowers, amid origami of childhood:

here are picked tree leaves and a small stone

and a medical box full of toys in the dusty grass.

Everything changes, and everything remains still;

Heraclitus hangs like a computer;

the one-way street of life

stretches like rubber,

and you have time to notice weird lanes on both sides,

caves in the sidewalks,

simmering milk of lilac in the pots of little yards.

Here you are, the life is over;

the life begins anew.

You start the first grade again tomorrow,

and your mother is ironing your shirt,

puckering her lips.

 

 

This longing for the past comes from your childhood:

the interest towards ruins and huts,

to invalids of time, not entirely digested lumps.

It’s like hacking open the belly of the shark of the epoch

and fiddling with the assorted junk:

a bent license plate, broken bottles, slimy postcards,

a legless doll, maimed octopus…

Sometimes your life gives you a candy

like a kid in the street, a kid you don’t know —

gives you an impression, an image, a mystery,

hits your fingers with a hammer,

but you don’t feel pain,

don’t smell the aroma of flowers from the garden –

unearthly religion only bees know.

 

*(translated by Sergey Gerasimov from Russian)

Dmitry Blizniuk is an author from Ukraine. His most recent poems have appeared “River Poets Journal”(USA) ,”The Courtship of Winds” (USA), “Dream catcher” (UK), “Reflections” (UK), “The Ilanot Review” (Israel), “In Layman’s Terms” (USA).He is a finalist for 2016 Award “Open Eurasia”, “The Best of Kindness 2017″(USA), He lives in Kharkov, Ukraine.