Evening Roads
Evenings, the stars sing high over the ocean,
Our Lady of Endlessness is listening alone.
The lunar-wanderer has bent before the world,
And my soul is visible to him.
O, chilly roads in evening,
And breathing—music of my own! . . .
In the field, a song goes on complaining,
The heavens’ cheeks are wet with stars.
The secret soul hides every word,
For which there is no water and no bread,
Bend over to me, darling,
I can bear neither star, nor song.
(1921)
[Night stands in the yard like and orphan—]
Night stands in the yard like an orphan—
The human’s asleep in the stove’s warmth.
Under the frozen empty heights
A sleepless heart,
A heart that burns in its own confines.
Ordinary people live,
Starry rivers flow in silence.
The wind sorrows—mountains roar,
Grasses mutter in their peaceful,
Irrevocable, and secret sleep.
Your silent lips, nightly heart,
Inexpressible bride—star,
People languish in solitary sorrow:
The heart needs to fit
All the warmth of the world,
All the height of the heavens.
In my favorite field my steps are quiet,
My soul filled up with tight and tender strength,
I’ll capture the world—and move by it,
I am not my own—everyone is dear to me.
(1925–1926)
[Here, you cannot live kindly,]
Here, you cannot live kindly,
So the best of all words are “forgive me.”
We lived all our yesterdays lying,
The years to come will get derailed.
First love, last word—
Woe, when I can’t bear to carry it in me,
Parting words to a dead mother,
So as not to trouble the heart, we’ll say “forgive me!”
Where are the true souls, the eternal memory
Of a son, of a dear wifely friend?
Anyone can leave his beloved,
Having blanched at the sight of another.
Across from death and facing the elements,
A willowy soul flutters and breathes,
As true as the dove and as wise as the serpent,
Holding fast to the miracle of its strength.
Say, where are you hidden, yonder blue country,
Where the wind grows tired, the river slinks past? . . .
On earth, there are such countries:
I saw in the field—the world is vast.
(1925–1926)
Three Poems
Andrey Platonov
translated from the Russian by George Kovalenko
Listen to "Evening Roads" read in the original Russian by the translator:
These poems are exemplary of Platonov’s lyric attempt to articulate what Boris Groys identifies as the gnostic valences of dialectical materialism. While this attempt is ironed out into the breadth of prose in Platonov’s later and better-known novels, it is particularly dense and potent in these early lyric efforts. His attempt to poeticize the apparently metaphysical core of his everyday historical material both perplexingly adheres him to and makes him utterly incompatible with the official role of the cultural worker as “engineer of the human soul ” under the doctrine of socialist realism. While I have paid close attention to versification, it is the enigmatic quality of Platonov’s attempt that I have tried to most precisely echo in my translation.
Andrey Platonov (1899–1951) was a Soviet engineer and author of the novels novels Котлован (The Foundation Pit; Flegon, 1968) and Чевенгур (Chevengur; YMCA Press, 1972).
George Kovalenko is a poet and translator. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in such venues as The American Poetry Review, The Cincinnati Review, Copper Nickel, and Lana Turner. He holds an MFA from NYU and a PhD from the University of Denver, where he served as the poetry and translations editor for Denver Quarterly. He is currently a visiting scholar at NYU’s Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia.
