Speaking In Tongues

YURY SHEVCHUK

Translated by Dmitry Kovalenin
 

Motherland
A Church
 

MOTHERLAND
 

Jesus,
Look how long I've been going
without even taking a step
Jesus,
Look how long I've been looking around
for what's always within
See how long I've been gnawing
only at raw Love
instead of bread
See how much of my life
was spit into my temple
from black barrels of that promised future ahead!

Headlights turned off at the neighbor's side
Buttercups-handcuffs, a mouth torn wide -
See how often my head rolled upside down
From the overflowed block to the ground all around my

Motherland
I'm going back to Motherland
They're screaming she's a lousy brand -
But still we like her, do not we
Though she's not a beauty queen -
Trusting in the riff-raff around,
And with us only "Tra-la-la-la.....................HEY COMMANDER!"

Jesus -
How much truth can be found
in the eyes of State whores
Jesus -
How much faith in the hands
of retired hangmen
Don't you let them roll up their sleeves once again
Don't you let them roll up their sleeves once again
For their nights without end -

Headlights turned off at the neighbor's side
Buttercups-handcuffs, a mouth torn wide -
See how often my head rolled upside down
From the overflowed block to the ground all around my
 

Motherland
I'm going back to Motherland
Let them call her fuzzy brand,
We like her even ugly done
A beauty but the sleeping one
Trusting all the riff-raff around
But with us only "Tra-la-la-la........................HEY COMMANDER!"

Out from under black shirts here the red rooster comes
Out from kind-hearted Czars here the marmalade flows
Never happened this sky had a room for two suns
If our Father was God, then the devil was

Motherland...
 

A CHURCH

 

A church without a cross
I'm flying, my hands spread out
Along the sleepy shores
Of Torment stoned forever

I'm faith without roots
A truth with no beginning
Hey, did you hear it screaming -
The soul amidst the woods?

A bird without a sky
A stone-like frozen echo
A sad and mourning sign
Of places hard to reckon
 
By midnight moon my wounds
Are bandaged up with dead white
My domes in misty daylight
Turned gray like graveyard tombs

A church without a cross
I flow down into damp soil
Still heeding words of dead souls
By dripping in the frost
 
A mem'ry with no heart
My wits lack aspiration
A cold and faded star
Of missing generations
 
Pitch dark are my insides -
Tattoos about treason
Lone window broken blind
Wrecked walls without breathing
 
Tomorrow I'll decease
Explode above the river
The rain will wash my shiver
Right off your memories...
 

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