From new poems

Popular Science

And when the sun becomes a fat hog...

(V.V. Mayakovsky)

The sun will swell, helium will flare up,
At least get high on tryn-grass.
The end of sorrows and joys,
And the Earth as such.

Tired of fears and doubts,
From “how could it not work out”,
From constant changes
Bless the status quo

The end of a natural process
When, devoured by the muzzle,
We will all turn to iron
And we will be sold for scrap.

After the Fin de Siecle

The modest charm of zeros,
The beginning of the century, everything is on sale,
All this old junk, all this crap,
Life will become better, it will become more fun.

Centuries are like a list of ships.
Where should we go? I'm not part of the crew.
They'll probably show something new -
Hope indestructible mausoleum,

Ile Kafka, but without the castle and the trial.
Yes, the natural series is the key to progress,
As optimistic as Little Roo.

Not just technology, but nano.
Mermaids on the branches eat bananas
And they throw the peel under your feet.

Night, shamanizing stars, journey to Arcturus.
Get a ticket on a rocket if you turn in the waste paper,
I got a certificate from the party committee, took tests to the hospital,
Made a fairy tale come true again, clutched a tit in his fist,

If you haven’t been, you don’t have it, you haven’t been noticed in unnecessary connections.
Stealing, so five kopecks, thinking, so it seems there’s nothing,
Seduce like a queen, but why the hell does she need you,
Eat every crumb for breakfast and leave dinner for the enemy.

Geese, geese flew, door in the wall, ring in my pocket.
The hedgehog came out of the fog and disappeared into the fog again.
The stupid penguin timidly hid and trembles stronger than the storm.
Do you even understand what you forgot on Arcturus?

Against snobbery

Don't think down on anyone
There are all very important people around.
From ciliates to badgers -
Every creature has its own reasons.

And if doubt is hard for me,
I don’t need the Nika of Samothrace.
I remember the girl, the paddle...
Art comes from a plow, not from a book.

Be afraid to offend even a creature,
Which, like Kizhe, has no figure,
Interpret it with all respect,
Otherwise, know that it will not rust.

It will come, big as a flood,
He gets angry and stomp his foot!

I will derive a formula, long and narrow,
Since now they don’t threaten you with jail time for formulas,
I’ll think of something that’s not nice to anyone,
I’ll write an article under my last name.

They will say - he is foolish - the critics are harsh,
Like Matroskin Sharik, he is reproached by a cow,
They'll eat milk or maybe rutabaga,
They will tell you not to boast about the Greek letter,

So as not to be vain about this Greek letter,
And he said in his conscience, in human speech,
Like all people are kind, like all people are modest,
Why are the weird squiggles written?

I will weep bitterly over my Indian fate,
How was I tempted by this idea?
How was I tempted by this squiggle?
Why did you mark the sheets with a ballpoint pen?

Because the only formulas are twisted,
That we haven’t been taught anything else since childhood,
We didn’t smell life, I’ll sob through my sobs,
And we have no other excuse at all.

Mikhail Katsnelson