Speaking In Tongues
Guided by Voices

Irina Mashinski

In Memory of M.

So, speak, and make this madman
your Thursday..
M.J.
God knows what you mumble to yourself
while looking for your pince-nez or you keys
Vl.Khodasevich
On Monday, dear, you were killed. On Tuesday
it dawned on me: it is about you.
I hear water running in the sink. It used to
flow like your ink.
Today is Thursday.
Dear, I don't care.
As if I stood look in a shallow stream.
Each trifle seems to have a meaning there
like in a movie or in a skillful dream.
If I could hide you in a bunker, attic,
some basement, Lord,
so they can't see your face
just only not to think: you walk through static
of worthless stars, through god-forsaken space,
through stars like someone's money the address you
are uttering, which I don't hear thence.
The night, like a policeman, will undress you,
my fancy Thursday, with its freezing hands.
It wouldn't know, what you are mumbling, Thursday,
while looking back,
while sliding in the O,
in which one cannot speak, not even thirsty,
I know how much you do not want to go.
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July 1997
Translated by the author (1999)