Aleksey Porvin

You are a vase, a fog, and we
ready to fill you with lake flowers,
shining from every side, but then—
why does the pattern disappear?

It’s as if someone had taken sandpaper
to the surface again—effacing all
drawings, the inexact
imitations of true cliffs.

Nothing will resemble the gold light
of your sloping side,
especially, since consensus
in this precarious century may prove impossible

with the—perhaps—reasonable voice
(drawn haphazardly)
—they were afraid of disagreement
and lay down under the abrasive emery.

 

 

Aleksey Porvin is a Russian poet born in 1982. His poems can be found in World Literature Today, Cyphers, Saint-Petersburg Review, Ryga Journal, SUSS, Words Without Borders, Fogged Clarity, The Straddler, The Dirty Goat, Action Yes, Barnwood International Poetry Mag, etc. He is author of two collections of poems in Russian – “Darkness is White” (Argo-Risk Press,Moscow, 2009) and “Poems” (New Literature Observer Press, Moscow 2011). His first book of poems translated into English, “Live By Fire,” was published by Cold Hub Press in 2011. His poems have been recently short-listed by Andrey Bely Prize and The Russian Debut Prize.