Trafika Europe 13 - Russian Ballet

BETWEEN WE (selection) By Alexander Ulanov Translated from the Russian by Alexander Cigale Arab calligraphy – the blue sky of Samarkand, a verse from the Koran inscribed on the armor. The wall – a dagger stuck into the air, which is what makes it possible to write on all three. Not a single corner – the desert snakes, sandworms, and also points, burrows, where something else had crawled into. Many snakes have raised their heads, quiver and hiss, threatening – a good thing the envelope isn’t digestible and is able to contain them. For a wise snake, there is nothing to do in the ranks of this military formation, it may as well help Kandinsky. Or wrap itself about the Cyrillic letters of Mandelstam – so many comfortable niches there. The tree of hearing, the tree of meaning, it doesn’t slice the air but vanishes into it – with its leaves – so that who will be able to tell, here is the tree and here, already, the air? Leaves are independent, they cannot be contained in the unpalatable envelope, yet they will acquiesce to remain inside/on the pages of a journal, though not just any journal, so that they will flutter out even from the one that doesn’t contain fate, but only the wind. _____

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