Bearand barkingmongoosesad:
Here in Red Mare, I took to drink,
to looking like a giraffe—yes, I’m absurd
in this leather jacket, skinny chick-
en legs sticking out, walking the duck
streets, challenging bison anarchists
(oh how they once wanted to be free!!!).
Now yer all a bunch o’ fuckin’ hamsters
But at least you have soft cheeks.

__________

Larissa Shmailo has been published in Newsweek, About Poetry, Rattapallax, BigBridge.org, Lungfull!, American Translator’s Slavfile, and other publications. Her recent poetry CD, The No-Net World, has received excellent reviews and is available from http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/shmailo and bookstores. Larissa translated the Russian Futurist opera Victory over the Sun which was performed at the first Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and internationally. She recently contributed translations to the anthology New Russian Poets forthcoming from Dalkey Archive Press.