Anonymous Poet from the Leningrad Arsenal Mental Prison Hospital

When the sun dissolves

When the sun dissolves over the vault of the sky
in a torn hieroglyph of breathing
and in the commotion of fiery stripes
the fireworks of waterfalls thunder -

on the black break of centuries
like a mainstream of abstract anger
the scales of hallucination sparkle
and on the horizon of roads
in the green boiling of {illegible word}
the cone of eternity soars.

c. 1970

From Ten Russian Poets, translated Richard McKane, Anvil/Survivors' Poetry, 2003

ISBN 0-85646-328-0

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