We fell in love, brought together
By the opposition slogan “Down with CPSS!”*
In our youth thirsting for cocktails
Of politics and sex.
O, how we relished those nights!
The feral perfume of our own bodies,
The obsidian circles of your eyes
And the groan of shooting stars.
We elected to live our lives
As dissidents, chasing freedom,
Lightning-rods for a truth, fused
With our nation’s story.
We wandered through hemispheres
In search of the way, the logos,
Disseminating ideas in journals
To seed-bomb the peoples’ conscience.
Among children in desert outposts,
Massed squadrons of strangers,
Fate threw us under rolling tanks
As artillery ricocheted overhead:
Thus we won a worldly omniscience
While losing family, friends.
Our words were flame-tempered.
Blind at first, we were becoming seers
Traversing firewheels of hell
But revolving at last
To the place of sweetest silence,
A clairaudience of heartbeats;
And so, we are forever dissidents.
The fire of opposition flares for all,
And our youth is still longing
For poetry –
And love!
*CPSS – The Communist Party of the Soviet
(Translated from the Russian by Alfia Nakipbekova and co-translated by Niall McDevitt)