Stunts, Blunts, and Hip-Hop (#21)

   The Wall of Death
   by Andrei Voznesensky    to N. Androsova

Casting her spell and daring death,
A woman zooms round the wall of death!
With leather leggings
                                    Red as crab's claws,
And wicked red lips that give one pause,
She hurtles-horizontal torpedo-
A chrysanthemum stuck in her belt.
                 
Atomic angel, Amazon,
With cratered cjeeks in-drawn,
Your motorcycle passes overhead,
It's noise, a power-saws.

Living vertically is such a bore,
Darling barbarian, daughter of Icarus...
It's the plight
Only of vestal virgin and suburbanite
To live vertical and upright.

In this creature who soars
Over awnings, ovations, posters, and jeers
I know can see
                       the horizontal essence of woman
Float before me!

Ah, how her orbit whirls her round the wall,
Her tears nailed to each eyeball;
And her trainer, Singichants,
Bullies her like Ghengis Khan....
Says singichants: "Let me tell you I
Have my hands full with that one, plastered up there like
                                                                             a fly!
And yesterday she had a flat...the little schemer...!
                                        'I'll write to the boss," says she;
And claws at my face like a mad gypsy."

During intermission I make my way
To her..."Instruct me in the horizontal!" I say.

But she stands there like lead,
The Amazon, and shakes her head;
Still shaking, dizzy from the wall,
Her eyes blurred with
                                  such longing
                                                     for the horizontal!