Сергей Жадан - Mesopotamia

“Destroy them for their corruption and laziness,
their treachery in every generation,
their cunning, which they weave
into their prayers!”

…and he gets up, spitting black blood,
rises, and falls, then rises again,
and the dockworkers whisper, so again,
by death he’s conquered death.

He hits ’em right in the solar plexus
for each sin!
Boxing is really for the stubborn
and the young.

The young dockworker, parting from life,
manages to thank him, happy as a baby,
as if saying, Blessed is he who believes
in salvation and oblivion.

The apostles wipe his face with a towel
and tell him they always believed in him.
And the one who placed his bets on him,
continues to back him,
now
a tested fighter.

Uncle Sasha worked in a bar in Frunze [1] A seaside town in Crimea.
and was wise in the ways of the world, may he rest in peace.
He liked to say, “For a real sailor the honor of the fleet
is more important than the reputation of a ship.

“So no matter what port, or where you drop anchor,
keep your heart open to all winds.
Even if you are throwing up overboard in the morning,
make sure to hold on to what you want.

“Even when you are strung up from the yardarm,
or when you are dragged on the bottom of the ocean,
always remember that somewhere there’s a door,
where someone is waiting for you with wine and hope!”

We are not given that much advice.
And what we do get is not what we need in life.
So I was always ready without a doubt
to see the truth in Uncle Sasha’s rants and confessions.

All his wild stories, tales, and drunken yarns,
all his dark curses and pitch-black tirades
had a point: you cannot abandon your friends in a fight,
nor can you forgive anyone who hits you.

I remember everyone who once sat beside us,
who were then led out by surly cops
into the melting snows of March or the freezing air of November,
deprived of the joy and sense of justice around every table.

Some of the workers and professors with dark faces
who listened to his stories about the Black Sea Fleet,
now eat from dumpsters;
others have died of hunger or TB;

some left those dissipating places
to defend a lost Jerusalem.
But I don’t remember a single one
who was not ready to die with him.

“Hey Uncle Sasha,” one of them would shout,
“We dwell in the bounty of the Lord.
This country does not deserve to have its own fleet.
This town, with its rivers and golden sand,
will drink to us with bad brandy when we die.
Our light will be reflected in the distant stars,
black roses will turn to cinders in the hands of girls.
Every heart burns only once.
Death arrives after
life ends.”

Then they would step around the corner
and fall into the gutter.
Maybe I alone kept
what they left behind.

Silver sewn into belts.
Animals, children, women.
Trees growing in summer sands.
Springs gushing on the bottom of the river.

The team was disbanded before the season started—
the owner cashed in his shares and bought a hotel in Egypt.
Black crows strolled, guarding the lawn.
In the locker room the deflated soccer balls smelled of defeat.

Sania, our right wing, the hope of the team,
cried as he carried his things out of the clubhouse.
He held on to his shoes, as if he had nothing else,
his hands folded like a Sunni saying his prayers.

Well, I didn’t believe him, he was doing it on purpose,
behaving like he was the only one who cared.
Sania’s brother, a rightist, was sitting in jail, dreaming of burning down this town
for electing such an idiot as mayor.

His father also had done time and was right-wing too.
I don’t know how he dealt with them.
The only good things in his life were his injuries,
old sports club patches, and his long black hair.

So I say to him, “Enough, Sania, enough whining,
enough lamenting losses.
Why are we standing here like a couple of Sunnis,
come on Sania, let’s settle our nerves.

“We’ll go to the factory and find some work,
we’ll apply to college or sign up to be security guards.
When you have a choice, always choose freedom,
When you’re one man down, you’ve got to lock down the defense.”

And he answers, “Work, what work?
Guard? What are you talking about?
All my life all I ever saw was the opponent’s goalpost.
The only person who ever respected me was their guard.

“All I had was a number on my back,
a place in the lineup, and I gave everything for it.
What can I do now in this country?
How can I tell who’s on my team and who’s not?

“Why stay, who should I fight?
What the fuck, I’ll go to Russia.
I’ll play where they assign me, I’ll take my chances,
leave this mess, and wait for amnesia.”

…I knew he would never leave, things would never change.
All our losses are not accidental, they’re necessary.
You can’t escape from yourself, from your own grief,
from your own hate, from your own love.

You can’t change your memories or your dreams,
you can’t stop the shadows or the comets.
Things never change, they stay with us,
no matter how long we live or how we die.

Our night skies, our flocks of birds,
our rivers, our towns, our buildings:
no one will ever remember a thing about us,
no one will ever forgive us for anything we’ve done.

So I’m writing about her again,
about the balconies
and our conversations at home.

I remember what she
hid from me,
what she kept in between the pages
of that anthology with all those damned poets
who constantly spoiled
our lives.

“Last summer,” she said,
“something happened to my heart.
It started to drift, like a ship,
whose crew had died
of fever.
It moved deep within my breath,
caught by the currents,
attacked by sharks.

“I always said,
Heart, dear heart, no sails or ropes
will help you.
The stars are too far away
to guide us.
Heart, dear heart,
too many men
have signed up for your crews,
too many of them have stayed behind in British ports,
losing their souls
to the tears of the green dragon of alcohol.”

So I also
remember her legs, which I was ready
to fight for to the death,
and I repeat after her,
“Heart, dear heart,
sick with fever,
get well soon,
recover quickly,
so much burning love awaits us,
so many beautiful tragedies
hide from us on the open seas.
Heart, dear heart,
I am overjoyed to hear
you beat,
like a fox—
captured
but never tamed.”

The princess wears
orange clip-on earrings
and carries a dark bag
filled with treasures.
Sometimes she likes to tell us,