Big Rubber Cock

Text taken from BIG RUBBER COCK by Kirill Medvedev, from the collection Cocks of the Fathers.

Text:
BIG RUBBER COCK
I saw it every day on the way to school.
I know that’s not the best way
to start a poem,
but there’s nothing I can do about my memories,
I can’t take the rubber cock out of my mind and replace it
with, say, a New Year’s tree.
I saw big rubber cocks every day on the way to school—
it was 1991—
...
and sometimes best friends
gave them to each other
as presents
...
and it wasn’t even a joke
it was a natural downpayment on eternity
a symbol of success and prowess
...
the authorities couldn’t get a grip on the situation,
they didn’t know what to do
about the rubber cocks,
the fairly large rubber cocks,
they hadn’t learned to concentrate them in one place,
these cocks were everywhere,
they weren’t even manufactured here,
they were imported from America,
...
we all lived like poets—and a poetic fate smelling of resin,
...
this smelly sticky mixture,
connected us through the centuries
everything spoken seen and lived
and you can hear the buzz of every murdered nerve
every glass of wine from eight years ago
could end up making you vomit
for a very long time—
the imagination is active,
and the wine is poured,
...
the authorities are rats
but how many more times
will we say about our homeland
our innocent and gentle
if sometimes cruel but in the end beloved homeland
THIS FUCKING COUNTRY