Two poems

NAOUM ODNOPOZOV

Naoum Odnopozov (Gurevich) is thirty-two years old; his first poems appeared in some of the 'underground' literary publications that have sprung up in Russia in recent years. In

ieptember 1965, Odnopozov, after considerable ifficulty, succeeded in getting out of Russia and has since then lived in the West. The poems are translated by Jan Farquharson.

1

The tall street-lamp stood in the centre of the square.

Nobody knew that at night along Came a long fat snake and crawled up inside—no mistake!

And no one knew that the snake had turned the light on and had attracted everyone.

People, very tired people, who wanted to throw off their troubles and sad habits and laugh and be free for a while like happy rabbits!

And none of them knew what the snake had been fed on by the police— Coloured books for children!

2

The woman with the face of a hairdresser and the hairdresser with the face of a woman crossed the road which was crossed by a dog, too, a tall and brilliant dog with a burning need to bite.

It must have someone to bite.

It was very urgent.

It was a purely psychological need.

(It was a dog well-read in Freud.) The woman with the face of a hairdresser and the hairdresser with the face of a woman were a shattering surprise, the latter more than the former for it had never seen the hairdresser before.

It didn't know what to do.

So it bit the chief editor of the largest But even this got no space. newspaper.