Speaking In Tongues
Guided by Voices

Anna Glazova

HECATE, WANDA

Translated by Mx



To Nika Scandiaca






hecate



hecate receives with her open arms
six-armed shiva-like
take your hands or at least a hand
on my shin
time i don't want to swim
every third eye is the third
slowburns are the way to learn earth
brown ashes and her round torch
her every second eye is the third
the snake attaches the cloaca to the proboscis
hecate with the trifacial calmness on her cheeks lights up a fire
the skin tightens and the body flows along the upraised foot frozen at the knee
immobile and stretching




the birth in tuna


the right angle adorned with pearls.
the nacre is dripping into a grain.
turn and whorl: how to straighten the crumpled foam body?
«THOSE WHO REFUSE TO DRINK WILL BE DROWNED FOREVER»
the dwarf aphrodite is leaving her cramped shell
the long hair entwist the long snail-like leg
the fleshbuds of sea-urchins and anemones float languidly
the homeless is lost in the water-stone garden
this aphrodite-bonsai the sea shrimp rose
the granger's tuna is woken up every sunrise
by the call of the stomach under the sign in the ichthyosty
«THOSE WHO REFUSE TO DRINK WILL BE DROWNED FOREVER»

the trinity



the egg of the burnt lightbulb color
the fishbone inside is twisted into a spiral
and fluoresces


it smells of seaweed and rust
the daymoon is dark like a burnt shell
fish fly toward its light and birds subside


the deepwater tuna is raping the shellfish female
in the atlantis' ruins silently
the internal combustion sirens' blades are working




hecate



in the gradual aquaturbulence
the vortex' rotation is entranced
the languishing hair
cerulean undersea
the three-crust portico
-- eyeless ionic semicolumn
a demiwoman
her wire eyesockets are flooded with napalm
for those entangled to the bone
to the diffusion of joint oil
in the knee molluscs
she lights up the greek fire
and leads them through the sleep
through the aquarium of azure
vortices of seahorses and swirls of aquamarine




venus and adonis


the sea immobile will die away off the shore of the vault
the shred of a leaf torn off by the sun will collapse
in the thick skin there are swollen gums of the steepcoast
and the shepherd's clawed forehead is squeezed in black leather
in the field of driftweed chloe is pulling adonis into the acerose leaves of her conifer hair
and the subterranean dead-fish red-bones
are sinking their rustle under the wavy grass roots
going down, adonis will graze his cheekbone
with the shepherd's forgotten and rusty poniard
the sun will throw the pale salty clay at the died-away
the vault's door will be draped with the mist of the ebb tide and tears


through the portico



the water gushed over the half-face
the homuncula
is mopping the acropolis sailor-like
resting one cheek on the propylaea the cyclop is asleep
pallas is towering in the entrance
squeezing the dress
the cannelures in her fist
and in her hand the beheaded femibird is




the basilica



the sheet is tensed up like a water-sucked rope
under the bell-jar the night is descending
like current-like pull of a weariest pillar
in coliseum -- flowing losing the face
the midnight descends
the air
is not whole
the quarter
is hurt
by the cast of the leg
the montane statues the mountains of marble
hellenes pray with the hole in their chest




the gland, the secretion



the cone is enflamed
female eucharist
the conarium is poisoned with flame
the greek fire in the narrow of her abdomen
the wine with ashes of tar
and the yellow fullmoon
amidst her chest, in the folds of her lungs,
the first monthly blood of lord
lap up the first
between the spiky halves of the ribs




the columbary


the carmelite, the founding mother of the temple
had laid an egg, baby-size.
they laid it as the church's foundation:
the vertebrae tower, hands criss-cross.
in the purgatory there washed some dirty linen
of old and beshitted patriarchs,
and their bones with the neon blue-white glow
were burning. the baby in its crib likened to a tuna.
on the window, in the small lantern, reeking,
the sacred intestines were burning, slumping like marmalade
down the walls of wax. i was buttered with meat,
and the church was weaned from the breast slowly and fretfully.
the shell of the bell was swinging ghostly,
swinging,..
…swinging…
…carrying the staircase's libration along and the narrow half-landings',
the keystone was edging forward rushed by the fire.
counting the steps, the red tumbled from the egg,
the carmelite was scathed to the dark bones (she turned to be dark-skinned),
the baby fell down, losing its ribs, nervures;
slowly flapping its wings, the church took off;
with the holes of their mouths agape, the patriarchs inhaled the fire of its exhaust;
the heaven made way for the new star.


old age



sabaoth puts his hand around ahaspher's waist
and they beam at each other's face
in smooth circles
through the atmosphere's layers,
year after year
both don't have a single tooth left,
and the kiss of their gums is soft reeks of moisture
like the first last snow
on the dead sea
they drowned
the methuselah's corpse has surfaced




fish on wheels



on bare feet
her fins bleed
she walked on the waters
and her disciples
bowed in front of her reflection
no bigger than a human hand
twisting the electrobarbels and
golden contacts of the radio control




electra



twisted wires
blue and yellow
candent water
silver fires on the surface of gold
electra in the electrolysis
waits for the total dissolution
in the greek polis
or for the birth or for the alien death
her body emits acid salts




false maria



the girl with voluptuous iron hips
whose breasts are harder than the gilded steel
the iron crucifix ingrown between her ribs
and an ingenious look in the eyes
of a ferropolis resident
an architectural metrowheel
the christian sexmachine
in the tower of babel's elevator
the iron blessed virgin
the passenger and the girochrise
floods and doesn't drown
the body cosmetics upon gold and iron
she's burnt to compensate the flood
this is the witch sublimation (in the case of d'arc)
is the alloy steel (like fritz lang was scared
of the crucifix and wheel of the pedalowoman)




the three-dimensional museum


the naked instep has the tendon chafed
to the sacrum of the reinforcement
the dead unending foot
the shank's plates are all cracked
the kneecap is broken, there's a roman shaft in it
the backbone of bronze shot with green
naked diana lowers herself on the back of the gazelle
fainting at the sight of her game
so alive
so transparent



penthesilea



penthesilea in the northern fall
straddled the motorolla
first streaks of grey in her hair
her calves are strapped
her knee has not coalesced and with her elbow alist
she holds the reins ambling
and saddles her game without thoughts
after cutting its chestnuts
not to let it run off into woods



wanda, the painting in the gilded frame


speaking loudly, she shields
the soft the trembling
the eye, the muff and the thick hair splashed over the knees
the crippled cockroach crawls across the portrait
her frozen photoeye's like a gleam of green ichor
she touches herself
in the fuzz in the plush in the wool and in furs
the silk face and hocks
with his electric razor severin pulls out the strips of his own tendons
and ties them into a lash
a green fly tortures her nipple and it rings




lucretia with a mirror



titian between his fingers
stretches the squirt of bodily oil like a bow-string
and paling touches her vertebrae [cruel white]


naked skin is painted in with the tenderness of fear
the hair makes the soft concave deeper
the neck the fur and the dry [harsh] hand; lucretia borgia
strikes a pose with her mirror, and amur [fears] to hold her --
fears to drop her -- her glass is virginal.


lucretia's bosom is incestuous and venesectious;
having killed thrice with a lag, she dies a maiden, [killing with a lag,]
at childbirth, under knife; with a metallic gaze
borgia impales titian -- he lets the tip of
his brush out of his hand and uses his fingers -- the brush,
crumpling, falls on the strewn [fur] shreds;
venus is [harshly] looking into the polished metal.




the nymph



the beautiful dryad on a tree
crying grows into the bark with her roots
her skin in the oozing buds
in the poisonous petals there is the black milk
along the torn tendons of the clockwork unicorn
the sparks prance
his head turns
his horn is smeared with tar
his fur grows through the layer of tin
her tight knothole blooms with the color
of electric citron




the misogyny



when sappho is laughing in her sleep
her teeth expose
the yellow island moon is blooming unfertile, the halfhorn
the dulcamara flowers screw into small parcels
sappho checks the figures with the arithmometer
askilt wakes up screaming
and fearfully touches the
potato sprouts-like
nipples of the hermaphrodite semigod




minotaur



i hunt myself with a minethrower
the female phallos is pleasantly cool against the palm of my hand
the beasts untamed tore up my quilted jacket and and batiste lingerie
the marine bullgod ravishes my bare skin
i shall scare him off with the kitchen reek under my nails
the caramel smoke still lingers over the muzzle,
and the humantaur's hoof presses down
the subversive brand, whimpering;
medaea's styptic juice still titillates my womb,
and the nipples are puckered by the golden fleece;
i hunt myself, committing foster labours.




medaea



my mint breath
exhaled into the minethrower pipe
scalding honey and nuclear clutch
of the daedalian helicopter
the sky brings us stars and food
the formula the formula and the gumpowder too 3
sacrifices all the long years
then i simply take off a ribbon from my waistband
and a spare ribbon off someone's chest
the crust boils with the subcortex of constructions
the recoil with a wild scream
spent cases fly off
the shells of disarmed children




crete





astride the bullfish
holding on to its horns
europe hellenized the crete
shells instead of ears
and seahorses of curls on the temples




bored in the quiet fishbowl
paciphae has fed the bull full
like pigmalion galatea




pacific waters shone with aquamarine
when zeus lowered pacifae into the milky screen
of short shag; listening to her voice
and hiding from helios in her eyes daedalus
was making a cow; the splinter drew blood --
she has turned to wood petrified with the wooden hook;
the bull howled, and she mooed as she could, bound.




daedalus with the folding rule
was measuring her abdomen, cutting notches
on the long linear cuts,
sharpened his imperial knife
and traced the labyrinth, the innards
of the cretan ear, where the echo of the bullmeat
and woman's milk will frighten young
athenans with its long idiosyncrasy.




the hellenization of egypt



nefertiti buried in the crypt and wrapped
in hellene's naked tendons into the legs' mummy
then she got carried to the canning hall as a papyrus package
one of her eyes got poked out and preserved in luboil
one eye was replaced with the chrysoprase
and another one with the auricle with the spiral cornicle
nefertiti was dipped into the burning oil
and made a metal copy of her
and from her second eye the tree grew
and the wire wilding was grafted in




isida unveiled



isida disrobes
the clouds reveal the skies
over her head ra arises
between her horns the brother reclines
isida disrobes and shroudless
possesses herself of the dead osiris
upon her pointed breast
from the sharp-hollied horns
horus drinks
the cypress mountain juice
her otherworldly pregnancy
flats out
and when isida finally disrobes
though her breast is
predaciously beaked




hecate



hecate opens her triune mouth
her trinity arborizes like roots:
one like a dryadic ganglion
vegetal toxic branch
fractal creeping vine
enlaces the conglobate brain
another like a coronary liana
pushes and pulls the heart
the careful metabolism
the third like a burning torch
with a firm head
the darkness shines in the dark instead
to those whom her lissome tentacles
are tired to hold
in the glands of a kiss




miranda



reclining on the foreshore
longing for the waterdepth
miranda can swim
on the air-cushion or on the hydrofoil wings
and the flying fins
but her father wouldn't give her the solar oil recipe
and wouldn't let her out on the draught
ariel doesn't drink her tears
and she's afraid of corrosion
prospero drinks her nectar




the mermaid eviration



pressing the head against the phone cradle
pressing the flush button
like plywood on soap bubbles of the air freshener
like a tilefish the tongue will dive
invain
the canned pupil smashes itself into red nothingness
horses in marinare
bloodied grass at the ocean bottom
the fish eat no they consume tuna
spread across the floor that starts to crawl like whaleback
in the shell of a telephone the heavy swish of the sea
horizon frays under feet like carpet grass
when the mermaid rinses her hair pressing the flush button
someone pulls the cord squeezing her tail
her scales are cramped
her body shackled by water
face by tears
bowl by blood
phone by slime
eyes by sea
moan by fish
tear by grief
is threaded




hecate



the sea will blossom in the pool of azure oil
pressed from giant leaves of the ocean bivalve roses
the lotus leaves will spread themselves under hecate's back
and her body will fill with the oily anthroporoe
her mouth will catch the sunray and flash with electrospark
the melting torch of the fish oil
will waver in her weakened hand
she will give birth to seaworms and poseidon's bulls
bubbles of fish polliwogs wads of plankton and gulls
and suddenly, unrestrained, hecate will burst like a fountain
with scales and with napalm with the frozen movement of dream
prone on the pebbles almost unconscious from immobility
with no nerve to refuse the dead will drink off the whole sea