Mikhail Zenkevich, “I wanted, in moments of madness …”
 

In 1913, when this poem was written, Mikhail Zenkevich (1886-1973) was allied with the Acmeists, a disparate group of poets including Gumilev, Akhmatova and Mandelstam. In the Soviet period, he published mainly translations, especially of American poetry. Apologies to those who (understandably) find the first quatrain repellent.


I wanted, in moments of madness, to tighten my smelly,
liqueur-reeking, dissolute mouth in a blood-knotted kiss
and, brandishing then a long hunting knife, fall on the belly,
exposed and tormentingly tender, and hack it to slits.
Curtains stood guard at the window, a gap like an ice hole’s,
and there, past the raspberry pleats of the drapery, along
the wide, blackly rippling Nevá from Lake Ládoga, ice floes
swept seaward like swans in the crimson refulgence of dawn.


Crib

I wanted, in madness, with the blood knot* of a kiss
having tightened [my**] depraved, liqueur-reeking mouth,
to fall and, slashing with a long hunting knife,
mangle a bared, tormentingly tender stomach.
And the ice hole of the window was tenaciously guarded by curtains,
and there, beyond the raspberry, pleated, thick drapery,
along the black Neva, like swans, ice floes from Ladoga
were swept to the sea in the brilliance of a crimson dawn.


* Clifford Ashley, in The Ashley Book of Knots (1944), writes: “The Double Overhand Knot is called a Blood Knot when used on a cat-o’-nine-tails, or on the snapper of an ox whip.”

** The Russian is able to remain vague about whose mouth and whose stomach are meant. I consulted a native speaker, and we decided that it’s the N’s mouth and a victim’s stomach.


Original

Хотелось в безумье, кровавым узлом поцелуя
Стянувши порочный, ликерами пахнущий рот,
Упасть и, охотничьим длинным ножом полосуя,
Кромсать обнаженный мучительно-нежный живот.
А прорубь окна караулили цепко гардины,
А там, за малиновым, складчатым плотным драпри,
Вдоль черной Невы, точно лебеди, с Ладоги льдины
Ко взморью тянулись при блеске пунцовой зари.

Hi, Carl—

This poem is quite a challenge. I was first stumped by “blood knot,” and after seeing your note, did a bit more research. It is a kind of knot used mainly by rod-and-reel fishermen to splice lengths of monofilament line. That, the hunting knife, and the reference to an ice hole made me think that the speaker was looking through the red-purple curtains of his room at the reddened ice floes like an ice fisherman looking forward to catching a fish. But it seems that he is imagining human prey. The color words, малиновый and пунцовой, the reference to blood knot and mangling reveal a fixation on violent, bloody homicide. Is the speaker in a mental hospital or prison? The view of the Neva is right, but I can’t imagine curtains in the PeterPaul Fortress.

I like your use of slant rhymes to suggest a jangling discordance. Skillfully done!
Glenn

No, I think the narrator simply has some seriously twisted fantasies. As for the blood knot, I favor the association with whips and torture. Thanks, Glenn!