You could say that form is learning

you can see form take shape

at the coronal suture’s first arcade

it’s explaining it’s appearing

it’s unestranged from enormity’s

prick of a spiny plant like a rose as

experimenting it’s bursting and

usually it’s repeating why is form

[The first installment of the Lermontov translations can be found here. The translations in their final form are dedicated to Milos Sovak, without whom there would have been no chance even to start them. (J.R.)]

My Demon

 To line up his evils & yours

is his pleasure black clouds
smoke drifting by.

How he loves these ill-fated

storms, this white water,
those oak groves that rattle

& roll. Among its sere leaves

a throne planted deep
in the earth unmoving