Boris Slutsky
I don’t believe a thing today...

I don’t believe a thing today —
I don’t believe my eyes.
I don’t believe my ears.
But let me touch it, then I’ll believe it’s true, — maybe.

I remember sullen Germans,
The sad prisoners of nineteen-hundred-forty-five,
Standing — during interrogation — with their hands on their seams.
I asked: — They answered: —

‘You believe Hitler?’ — ‘No, I don’t.’
‘You believe Goering?’ — ‘No, I don’t.’
‘You believe Goebbels?’ — ‘O, propaganda!’
‘And what of me?’ — (A brief silence.)
‘Mr. Commissar, I don’t believe you.
All propaganda. The whole world — propaganda.’

Four syllables: pro — pa — gan — da
Still resound in my ears today:
All propaganda. The whole world — propaganda.
If I were changed to a child once more,
Learning a game in a primary school,
And they told me this:
The Volga flows into the Caspian Sea!
I would believe it, of course,
But, first, I would find that Volga,
Would go down that stream to the sea,
Would wash in its turbid water,
And only then would I believe.

Horses eat oats and hay!
It’s a lie. In the winter of forty-eight
I lived in the Ukraine which was thin as a rail.
Horses at first ate straw,
Next — the skimpy straw-roofs,
And then they were herded to Kharkov to the city dump.
I saw them with my own eyes:
Austere, serious, almost important-looking.
Silently, unhurriedly, walking in the dump,
They used to walk, then they used to stand...
After which they fell and lay a long time.
And the horses took a while to die...
Horses eat oats and hay!
No! It’s not true. It’s a lie. Propaganda.
All propaganda. The whole world — propaganda.

Translated by Vladimir Markov and Merrill Sparks