Daniil Kharms
Once when Grandma moved her hand...

(a railroad happening)

Once when Grandma moved her hand
the train stopped immediately
for the children — and it said,
«drink your porridge and valise».
In the morning they came back.
Children sat down on the fence
and they said, ‘You, raven-horse.
You may work but I will not,
Mary’s not like that at all
As you like it and perhaps
it’s all right; we’ll lick the sand
something that the sky expressed
here’s the station, let’s get off
hello Georgia! hello Georgia!
how can we get out of here?
Simply go on past the big one —
o you children — not the fence
there a polyandra grew
and alighting on the cars
she kept scrubbing the wrong man
who surrounded out of fright
one catfish with seven oxen
he took money from his pockets
Money pale gray in the face.

well that’s that, and so they simmered
all the soups — the old aunt said
all the sparrows — said the dead man
and the body sank down lower
with a chirping that was pleasant
but a little boring too
moving backward — as it seemed.
children went to hear a mass
putting it upon a shoulder
mousey ran into an apron
tearing shoulders all apart

Georgian woman on the threshold
kept repeating. Georgian man
by the hill was bending over
groped for something in the mud.

Translated by Vladimir Markov and Merrill Sparks