The Bull Poem by Janri Gogeshvili

The Bull

Rating: 5.0


He was a bull,
No doubt, a true bull…
Immensely huge,
Immensely hasty…
With his ancestors’ wild blood…
With glittering horns,
Elusive like snow-slip,
Shining and black, –
As if dancing and whirling
He rushed out of the shed.

He dug out ten trees,
Ten not very tall trees,
Then dug up the earth
Running up the rise.
He dug up the earth
And with a foaming mouth
Bellowed at the skies.
Men blew into trumpets:
The bull was an offering – a sacrifice…

All at once, he looked
At the scared men lying in ambush…
He bellowed and stood stock-still
For a while… rather anguished.
Nobody had let him
Turn into an ox…
Or else they’d stick
Two candles to his horns…

With his pointed horns
He again dug up the ground…
Without thinking twice,
Rushed up to the old limes…
He failed to bend them,
And again attacked them bravely,
Again assaulted…
The senseless battle
Fatigued him and exhausted…

Then the brave lads
Displayed their valor:
Stole up and lassoed him,
Tied up his legs…
It was disgusting!
The boys, cheered up by wine,
Kicked his huge testicles,
Giggling and laughing…

He wheezed, he staggered,
The pain was bitter,
They had forgotten, those guys,
That he was a bull, a bull to be killed,
A bull to be killed as a sacrifice!
And from the standpoint of a male
He regretted having wasted away,
Like a hot-tempered
And peppery man,
His only wealth –
Energy and strength…

17.11.2002

Translated from Georgian

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Janri Gogeshvili

Janri Gogeshvili

The Republic of Georgia.
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