Sadistic Quatrains

The so-called “sadistic quatrains” (or, infrequently, two-liners, which are among the most expressive) represented obvious reaction on the pretentious moralization of the Soviet era and were quoted and alluded by the Underground and Conceptualist poets, Grebenschikov among others. Sadistic rimes usually begin as fairy tales “once upon a time” and often ‘objectify’ children and women, sometimes with erotic overtones, the trope, which was widely used by Daniil Kharms in 1920-1930s. They typically depict senseless act of murder and/or demolition as ironic and laughable affair.

One little boy has been fishing on ice 

Monster icebreaker was quick to suffice. 

Never have seen you such laughable sight—

Half-boy-- on left, and half-- on right side.

Мальчик на озере льдинку колол,

Сзади подкрался к нему ледокол.

Нету картины печальней/смешнее на свете—

Слева пол-Пети и справа пол-Пети.

Once an old geezer procured hand grenade,

And he approached the village Soviet.

He armed the gadget and slammed through the door,

It does not matter for him anymore.

Дедушка в поле гранату нашел,

И к исполкому неспешно пошел.

Дернул колечко и бросил в окно—

Дедушка старый, ему все равно.

One little boy has procured machine gun,

Entire village is already gone.

Маленький мальчик нашел пулемет―

Больше в деревне никто не живет.

Stark naked broads fly through the sky—

Village bathhouse was hit by missile. 

Голые бабы по небу летят—

В баню попал реактивный снаряд.

(Compare this latest one with the "October Song" at http://russiancentury.blogspot.com/2012/07/crisis-of-russian-poetry-in-1970s-with.html) 

Sadistic quatrains had their deep prehistory both in erotic quatrains of the Old Russia and the political ditties of other, less-than-vegetarian epochs of the Russian/Soviet history (the flourishing of the literary form discussed above happened to be in the rather calm Khruschev and Brezhnev years). Below, I quote the two-liner about murder of the Communist leader S. M. Kirov (1934), for which many a prankster could be given a baseline 10 year sentence in the Gulag. Agricultural metaphor was a probably signature of yesterday's peasants who became St. Petersburg (Leningrad) urbanites only recently. 

Good cucumbers grow late
And tomatoes,
Stalin scratched our Kirov straight--
--Hot potatoes!

Огур-р-чики! Помидор-р-чики!
Сталин Кирова пришил, в коридорчике.