:



     March 22, 2002

     The most comprehensive  translation  of  Marina  Tsvetayeva in  English
language,  prepared for 110th anniversary  of  her  birth. Translations from
Russian original in chronological order. Includes classics and  lesser-known
poems, translated directly from Russian anthology. For inquiries, contact
ilya_shambat@yahoo.com.
     
In the old Strauss waltz for the first time We had listened to your quiet call, Since then all the living things are alien And the knocking of the clock consoles. We, like you, are gladly greeting sunsets, And are drunk on nearness of the end. All, with which on better nights we're wealthy Is put in the hearts by your own hand. Bowing to a child's dreams with no tire. (Only crescent looked in them indeed Without you)! You have led your kids past Bitter lifetime of the thoughts and deeds. From the early age the sad one's close to us, Laughter bores and home we left behind.. Our ship not in good times left the harbor And it sails by will of every wind! Azure isle of childhood is paling, On the deck of ship we stand alone. It appears, oh mother, to your daughters You've left an inheritance of woe. The street awakens. She looks, exhausted With the mute windows' sullen eyes, On sleepy faces, red from the cold, That with thoughts chase the stubborn sleep away. The blackened trees with rime are covered - With trace mysterious of the night's fun, In gleaming brocade sad ones are standing, Just like the dead the alive among. The gray coat mingles, trampled upon, The forage-cup with a wreathe, a bored look, And the red arms, pressed to the ears, And the black apron with the tied books. The street awakens. She looks, unpleasant With mute windows' sullen eyes, it would seem. To sleep, in a happy thought be forgotten, What life seems to us, this is a dream! Children - are staring of eyes so frightful, Mischievous legs on a wooden floor, Children - is sun in the gloomy motives, Hypotheses' of happy sciences world. Eternal disorder in the ring's gold, Tender word's whispers in semi-sleep, On the wall in a cozy child's room, the dreaming Peaceful pictures of birds and sheep. Children - is evening, evening on the couch, In the fog, through the window, glimmer street lamps, A measured voice of the tale of King Saltan, Mermaid-sisters of seas from tales. Children - is rest, brief moment of respite, A trembling vow before God's eyes, Children - are the world's tender riddles, Where in the riddle the answer hides! To Katherine Pavlovna Peshkova Mother has painted the coffin brightly. The tiny one sleeps in Sunday attire. Onto the forehead no longer is falling The light-brown hair; A round comb no longer is pressing, Having seen so little, of the child's head; Only of joy knew The heart of the kid. For five years so happily lived she Much played the deft arms! Fantasies, fantasies mid lilies, Nobody disturbed them. The flowers seek a place nearer to her, (She seems tight in her new bed). The flowers know: Little Katya A golden heart had. L.A.T. ON THE GROUND "Hid in the corner, you look so stubborn, We wait for long. Say, you agree?" "Ah, I don't know. Leave me, mother! Leave me. It's all the same to me!" IN THE GROUND "Is not the breath of a tired chest heavy? In tight grave it's always dark, you see?" "Ah, I don't know. Leave me, people! Leave me! It's all the same to me!" OVER THE GROUND "Did I love passionately with my heart, too? Evil - did it so anger thee?" "O my good God, I agree completely! I'm tired. It's all the same to me!" Your whole way with shining evil's coal Margaret, they all do bravely judge. What's your fault? The body sinned as such, Innocent you have retained your soul. To all people it's the same, I know, To all nodded with a blurry smile. And with this sorrowful semi-smile You have wept yourself long time ago. Who will know? Whose hand will help along? No exception to the rule, one thing entrances! They eternally await embraces, They eternally await, "I'm thirsty! Be my own!" Day and night the bane of false confessions.. Day and night, tomorrow, and once more! Spoke more eloquently than the word Your dark glance, the martyr's dark expression. The accursed ring is growing narrow, On the goddess of the world avenges fate.. Smiling childishly, into your face A young tender boy glances with sorrow. The entire world is saved by love! In but her salvation and defense is. All's in love. O Margaret, sleep in peace. All's in love. I'm saved because I love. I know you not and in no way I want to lose starry illusions With such a face in worst confusion People are loyal to a ray. All that the fate has marked for grave Have such closed-off face instead. You are a page that was not read And no, you will not be a slave. A slave with such a face? Oh no! There is no error here by chance. Your slender figure and your glance Will be secret to many, I know. A heavy bracelet of your hair Under the thrown-over scarf (You'd do with guitar or a harp) And your pale face, as pale as air. I know you not. And possibly You're kind and moderate like all. Maybe! May these be ravings all! For only raving ones may be! Perhaps the day is not so far When I will fathom what's unseemly... But this to err - it is so relieving! It is so easy yet to err! Touching the scarf with a light hand, There where the whistles shrilly blow. This is the you that I will know Where you just like a riddle stand. Homes reach the stars, the sky's below, The land in smoke to it is near. Inside the big and happy Paris Remains the secretive despair. The evening boulevards are noisy, Gone are the sundown's final rays, And there are couples everywhere Trembling of lips, daring of eyes. I'm here alone. To trunk of chestnut It is so nice one's head to lean! And like in the abandoned Moscow In heart weep verses of Rostand. Paris at night is sad and alien, Dear to the heart is madness gone! I'm going home, there's vial of sorrow And tender portrait of someone. There's someone's glance, sad and fraternal. There's tender profile on the wall. Rostand and the Reichstadtian martyr And Sara - in sleep come they all! Within the big and happy Paris I dream of grass, of clouds and rain And laughter far, and shadow near, And deep just like before is pain. Christ and the Lord! I thirst for marvel Now, here, as the day would start! The life is like a book to me, So let me die. Let me depart. You're wise, and sternly "Now be patient, Your time's not ripe" you will not say. Yourself you gave me - too much now! I thirst at once - for every way! I want it all: with soul of gypsy To run to plunder with a song, To suffer for all near an organ, To run to war, an Amazon; To divine stars in a black tower The kids through shadows to lead... That yesterday would be a legend, That each and every day be mad! I love the cross, the silk, the helmet, The minute's trace of soul of mine.. You gave me childhood - better than fiction Now let me die at seventeen! Evening noise in the burning sunset On twilight of winter day. The third call. Hurry, remember me, You that are going away! Emerald wave is awaiting you, Splash of an oar of blue, To live our life underground, difficult, Was not possible to you. Well then, ahead, that our murky struggle Into our ranks never calls, If the transparent wetness appeals to you Flight of the silver seagulls! Give my regards to the hot, the brilliant, Burning sun, Your question pose to all strong and bright - Answer will come! Evening noise in the burning sunset On twilight of winter day. The third call. Hurry, remember me, You that are going away! From heaven of a childhood life A farewell to me you're sending, The ever-loyal dear friends Within a red worn down binding. On learning homework from school, At once I ran to see you yet. "It's late" - "Please, Mother, ten more lines" - But happily she did forget. The fires flicker in a lamp.. How nice it is to read at home! To sounds of Greeg, Schumann and Kui I learned about the fate of Tom. It's dark.. the air is growing cold.. Tom's full of faith in Becky's joy. Within the darkness of the cave Wanders with torch Indian Joe.. A cemetery.. owl is screaming.. (I'm scared) And now through hassocks flies The punctilious widow's foster-child, Like in a barrel Diogenes. Lighter than Sun is the throne hall, Over the graceful boy - a crown.. At once - a beggar! God! He said: "Forgive, I'm heir to the throne." To darkness comes, who comes from her. Sad is the destiny of Britain.. O, wherefore not amid red books Not to go back to sleep again Before a lamp? O golden times Where sight is braver, heart is purer: O golden times, I say again: Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, Prince and Beggar! Over meadow stands new moon, Over boundary of dew. Come, we'll make a friend of you, Dear, distant, alien. In the day I hide, am quiet. Moon above - I have no might! I rush on this lunar night To the shoulder of beloved. I'll never ask me, "Who's he?" All to know, your lips will say! Hugs are rude but in the day, In the day the fit is funny. In the day, torn by a demon proud, With a smile on lips I lie. Night, though.. Darling, far away.. Crescent stands above the wood! Mein Herz tragt schwere Ketten. Die Du mir angelegt. Ich mocht mein Leben wetten Dass Keine schwerer tragt Frankfurt song Teasing and tempting and playing We loved like children, us both But somebody, hiding a smile, Set up the ungentle nets - And here we are at the harbor, Not seeing the wished-for abodes, But knowing that I will be yours In the heart, without words, until death. You told me of all things - so early! I guessed them so late! In our hearts A wound is eternal, a silent Question exists in our eyes, The desert on earth is so endless, The heaven, so high, has no stars, Revealed is the tender secret, And frost rules for centuries. I will talk to shades! O my dear, To forget you I do not have might, Your visage can't move under shadow Of eyelids gone over my eyes... It's darkening... Shutters have closed, On all things descending is night... I love you, one ghostly-eternal, And only you - and always! Tender caresses of kind little sisters Are ready for you. With the birds' songs, O the charmed prince, We're waiting for you. Branch drunk with sun, you grew, visage of heaven Before my eyes. Like a girl tender, like a child quiet, All - surprise. They'll often say: "These sisters are treacherous In each reply!" Cocky with daring ones, kids with a boy, timid With someone shy. We love, like you, melting clouds and birches And melted snow. We love the tales about grandmother's daughters, Little and slow! Pitiful is the wind, spring remembering, Gems in the skies.. We wait for you, one that knows nothing of life, And has blue eyes! Evening dimmed, like ourselves charmed With this first warmth of the spring. Stirring alive, Arbat was alarmed; With sympathetic tenderness, the kind Gale touched us with a tired wing. In our souls, raised on a fairy tale, Sorrow quietly cried for past things. He came - so unexpected! So hurriedly - He who helped in all things before. And far off in a line unconsolably The streetlamps' radiant dots Burned though light darkness some more... All around flowers we bought; We bought a bouquet.. What for? Quietly withered away unseen garden In the sky violet-red. How to be saved from late trouble? All returned. For a moment? For long? We speechlessly looked at sun going to bed, And Gogol nodded, thoughtful, from The pedestral like a brother, sad. Near is the meek image of the dark chapel Where the organ does weep! Alien to me is earthly joy. I'm Angelique. Quiet singing in unison sounds, Unclear are the windows, it seems, Elegant vaults have taken control Of my life like dreams. My sight in childhood slipped away there, It's tormented by the towns. Talk and the shining hall bore me indeed And the world wears me down. Someone lit candles before the Virgin. (Does the sick healing await?) This is the reason I'm silent midst you: I'm different all the way. Sweet is the weakness of arms relaxed, Light to me here is all woe. Dark-leafed ivy, as if they were friends Embraced the stones; Grass has blossomed here all the way Like almond, white and pink... I need no joy. I don't pity the world: I'm Angelique. Like in a mirror, there's shade in the heart I'm bored alone - and with men... Slowly drags the light of the day From four till seven! Everybody is cruel in the dusk, Don't go to people - they'll lie. Fingers have wound into a knot The kerchief. I want to cry. Only don't torture me so, If you hurt me I'll forgive! From four till seven o'clock I endlessly grieve. Eggs on a plate warmed the soul with delight And ringing of bells. What is more radiant than Easter in April, People, pray tell? Rays are caressing the grass, from the street Phrases and words... Quietly I wander from porch to the barn, Measuring boards. Waves of Easter ringing, external dawn, Like glow in the sky, Sound of a gramophone of our neighbors Bitterly cries, From kitchen follows it endlessly woeful Harmonica's sound, Much has gone on, oh yes much has gone on.. The past, fall down! No, I don't get help from eggs on the dish! It's late... Gone are the rays.. What is more hopeless than Easter in April, People, please say? All's for a moment, that people create, Glimmer of new things dims, But yet unaltered, like sorrow, remains Contact through dreams. Calming.. If but to forget.. but to sleep.. Sweetness of eyelids over eyes.. Dreams open fates of the future, and bind For centuries. All that I stealthily thought, is to me Clear like a crystal clean. Us, with a timeless and endless riddle, United the dream. I do not pray, "O God, make to vanish Torment of coming day!" Oh no, "Oh God, send to him about me A dream," I pray. May I get pale at the meeting with you - Sorrowful is it to meet! Secret is one: The contact through dreams. We are Powerless before it. Azure are the fields, where our dreaming had met. Don't rush my memory! Be truthful: Anew you'll touch the silver cup Not soon with a one such as me. All's destroyed, not by our volition. And sweet Is the sigh over lost heaven! May be! - You're all - May's! For you is my sorrow of May. All that's dreamed of in May is for thee. Here we don't need to rendezvous. Truly, we'll meet Where the truth with the truth I shall meet; Every evening on bridges shaky and light We come out one another to greet. A familiar figure I'll see from afar - Heart beats rarely, then frequently, though... Like before you're not wrathful, not vengeful, oh no! And your eyes are the same, full of woe. These are dreams. To us both the night is still dear, Bravely breaking all barriers so. But the image of her that could not lie, my friend, Once awakened, don't chase like a foe. And when he will appear in the evening shade Under call of a previous song, Nod to happiness that has elapsed with a smile And recall without rage the one gone. Louder is noise, as if taller than buildings, Train is shivering for the final time, Final time... we're riding... now my winter Dream, say goodbye! My winter dream, good to the point of tears, From you fortune is bearing me away. Judged in this way! I need no dream nor burden Along the way. Under train's noise to swim to far-off days, Still foggy, to trust marvels is so sweet. World is so wide! Maybe within it you I will forget? The train's darkness presses on the shoulders, Into window pours a torrent of the fog... My distant friend, please fathom - self-deception Is all this talk! Why the new land? The glimmer of same stars, Same laughter, war with boredom, everywhere, And your sweet gesture will be as a torment Here, like there. It is true, is it not, that our souls are not used yet to parting? With a shimmer of glimmering wings they each other call! Someone higher parted the arms, tenderly interwoven, But forgot the remembering souls. Every evening, lit up by the will of a sorceress gentle. Every evening, when over the hills, in the heart, stands the fog, To the soul not forgetting the former deception comes near With a meek and not confident walk. Like the wind, that with sharp gusts awakens the things of times prior, From the glimmering lines your are smiling at me once again. All is permitted, all! You from dream, I in dream. Will not judge us The angst of the day. Someone higher betrayed us to nameless delicious torment, (Many wanderings blunderings through dark and snow there will be!) Someone higher parted the arms, tenderly intevowen... Not responsible for this are we! Did not love, did not weep. Oh no, did not love, but regardless I have showed in the shadows the beloved likeness to you. In our sleep all things did not appear like love: No cause, no clues. From the evening hall only to us nodded this image, Only we - you and me - to it pitiful verses bore. What has bound us stronger than love has bound others Is that we adore. But the gust was escaped, and tenderly somebody approached, He who could not have prayed, but did love. To judge do not hurry! Like the most tender note in awakening of the soul You're memorable to me. In this sorrowful soul you had wandered, like in open house.. (In our house, in the spring)... Forgotten don't call me! All my minutes are filled with you, except for love - The most melancholy. Behind the walls once again Bells' whining is heard. Several streets between us, And several words! The city in darkness sleeps, Silver sickle appears, The falling snow scatters Your collar with stars. Do your wounds ail for a long time? Do the calls wound of the past? Teases the new, seductive, And shining glance. (Blue or brown?) It matters more than Wise pages to the heart! Rime turns to white the Eyelashes' darts... Behind the walls, bell's whining Lacks strength, is barely heard. Several streets between us, And several words! Clear crescent is leaning into Books' and poets' souls, Into your downy collar In sheets is pouring snow. The exhausted world sighs of confusion, The pink even streams oblivion... We were parted by shadows, not people, Oh my dearest boy, heart of mine! -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Walls are towering, in a fog dressing, Spear was dropped without strength by the sun.. In the evening world I'm cold. Where are you, Oh my dearest boy, heart of mine? -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- You will not hear. The walls are encroaching, All things blend into one, all dies down... Nothing did, does, will substitute for you, Oh my dearest boy, heart of mine! Once again I am bending my knees before you, Having noticed your garland of stars far apace. Let me know, dear Christ, that not all things are ghosts, Allow me, at last, not a ghost to embrace! I am tormented by these long days. With no worry, With no aim, in half-darkness, I am so lost.. I can love ghosts, but can one survive on this planet For eighteen years solely on ghosts? And they sing, and they write, joy is in the beginning! Blossom with your full jubilant soul! Isn't it true, there's no happiness without sorrow? I don't have any friends save the dead, none at all. Those enflamed with another belief for all time, is it so, From the world in empty desert had hid? No, I don't need the smiles gained at the cost Of profaning the highest shrines of my creed. I don't need bliss that comes at the price of debasement. I don't need love! I'm sorrowful - not for her. In the quiet kingdom of beloved ghosts, only ghosts - Give me my soul to give back, Savior! Outside the window once again A fir is lit by snow.. This cradle of yours, my dear friend, Why did you outgrow? The snowflakes fly, to all adhere, And melt too fast to know.. What therefore for, you stupid one, Did you it outgrow? Days' weight upon it didn't press T'was easy sleeping there, And now your eyes have darker grown And gold of your hair.. It burned your sight, but will it give Happiness, this wide world? Why, why did you outgrow Your cradle, my dear girl? With a milky and even wave The moon washed the cold parquet. I sweetly was sleeping under the moon, To a hot cheek pressing a bouquet. With light and with sleep doubly disturbed, I opened the eyes sleepy, And like a pink angel without wings The Girl Death leaned to me. Medallion trembles around the thin neck, A blush on her cheeks pours, It's visible, that she ran: dusted A bit are her bluish shoes. There's fanciful pattern of golden edge, A turquoise thread in the curls. "We'll play on the road, together us two: You - little boy, me - a girl Put on (you're the knight) my scarf of lace!" I silently gave the bouquet... And with a milky and even cold wave The moon washed the parquet. I have brought you a bouquet, Scarlet-red roses, poppies. I'm not same in anything, I'm the happy boy-madness. I'll blow out a yellow candle - It will be a flashlight pink. And a golden diadem I will wear like a king. I'm a conqueror sleepy Kingdoms, a mage. Is't full, King? I'm a doctor that is healing Without pills or medicines. Why the medicines? Why pills too? We will dance together, kid! Now flies mounted on a chair A completely empty bed. Where he's from - it is my secret: Serpent, red, will weave and hiss. I am laughing, all are laughing. I'm the happy boy-madness. Let's meet the stranger with a lamp, With a quiet, loyal flame. Only no hidden whisper, No whisper about him! We do not need the bright light now, Dim the lamp till it's barely lit. Only no sight of the better, No sight of it! May in a careless worry Year like a day only seem! Only no thought of eternal, No thought about him! We will again become "sisters", Nearer to each other sit. Only no words of the past, No words about it! today all night long could not sleep From the magickal month-of-May noise! Quietly pulled on the pantyhose And to the window slipped. I'm a rebel with whirlwind in the blood, Only passion and cold matter to me. I have read Bourge too: One can't be Happy when one is unloved. "He"'s rejected since he was twelve, Plays but Greeg and but Liszt - and come look: He is smart and well-read, like a book, And a poet as well! For but one of his looks of fire I am ready to fall on my knees! But my parents our happiness Do not desire. Here's the world, where glass-cases are shining, Here's Tverskaya - we miss it eternally. Whom does Asya need more than Marina? Whom does dear Asya need more than me? In a lively row walking, drinking Sunset, voices, lights, - all that's there, And at times lowering our eyelids Under someone's assiduous stare. Moscow April night is only ours, Only ours, the flames shining like darts - Street to grown ups, to us - Tverskaya Is a cradle of semi-grown hearts. This, a cradle of golden sunrise, The world marvels at what's in morn given.. Here's a window with Tate's diamonds, With lights here's a window again.. We will know all by faith or by sense, Starry distance and width of the sky! Pink stands Strastnoi monastery Over grey plaza towering high. Without moment of silence we're walking. All dear words, all dear traits - in all truth! Unforgettable April - Tverskaya You're the cradle of our youth! Ring, sing, oblivion preventing, The words "fifteen years old" in my soul. Why, did I grow up and become big? Nothing consoles. Just yesterday, into green grove of birches Free, in the morning I ran away. Just yesterday I frolicked without hairdo, Just yesterday! Spring ringing of the far-away belltowers Told me: "Run and sit and lie!" And every step frolicking was allowed, And every cry! What is ahead? What failure lies before me? In all deceit, all is forbidden. Thus, crying, with dear childhood I parted At age fifeen. To rock a cradle this morning in May? Proud neck in lasso, like some? Distaff to jailbird, to herder - a shawn, To me - a drum. Role of a woman's not dear to me: I fear not wounds, but boredom. Gives to me everything - honor and might - This my drum. So many countries I have not seen! Trees are in bloom, stands the sun.. Kill all the sorrow around you in flight, Beat, my drum! Beat, now you drummer! Ahead of all! All else - deceit for the dumb! Why does it conquer the heart on the way. How is the drum? Clear morning is not hot, lightly You run through the meadow. Down the Oka pulls a barge, Very slow. Several words without willing You are repeating still. Somewhere in the field is ringing Weakly the bell. Ring in the field? On the meadow? Are they going to the prayer? Eyes into somebody's fortune For a moment stare. Distance is blue between pine trees, On threshing-floor voices ring.. And smiles the autumn To our spring. Life has flung open, but still.. Ah, days of gold! Lord, how are they distant! How are they distant, God! To melt all, that the people forget all, Like a candle or molten snow? Be a handful of dust in the future Under cross of a grave? I say no! Every moment, from anguish concussing, I return to the same once again: Die forever! Did for this the fortune Give me all things to understand? Evening in the child's room, where with muppets I'll be sitting, cobweb on the meadow, The accursed soul by the vision.. To live for everyone, all to know! For this (there is strength in the expressed one) I give to court what's dear to me, That these my restless young years Youth would keep eternally. You walk, looking just like me, Lowering your eyes. I lowered them - also! Stop, the passerby! Read - having gathered a bouquet Of hens' blindness and poppies - That they called me Marina And how old I was. Don't think I'll appear with menace, That a grave here is hidden.. I loved to laugh too much When it was forbidden. And blood to the skin was rushing, And my curls did twist.. I once was too, passerby! Passerby, cease and desist! Tear off for yourself a wild stem And after him a berry: There are no strawberries sweeter Or bigger than at cemetery. But only don't grimly stand there, On the chest lowering your head. Lightly do think about me And lightly about me forget. How the ray alights you! You're all in a golden dust.. And at my voice from below Do not you be nonplussed. These my poems, written so early That I did not know then I was a poet, Which having tore, like droplets from a fountain, Like sparks from a rocket, Into a sanctuary, where there is sleep and incense Like little devils having burst, These my poems about youth and about death, This unread verse! Scattered through shops in piles of dust Where nobody picked them up or does, These my poems, like precious wine, Will have their time. Passing me by, as you walk To charms doubtful and not mine - If you but knew how much fire, How much life is wasted in vain, On the rustling, occasional shade What a heroic flame - And how enflamed my heart This gunpowder wasted in vain! O the trains flying into the night, Carrying sleep on the station away.. If you recognized - if you but knew - Then and there, I know, anyway. Why are my words so sharp In the smoke of my cigarette - How much dark and menacing angst Is there in my light-haired head. My voice is dumb and all the words, In vain. So now, go! I won't be in the right before Anyone, I know. Beautiful coward, in this battle It's not for me to fall! But, dear youth, I do not fight For power in this world. And this the noble-minded verse Never yourself denies. You can - because of someone else - Not see my very eyes, Not to grow blind upon my flame, Nor feel the strength in me.. What demon in me you let loose Into eternity! But know that there will be a court, Like arrow taking aim, When two angelic fiery wings Over the head will gleam. 1 We're sharp and we are ready, We're faster. In each word, in each glance, in each gesture - Two sisters. Unique and refined our taste is And our words, We from the old Damascus Are two swords. Out, threshing-floor and bread's burden And the ox! We - are stretched out in heaven Two arrows! On the world's market without sin We're alone. We - from William Shakespeare Are two poems. 2 We - are the dressing of poplars In the spring, We - are the last hope Of the kings. We're on the bottom of ancient cup. Come see now: In it is your dawn, and ours Two dawns too. And touching lips to the cup Drink to bottom. You will see our names On the bottom. Light glance is brave and shining Evil too. Who on earth ever met it Among you? Guarding the cradle, the mausoleum And other things, We are the final visage Of the kings. 1 Such voices can be, That you're silent, don't repeat them, So that wonders you foresee. There are also giant eyes The color of the sea Now he stands in front of you: Look at forehead and at blood And compare him with you! The decrepit blood, Tiredness turned blue. Of each noble vein Blueness triumphs. Gesture of the prince and lion With a white foam lace Repeats again. Your regiment's - dragoon, Decembrists and Versaillians! You don't know - he's so young - Fingers ask for brushes, Spars and strings. 2 Like seaweed, like branches of willows Of Malmazonia are your limbs, Thus you did lie in sprays of sea foam Transfixing absent-mindedly Upon the sweet light-golden melons Of diamond and aquamarine The eyes forever semi-open So blue-and-grayish, bluish-green. The waves are just like rabid lions, The arrows of the sun did fly. And from intolerable blueness Too whitish, you did there lie. Behind the back, the desert, somewhere The station Djankoi had to be, And underneath your arm stretched out Melon grew golden quietly. Thus, calm and precious, you lie there, Don't give a glance and do not see, But look - and waves will heave with power, And mountains will be moved to sea. And new moons will in sky be burning, And joyful lions will lie down Under the single downward leaning Of your head beautiful and young. I think about the morning of your glory, About the morning of your days too, when Like a demon you from sleep had stirred And were a god for men. I think of when your eyebrows came together Over the burning torches of your eyes, Of how the ancient blood's eternal lava Rushed through your arteries. I think of fingers - very long - inside The wavy hair, about all Eyes that did thirst for you in alleys And in the dining-halls. About the hearts too, which - you were too young then - You did not have the time to read, too soon, About the times, when solely in your honor Arose and down went the moon. I think about a hall in semi-darkness, About the velvet, into lace inclined, About the poems we would have told each other, You - yours, I - mine. I also think about the remaining From your lips and your eyes handful of dust.. About all eyes, that are now in the graveyard About them and us. How many people fell in this abyss, I fathom from afar! There will be time, and I will vanish too From earth's exterior. All will be still, that sang and that did struggle, That glistened and rejoiced: The greenness of my eyes, the gold of my hair, And this my tender voice. Life will continue with its soft hot bread, With day's oblivion. All will continue - under outstretched heavens As if I'd never been! Like children changeable in every mien And angry not for long, Who loved the times when in the fireplace Into ash turned the log, Violin and cavalcade within the forest And in the village, bell... Upon this dear earth - I will be no longer That was alive and real! To all - who are the friends and strangers To never having known the measure, me? I turn to you with this my faith's demand And love's query. Both day and night, in word and letter both: For truth of yes and no, For that though I am but twenty I am So often in such sorrow, For unavoidably my slights and trespasses Will be forgiven me - For all of my impetuous tenderness And look too proud and free - For quickness of events as they come rushing, For truth, for play, say I - Please hear me! But do also please love me For this that I will die. Thus to thirst life: And to be tender And rabid and noisy, To be intelligent and charming - Gorgeous to be! More tender than what are or have been, Guilt not to know... This, that in graveyard all are equal, Angers me so. To be what nobody holds dear - Like ice become! Not knowing what has come before now Nor what will come, To forget how the heart broke and Grew back together, To forget both the words and voice And shine of hair. Bracelet of ancient turquoise On the stem, on This my white arm Narrow and long... Like painting over a cloud From afar, One took the mother-of-pearl pen In one's arm, Just like the legs jumped Over the fence, To forget, how along the road Shade advanced. To forget, like flame of azure, how Days are subdued... All my mischief, all my tempest, And poems too! Laughter will be chased away by My miracle. I, always-pink, will be The most pale. And they won't open - thus is needed - Pity this one! Not for the sight, not for the fields, Not for the sun - These my lowered eyelids. - Flower not for! - My earth, forgive for centuries Forevermore. Thus both the moon and the snow Will melt away, When this young, beautiful century Will rush on by. You, whose sleep is without awakening, Who does still quietly move, Go to the Three-Pond alley If you my poems love. O, how sunny and how starry It's to start the life's first tome I pray - while it is not too late yet - Come and take a look at our home! Soon that world will be snuffed out, In a secret of the night look at it, While the poplar is not cut down And our home is not sold yet. This our poplar! Our childhood's evenings Underneath it nestle and thrash. This our poplar among acacias Is the color of silver and ash. Hurry on, you will find this world Unforgettably wonderful! Go to the Three-Pond Alley To this soul of my soul. 1 You will be innocent, gorgeous, Refined - and to all alien. A striving, aspiring mistress, An enticing Amazon. Your braids of hair, most likely, To wear like a helmet you'll choose, You will be the queen of the ballroom - Of all the poems of our youth. And your vicious blade of humor Will pierce through many, queen, And you will have at your feet All of which I can but dream. All will be obedient to you, And all before you will be quiet. Like me, you will indisputably And better poems write. But will you press tight and deadly Those temples of yours - who knows - Just like your young mother Is pressing her temples now. 2 Yes, I am jealous of you With such a jealousy! Yes, I also disturb you With my angst already. And this my miserable nature In you is most awfully clear: In your without two months two years - You're in despair. All dolls in whole wide world, all horses You'll give without a second thought For one page from my notebook And pencil I bought. You're in a fight with maids - you want All things by yourself done. Then suddenly you're in despair: "The sea's gone home." However proudly I speak of you, I can't transmit you all about When you are asking me, "Mother, Please kiss my snout." You know, all in me is laughing When somebody once again Attempts to kiss you In vain. I am the snake that took the princess, A dragon! Groom of grooms! O light Of my eyes - O the jealousy Of my night! 1 Clad in the golden dust of evening An August day did quietly melt. The ringing streetcars rushed onwards And people went. I went along a quiet side street Without aim, absent-mindedly. And I remember how the church bells Sang quietly. I decided all things on the way Imagining your pose: Am I, or am I not, to bring To you a rose? And I was readying a phrase, Forgotten afterward, Alas - And suddenly - no wait! - at once! That self-same house. With many stories, looking bored... I count the windows, here's the porch. Unwittingly, cross on the neck The hands do search. I count the gray steps, that are leading Me to the flame. I ring the bell. Here for thinking. There is no time. I but remember roar of thunder And my two hands, as cold as ice. I call for you. - He is at home, He'll come at once. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- May with my youth the years bear out What's unforgotten, one and all. The paint upon the colored wallpaper I will recall. And glass-beads of the lampshade, and The sound of some strange voices and Port Arthur and the dull clock beating Overhead. The moment, long, in the least measure - Like hour. But steps from afar. And you have entered. Here's the squeaking Of open door. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- And there at once was fascination. He leaned down, simple like a king. And two stars in awe and terror Were glimmering. And squinting them, so huge, you did not Know of the tender face so dear, Still one more moment - what a tempest Played here. I struggled like a hero. Even You and I once together dined! A muted voice I do remember And lips' outline. And hair, fluffier than down, And - the most dear! - The gorgeous wrinkles of laughter Your long eyes near. And I recall - you sat right there, I, here - but you do forget. What effort all this cost to me, What minutes yet - To sit, giving off reams of smoke, And to observe silence complete ... It was intolerable to me Like this to sit. You do recall this conversation Of weather and of letter "e." Behold, you know, for such a strange dinner There cannot be. In a half-turn, in a half-darkness I laugh, not waiting for myself: "Eyes of a thoroughbred dog, Count, Farewell." -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Lost and without aim completely I walked an alley dark as well And, seemingly, there was no singing Of the bell. 2 When he did live everyone loved him Eternal loyalty did vow, Carry the wreaths out of the lilies Onto fresh snow. Over his miserable lodgings For a brief minute go slow That he would not for too long shiver On this first snow. Warm, melt the icy blood inside him With breath of body and of soul! But if at once the love inside is Already cold - To lover - love the brother even, The child on forehead wears a wreath - He can hug no one in the coffin After his death. Ah, he, whom you so loved, for whose sake You would have gone into hell's vault - That he is now in a coffin Is not his fault! From rustling of steps and of dress Trembling from head down to your feet - How he'd discover your embraces, Whene'er could he! O women! For each one among you He became ash and madness all! With what thirst, fully, did he love you, You must recall! Recall, how you caught From his eyes each look, Recall the former vows you've spoken In the night's dark. Thus you will not become disloyal Before his cross so nondescript, And each should quietly remember His lip. And before rushing onwards In sled with gypsy bell, go slow, And with your faces fall down Into night snow. Let it your cheeks tenderly sprinkle, And melt in droplets near your eyes.. I am among you one as I am Writing these lines - I won't break vows I have not taken - Life - your brown eyes - And for the soul of Love herself, O women, pray! 3 The leaves are scattered above your tombstone And winter's smell. Listen, the dead one, listen, O dear one: You're my own still. You laugh! - Moon is high - in the roadside cabin Full of charm. My - so undoubted and unchanging - Like this arm. To hospital doors with a knot in the morning I'll come again. You simply have gone to the great wide seas, To sunny land. I kissed you! I charmed you! I laugh at this darkness Beyond the tomb! I disbelieve death! I wait at the terminal - Come home. May leaves all be scattered, erased and washed out On mourning ribbon the words. And, I am also dead, if you're dead For the whole world. I see and I feel - I sense you everywhere - What's ribbon from wreaths of yours - I did not forget you and will not forget you Forevermore. I know the aimlessness of such a promise Its pointlessness too. Letter to endlessness - letter to limitlessness - Letter into the blue. 4 Here's your roses - pull your hands toward them - Having gone farther than the sea, dear friend! My dear friend, having with you born out The most precious treasures of the land. I am robbed and deceived - There's no letter, No ring in my memory! How the features are memorable to me Of your face, wondering for centuries. How memorable is the asking, attentive Stare - inviting to sit near - And the worldy flattery of the dying And the smile from the great Afar - My dear friend, gone to sailing eternally - A fresh hillock among other mounds! Pray that there will not be other sailors Ensconced in your heavenly sound. 1 You're happy? You won't say! Barely! Better let go! You kissed too many, I do think, Therefrom, sorrow. All heroines of Shakespeare's tragedies In you I see. Nobody saved you, you the young Tragic lady. You are so tired of repeating Love's charm! Eloquent, the pig iron bracelet On bloodless arm. I love you. - Like a thundercloud Above you - sin - Because you're best of all and caustic And sting, Because in darkness of the roads differ Our lives and we, For your inspired enticement and Dark destiny, Because to you, my round-headed demon, "Forgive" I'll say, Because you - tear apart above the coffin! - Cannot be saved! For this trembling, because - is it not so - I have a dream? - For the ironic beauty of this, That you - aren't he. 2 Under caresses of an ivy Plaid I recalled yesterday's dream. Whose victory? Who's been defeated? What has it been? Rethinking everything once more, Torturing myself once again. In this, for which no word I know, Had love ever been? Who was the hunter? Who - the hunted? All is reversed as if by Satan! What did the loudly purring Siberian Cat, understand? In this self-willing one another Who in whose hand was but a ball? Whose heart flew - yours or mine, Do you recall? And still again - what has it been too? What do I want, what do I pity? And I don't know: Did I win? Did somebody Conquer me? 3 Today was melting, and today Before the window I did stand. A sober look, a freer chest, I'm satisfied just once again. I don't know why. Perhaps the soul Has simply grown tired withal, And somehow the rebellious pencil I do not wish to touch at all. Distant to good and evil both, Inside the fog I stood, and thus, Was lightly drumming with my finger Upon the barely sounding glass. It is indifferent to the soul Than this one you first met - say I - Than mother-of-the-pearl mud puddles Where in full pleasure splashed the sky, Than bird that overhead is flying And dog that's simply running by And even the impoverished singer Did not begin to make me cry. The dear art of oblivion The soul has mastered all the way. Some overwhelmingly big feeling Melted within my soul today. 4 You were too lazy to get dressed, Too lazy to get up for me. And every following day for you Would have been happy with my glee. To come so late on a cold night Embarrassed you especially. And every following hour for you Would have been young with this my glee. I was the youth that passed you by - You did this without ill intent, Your actions were in every way Incorrigible, innocent. 5 Today, around eight, dashing through Big Lubanka straight ahead, Like bullet, like snowball, Somewhere rushed the sled. Already the laughter rang... I froze as I peered: Red down of the hair And somebody tall was near! We were with another, and opened Another sled route entire, With wished-for and dear to me - More strongly, than I - desired. "O, je n'en puis plus, j'etouffe!" - You screamed in full voice of yours, And boldly went tucking in The hollow of fur on her. World is happy, and evening is bold! From the muff purchases fly... Thus you rushed in a snowstorm, Coat to coat, eye to eye. And cruelest mutiny happened, And white snow did pour. I followed you with my eyes For two seconds - and no more. And caressed the longish nap Upon his coat - without wrath. O Snow Queen! Your little Kai Is frozen to death. 6 Just like a young plant sprout The neck is high and free. Who'll tell the name, who - years, Who - place, who - century? The curve of not bright lips Is capricious and wan, But blinding is the terraced Forehead of Beethoven. Clean to endearment Is the molten oval. A hand, in which a whip would do, And - in the silver - opal. Hand, meriting a fiddlestick, Gone into precious silk, A beautiful hand also, A hand that is unique. 7 You on your road pass me by, And your hand do not touch I. But my angst is eternal yet, That you be the first I met. Heart said "Dear!" at once I forgave you all by chance, Knowing nothing - not even the name! Love me, love me, I proclaim. From the curve of your lips with one glance I see their forced arrogance, By above brows jutting out: This heart storms, no doubt. With a black silk armor - dress, Voice with gypsy hoarseness, Until pain I like all things in thee, Even that you are not a beauty. Beauty, in summer won't wilt! Not a flower - you're a stalk made of steel, Meaner than mean, sharper than sharp, dear, From what island born away here? With a rod you do wonders, with a fan - In each bone and in each vein, In the form of each finger full of rage - Woman's tenderness, boy's courage. Parrying all ridicules with verse I open for you and the Universe All that's ready in you then Stranger with forehead of Beethoven! 8 Under sun the eyes are burning, Day's not equal day. I tell you for that occasion If I would betray: Whose lips I had not been kissing In the hour of love, To whom I upon black midnight Did not scarily vow - To live, like a flower blooms, like Mother tells a child, Never with an eye to go To any side.. See that cross made of cypress? It's familiar to you. All will wake - you only whistle Under my window. 9 I'll repeat in hour of parting When love comes to end That I loved, yes that I loved these Your masterful hands And the eyes - somebody isn't Gifted with a glance! - Those that answer are demanding For a look by chance. You with your thrice-cursed passion - God sees all, say I! And demanding a payment for An accidental sigh. And I tiredly say, to listen Hurry not at all! Why is it that your own soul Stands across my soul. And again I'll also tell you: All the same - start this! - Far too young was this my mouth For your gentle kiss. Glance is luminous and daring, Heart - like five year old... Happy's he who did not meet you On your road. 10 Before a mirror, where there's fog And turbid sleep, your way I want to try - where it will lead And where there is the quay. I see: the mast upon a ship, And you - on deck, standing... You - in the smoke of train... the fields In lament of evening The ravens flying overhead, The evening fields in dew... In all the four directions I Am truly blessing you. 11 The clock - what time it is? Rang out. Hollows of giant eyes, Watered satin of the dress.. I just about see you, I guess, Just about. The neighboring porch Has turned off the light. Somewhere they love too much.. Your face's sketch Is a scary sight. It's semi-dark in the room, One is the night. Pierced by the light of the moon Window deepened - Like ice sheet. "You give up" - the voice burst. "I didn't fight by choice." Voice from the moon catches frost. Voice - like from hundred verst This same voice! Between us stood ray of moon, Moving the world everywhere. Intolerably shone Metal red-brown Of crazy hair. Run of the moon forgot History's run. Mirror breaks moon apart. Knocking of hooves far apart, Screeching of a cart. Light on the street burned down, Running fades. A cock will sing soon Parting for two young Ladies. Insanity - and good reason, Disgrace - and honor, All, that brings on thoughtfulness, Is spilling over - In me. - All the penal passions Become as one! - All images wage war inside This hair of mine! The lover's whisper, all around By rote I know, Experience of twenty two years Nothing but sorrow! But - won't you say - innocently pink Look I, I'm virtuoso's virtuoso In art of lies. In her let out like a ball, Caught once again, The blood of Polish great-grandmoms Is evident. I lie because in cemeteries The grass does grow, I lie because in cemeteries Snowstorm does blow... From violin - from automobile - From silk, from fire... From torment that not only me They all desired! From pain, that I am not the bride Of the groom... From poem and gesture - for the gesture And for the poem! From tender boa on the neck... And how can I Not lie - when my voice sounds more tender When I do lie... I like it that you're burning not for me, I like it that it's not for you I'm burning And that the heavy sphere of Planet Earth Will underneath our feet no more be turning I like it that I can be unabashed And humorous and not to play with words And not to redden with a smothering wave When with my sleeves I'm lightly touching yours. I like it, that before my very eyes You calmly hug another; it is well That for me also kissing someone else You will not threaten me with flames of hell. That this my tender name, not day nor night, You will recall again, my tender love; That never in the silence of the church They will sing "halleluiah" us above. With this my heart and this my hand I thank You that - although you don't know it - You love me thus; and for my peaceful nights And for rare meetings in the hour of sunset, That we aren't walking underneath the moon, That sun is not above our heads this morning, That you - alas - are burning not for me And that - alas - it's not for you I'm burning. My ancestor was a rider, A thief, man with violin. Is this not why my taste wanders And hair smells of wind? Does not he steal from a car, Tan, apricots with my hand, The author of my passionate fate, Hook-nosed and curly-haired. Twirling between teeth a wild rose He wondered at tiller with plough.. He was a bad comrade - and wild And tender he was at love! Moon, beads, pipe and neighboring girls - All of them - he loved. I also think that my yellow-eyed Ancestor was a coward. That, having sold soul to Devil for a pence At midnight he did not go By cemetery; that he carried a knife Behind a boot-leg, so. That many a time from a corner he jumped Like a cat, agile and thin.. And somehow I understood that he did Not play on a violin. And somehow all was not fitting to him, Like in the summer - last year's snow. Such a violinist my ancestor was. I became such a poet - so. Sleep the rattles and dogs of neighbors - Not one voice, not one car. O lover, do not investigate Why I am parting the bar. New moon to a midnight is going: Hour of monks - and of sharp-eyed birds, Hour of youths and conspirators, Hour of lovers and murderers. Here each person's thought is double, Here, rider, hurry the horse. We will pass, not jingling with bracelets And not tinkling with a purse. Now the houses part with houses, On the square there is talk and dance.. Here, before a small Mother of God, Cordoba did its love pronounce. Here, upon a stone porch, By the fountain we'll sit silently, Where you first for my face were aiming With wolf's eyes. Rustling of silk around the knees, Smell of rose and a lock of hair.. O, beloved one - see, she's here - Carmen the poisoner! There is no day's temptation In a folio in which people die. To woman - all of the planet, To woman - Ars Amandi. Heart - of a lovers' potion Heart - is more loyal than all. Somebody's mortal sin is Woman from the cradle. Ah, so far to the heaven! Lips - in the dark are near.. God, do not judge! On the planet A woman you never were. The gypsy passion of parting! You meet it - and you take flight! I dropped the arms and the forehead And think staring into the night: No one, digging in our letters, Understood in all depth How we're sacrilegious - that is How we in each other have faith. 1 Clouds - all around, Cupolas - around, Over all Moscow Many arms are wound!- I am lifting you, my best burden you Oh my little tree Flying weightlessly! In this wonder-town, In this peaceful town, Where if I were dead I'd be happy one, To be king for you, and to grieve for you, A wreath to take on, Oh my one firstborn! You to Sacrament bow Do not blacken brows And all forty - count - Forty churches now. You with steps do walk - with a young one's walk - All the many thrills Of the seven hills. Time will come for you: And the daughters - too You will give Moscow With sweet sorrow. My sleep by my will, like a ringing bell, Early dawns above - On the Vagankov. 2 From my hands - not a hand-created town, My gorgeous brother, my strange one. Upon the church - Forty times forty, side by side, And pigeons that above them glide. And Spassky - with flowers - gate, Where Orthodox Believer doffs his hat. The starry belltower - haven from sin - Where from the people's kisses floor is clean. Incomparable five-cathedral round Accept, my ancient and inspired friend. To Unexpected Joy in the garden I'll lead my guest from foreign land. The sleepless bells will ring, will shine The cupolas of gold very fine, And a cloth will be dropped by Mother of God Upon you from the purple clouds. And you will get up, full of divine power.. And you won't repent that you were my lover. 3 Past the towers at night We are rushed by squares. Oh, how roar of soldiers In the night instills fear! Rumble, loud heart! Kiss with passion, love! This roar is so bestial! Daring - oh - is blood! My mouth is aflame, Given that sight's divine. Like a golden chest Iverskaya does shine. You stop picking quarrels And a candle light, That it won't be now With you as I'd like. 4 The day will come - a sad day, they say! They'll finish ruling, finish crying, burn away - Chilled with the others' nickels all the same - My eyes, moveable like the flame. And - like a double as his double he does sense - The likeness will appear through light face. O, I at last will merit thee, A gorgeous belt of beauty! And from afar - do I envy thee? - Will pull, absently cristening, A pilgrimage along the road black To my hand, which I surely won't draw back, To my hand, on which the ban no longer sits, To my hand, that no more exists. Your kisses, O the living ones, I won't oppose at first - not one. The majesty's shawl beautiful Has shrouded me from head to heel. Nothing will make me blush, today I have a holy Easter day. Along the streets of left-alone Moscow I will drive forth, and you will slowly go. And none will lag behind along the road, And on coffin's roof will thunder the first stone - And sleep, self-loving and lonely Will be resolved finally. And nothing will be needed to Marina Our newly-introduced ballerina. 5 Above the city Peter cursed to hell Rolled the delirious thunder of the bells. Turned over thundering the high tide of the sea Above the woman that was rebuked by thee. To Peter and to you, O Tsar, praise be! But bells are higher still than both of ye. While they are ringing still out of the blue - Indisputable, Moscow's primogeniture. And sixteen hundred churches, near and far All laugh at puny hubris of the tsars. 6 The rain of bells drizzles above The blue of near-Moscow groves. Blind men wander the Kaluga road - Beautiful - Kaluga - song, and the same Washes and washes the names Of peaceful wanderers, in darkness of ones praising God. And I think at these times: Someday I Of you, friends, and you, enemies, having tired, And of compliance of Russian word - A silver cross on my chest I will don Cross myself and quietly go along The old Kaluga road. 7 Seven hills - just like seven bells! Belltowers on the seven bells. Sixteen hundred of them, to count them all. Full of bells are these Moscow's seven hills! In the ringing, fine-gold day of John The Baptist was born. House like gingerbread, And around a hedge, and around a hedge, And the churches there stand with golden heads. And as nuns were pouring to dining hall, The first ringing I did love, I did love And the sorceress from a neighbor's yard And hot sleep and noise in the stove. Do conduct me, all you imbecile, Thieving, flagellant Moscow crowd! Priest, shut my mouth more tightly still With the ringing-bell Moscow's ground! 8 Moscow - what a giant And strangely-mannered home! In Russia all are homeless. We all to you will come. A knife behind a boot-leg, A shoulder brand in shame. From far away us all You will call all the same. Upon the penal brandings, On every kind of ill - A baby Panteleimon We have, O man who heals, And there behind that door, Where all the people pour - There the fine golden heart Is burning of Iver. And "Halleluiah" pours Upon the fields grown tan. I kiss you in the bosom, O the Moscow land! 9 With a red brush The mountain-ash burned: The leaves were falling And I was born. Hundreds of belltowers Argued at least. It was the Saturday: John the Baptist. And in my teeth now I want to crush The hot ashberry's Bitter brush. 1 In a shady ring my eyes She surrounded - insomnia. With a shady wreath insomnia Did my eyes bind. At night - the same! To idols don't pray. Idol-worshipper - I'll give Your secret away. To you - day's not enough, Fire of sun above! You pale-faced one, wear My rings' pair! You screamed - and proclaimed The wreath of shade. Enough - did you - call me? Enough - did you - sleep with me? People bow to you. Light in face you'll lie. I'll be reader to you, I, insomnia: Sleep, soothed, Sleep, rewarded one, Sleep, wreathed, Woman. That - you would sleep - easy, I will sing - to thee: "Never-silent one, Go to sleep, my girl, You the sleepless one, Sleep, my little pearl." And to whom we didn't write letters so, And to whom we did not vow.. Sleep. Here now parted are The inseparable. Here released from arms Are your little arms. Here you're tormented, My dear tormentess. Sleep's - holy. All - sleep. Wreath's - gone. 2 In my giant city it is night. From the sleepy home I alight People think: Daughter and wife And I recall just this: Night. On my way blows the wind of July And somewhere music in a window - barely. Ah, now the wind will blow until dawn Into the chest through the chest's thin wall. There's light on the window, and a black poplar, A flower in the hand, and ringing in the tower, And this step nobody behind, And this my shade, but me you can't find. Fires - like threads of golden beads, Taste of night leaf between my teeth. Free me from shackles of the day, That I'm your dream, friends, understand. 3 After a sleepless night the body gets weaker, It becomes dear and not yours - and nobody's. Just like a seraph you smile to people And arrows moan in the slow arteries. After a sleepless night the arms get weaker And deeply equal to you are the friend and foe. Smells like Florence in the frost, and in each Sudden sound is the whole rainbow. Tenderly light the lips, and the shadow's golden Near the sunken eyes. Here the night has sparked This brilliant likeness - and from the dark night Only just one thing - the eyes - are growing dark. 4 This night today I am alone in the night - A sleepless and a homeless nun! This night today I have the keys Of all the gates of capital, just one! The sleeplessness has pushed me on the way. O, dusky Kremlin, how you're beautiful! I kiss into the chest this night today The whirling-round ground as it does howl! The stifling wind blows straight into the soul, The hair arises - not the hair, but down. Those who are pitied and those who are kissed - This night today I pity everyone. 5 A window here again Where they don't sleep again. Maybe they thus sit, Maybe they drink wine. Or they would not part Simply the two hands. There is such a window In each house, friend. Window in the night - Partings', meetings' scream! Maybe - hundred candles, Maybe - only three. And my restless mind Cannot find its peace. In my very home Was begotten this. Pray, friend, for the sleepless home Behind a window with a flame! 1 A bird in the hand is your name, An icicle on the tongue is your name, One movement of your lips is your name, Five letters is your name. A ball caught in the flight it is, A silver tambourine between the lips, A stone, into a quiet pond thrown, Will sob the name by which you're known. Your loud name resonates in the light Crackling of the hooves in the night. And a trigger with crackling ample Will call it back into the temple. Your name - forbid this! - Your name - the eyes kiss, In tender chill of motionless eyelids Your name - to the snow give a kiss. Key, ice, blue gulp - deep With your name is the sleep. 2 A knight without reproach, A ghost, a gentle one, Who is it that called you Into my life so young? In fog greyish-blue Dressed in a chausible Of snow, stand you. Around the city By the wind I'm chased, For the third evening A thief I sensed. The blue-eyed Singer of snow Stared at me so. The snow-white swan Puts down under my feet. Flow Feathers And slowly fall on the snow. Thus on the feathers I walk to the door Behind which is death. Beyond blue windows He sings to me, With far-away tambourines He sings to me, With far-off cry With swan's cry He calls. My dear ghost! All's my dream, I know. Do a good thing: Amen, amen, scatter so! Amen. 3 You walk out to the Falling Sun, You'll see the evening light, You walk out to the Falling Sun, And the snowstorm the trace blots out. Past the windows - passionless - In the quiet snow you will go, My beautiful believer in true God, Quiet to the light of my soul. I do not lust after your soul! Your footpath is inviolable. Into the arm, white from the kisses, I will not hammer my nail. And I will not respond to the name, And I will not pull with my arm, To the sacred image of wax I will only bow from afar. And, standing under the slow snow, I will fall on my knees in the snow, And in your holy name I will kiss the evening snow - There, where with a majestic foot In the coffin quiet you did go, Quiet to light - holy glories - You the keeper of my soul. 4 To beast - a den, To wanderer - road To dead one - quay To each - their own way. To a woman - to connive, To the king - to rule, To me - to glory Your name. 5 Cupolas are burning in Moscow! Bells are ringing here in Moscow! And coffins here stand in row - In them queens do sleep, and the kings. And you do not know, in Kremlin at dawn Breathing's lighter - than on all the earth! And you do not know, in Kremlin at dawn Till the dawn I pray and sing. And you walk on by this your Nieva At the time, when on river Moskva I stand and my head bow And the flashlights cling. With insomnia I am loving you, With insomnia I am hearing you - Of the time when, on the whole Kremlin too Awaken those who ring.. But my river - with your river flows, And my arm - with your arm goes They won't come together, Oh my joy Dawn catches dawn until. 6 They thought he was a man! And they forced him to die. He died forevermore. About a dead angel, cry! He sang the evening beauty At sundown of the day. Shimmer hypocritically Three waxen flames. Rays went from him - On the snow, hot strings! Three candles of wax - To the sun! Light-bearing! O look now, how his Dark eyelids have sunken in! O look now, how his Wings are broken! The black reader reads, Crosses the arms idle... The dead singer lies And celebrates Sunday. 7 Like a weak ray through black gloom of the hells - Thus is your voice against exploding cannonballs. And in the thunder, just like some seraph Announces in a voice tone-deaf - Somewhere from foggy mornings long ago - How he did love us blind and nameless so - For sin - disloyalty, for coat of blue.. For how, Russia, he did not stop loving you, And more tender than all - that, the most deep Into night vanished he to do the wicked deeds! And near the temple - how with a lost pen He leads and leads.. and about that then, What days await us, how God will tell lies, How you will call the sun - and it won't rise! Thus, as one with prisoner (Or child is silent in the sleep no more) Before us came - on square wide and far - Alexander Blok's holy heart. 8 Here is he - look - tired of the foreign lands, A chief without friends. Here -drinks from mountain rapids with his hand - A knight with no land. There's all for him: knighthood, and land, Mother, and bread. Great's your inheritance - so rule this land, Friend without friends! 9 His friends - do not bother him! His servants - do not bother him! It was so evident on his face: Not from this world does my kingdom come. Eternal snowstorms circled the veins Hunched-over shoulders bent from the wings, In singing cut, into baked-over flame He let his soul go like a swan. Fall then, O fall then, copper heavy! Wings are ordained correctly: To fly! Lips, that have shouted the word: Respond! - They know, that this is not there - to die! He drinks the dawn, drinks the sea - in full Revels. - Don't serve the requiem! Of one who forever ordered: Be! - There is enough bread left to feed him! 10 Not a broken rib - A broken wing. Not to the shooters shot - Through chest. Not to take out This bullet. Wing can't be repaired. He walked impaired. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Sticky is crown of thorns on the head! What is the noise of mob to one dead, The swan's down of woman's flattery... He walked, deaf and lonely, Freezing over the sunsets With emptiness of eyeless statues. But one thing still lived in him: The broken wing. 11 Without word, without call - Like a thatcher from the roof falls. And maybe, again He comes - you lie in the cradle? You burn and don't dim, The light of weeks several.. Which of the mortals Rocks your cradle? The blessed heaviness! Singing chestnut that prophesies! Oh, who will tell me In which cradle you lie? "While it's not sold!" With jealousy in my head With a great detour I'll walk the Russian land. The midnight countries Will go from end to end. Where's his wound the mouth, His eyes' bluish lead? Take him! Hold tightly! To love him and love him only! O, who will whisper In which cradle you lie? Pearly grains, Muslin shade full of sleep. Not laurel but thorn - Sharp-toothed shade of a cap. Not angel, but bird Opened two white wings! And to be born once more, That could be swept by the wind?! Tear him! Hold tightly! Just don't give away! Hold high! Oh, who will breathe to me In which cradle you lie? And maybe false is My feat, and my labor futile. How you're put in the ground, Maybe - you'll sleep till pipe call. The giant indenture Of your temples - catches my sight. Such an exhaustion - Can't be lifted even with pipes! The country pasture, Rusty, quiet reliably. The janitor will show me In which cradle you lie. 12 Like drunk, like sleepy Unawares, without caution, The dimples of temples: Sleepless conscience. Empty eye sockets: All dead and light. Empty glass of a dreamer And man with second sight. Not you on Still rustling pile of garbage Carried out - Returning by Hades' gorge? Did not this, Ringing with a silver bell, Head flow past The sleepy Gebr? 13 Thus, O the Lord! And this my prayer Accept for temple's confirmation. I sing not pleasures of my love - I sing the wound of my nation. Not nasty person's rusty trunk - Granite, with people's knees rubbed coarse. Hero and king given to all, To all - a singer - righteous - corpse. Not bashful at the coffin boards, Breaking upon Dnieper the ices, Russia - on Easter we do swim To you with pouring thousand-voices. Thus, heart, there will be cry and praise! Let your cry - which thousand? The mortal love is jealous so. The other's at the chorus glad. 1 O muse of weeping, the most beautiful muse! O you the child of white night, ever mad and fierce! A black snowstorm over Russia you send And your cries our hearts like flying arrows pierce. And we tumble down and a deaf "Oh" - A hundred thousand people your name are calling: Anna Akhmatova! The name is a giant sigh, And she who is nameless into the abyss is falling. We're blessed that along with you we walk the same Earth, that the sky is the same overhead; And he, who is wounded with your mortal fate, As an immortal goes onto his deathbed. In my singing city the cupolas are aflame, And wandering blind man praises the Spassky light.. And I give to you my city that's full of bells, Akhmatova, and my heart I give to you beside. 2 What are people's wiles to me? Holding My head I stand, On late dawn I sing Holding my head. Ah, I have been raised on the crest Of a wave wrathful and mad! I sing you, that you are alone among us, Like moon overhead! That, having flown like a raven on the heart, Pierced the clouds so. Hook-nosed one, whose wrath is deadly and Whose mercy's deadly also. That over my Kremlin made of fine gold Has spread out her night, That tied my neck as if with a belt With singing delight. Ah, I am happy! Never the dawn Had been more clear, Ah, I am happy, that for your sake I'm leaving as a beggar - That you, whose voice, narrowed my breath - O depth, O haze - That by the name I called The Village of the Tsar muse. 3 Just one more gigantic flap - Eyelids are quiet. O, dear body! O the ash Of bird so light! I sang and waited, what I did In fog of day. So little body was in her, And so much sigh. Her dreamy sleepiness is not Humanly dear. Something of eagle and of angel There was in her. She sleeps, and chorus lulls her to Garden of Eden. As if he's not sated with song, The sleeping demon! -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Hours, days, centuries - Not us, Not our rooms yet. And monument does not recall Already, bent. The broom is doing naught for long, And sweetly heave Over the Muse of Village of the Tsar The nettle's leaves. 4 Mother's name is Anna, Lev - of the child. In his name is fury, In her is quiet. Red is his hair - Tulip's head! So, Hossanah To the little tsar! God give him lungs And the smile of Mom And a look of Pearl-seeking one. God, attentively Look after him: Tsar's son's more divine Than the other sons. Red lion-cub With green eyes, Heavy burden is on your head! Northern and Southern oceans And thread of pearl Black rosary is in your hand. 5 You repeat nobody. How many Companions and friends! And Pride and bitterness rule over This youth so tender. Remember the crazy day at the port Threats of the Southern wind, Roar of the Caspian - and in the mouth A rose's wing. Like a gypsy I gave to you A stone in a cut frame, Like a gypsy I lied to you Something about fame.. And - high at the sails - Teenager in blue blouse. Thunder of sea and the menacing call Of the wounded Muse. 6 You won't leave alone! I'm a warden, You're an escort. The fate is one. And one in the frigid empty Order for horses is to us given. And my temperament is peaceful! And clear are my eyes! Let me go, Mr. Escort, now To take a walk to that pine! 7 That from catafalques and from cribs You, ripping away the cover, You that fan the winds And snowstorms send over, Sending fevers, poems and wars - Serf-keeper! Black magician! - I have heard the menacing roar Of lions, of the chariot preaching. I hear voices in passionate tones - And a steadfastly silent one. I see the red sails - And a black one them among. Either by ocean you lead the way, With the full breast - or by air I, like sun, wait, holding out my chest To the judgment that does death bear. 8 People shouted on the street, Smoke flew from the bakery place. I remembered the ruby mouth Of a street singer with narrow face. In the dark kerchief with flowers - Honored by your civility You were drowned in the crowd Of praying ones at Sergei-Trinity, Pray for me, beautiful one, Sorrowful one and mad, How the forests will crown you as The lashing mother of god. 9 To the golden-lipped Anne - to a word That all of Russia redeems! Carry away my voice And my heavy sigh, wind. About quiet bow of the earth among Golden fields, O the burning skies, Tell the story; and also about From the agony blackened eyes. You attained once again In the thundering height! You - the nameless one! Carry love of mine To the gold-lipped Anne - All of Russia! 10 At the thin wire over oats' wave Like thousand voices - is the voice today! And - holy, holy, holy - tabors passing by Speak with the same voice, O the holy, I stand and I listen and I rub the corn ear, And voice locks me up with a dark cupola. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Not these branches of swimming willows But your arm I truly touch so. For all, who in torment your approach glory - The earthly woman, a cross in the sky to me! At night curtsies to you alone I bear, And with your eyes from the walls the icons stare! 11 You'll overtake the Sun in the sky, In your hand all the stars! Ah, if - only to enter you Like a wind - door ajar! And to tremble, and burst out, And sharply to dull the sight, And, like a forgiven child, To sob and to go quiet. 12 I have been given arms - to each one to stretch both, Not to hold tight not with one, lips - to give names, Eyes - not to see, the high eyebrows above them - To tenderly marvel at love, and more still at not love. And this the bell there, heavier than the Kremlin's, Ceaselessly walking and walking around in the chest - This - who knows? - I don't know - maybe - it must be - I will not become a guest on the Russian soil! I'll conquer you from all lands, from all the sky, Because forest is my cradle and in the forest I'll die, For I stand on the ground with just one of my legs, For I will sing to you like no one else. I'll conquer you from all times, I will fight All golden banners, all swords and all nights, I will chase away dogs from a porch and I'll throw the key For in winter night not even dogs are more loyal than me. I'll conquer you from all others - from that one I will be no one's wife, you - no one's groom, And in the last argument I will take you - be quiet! - From the one with which Jacob stood in the night. But for now I won't on your chest the fingers cross - With you, you remain - O the curse! - Your two wings, that at the ether take aim - Because the world is your cradle, and world your grave. To you, my rival, I will come sometime At night when moon is standing overhead When frogs are wailing loudly on the pond And women are from pity going mad. And, marveling at the beating of the eyelids And on your jealous eyelashes, it seems, I'll tell you that I'm not a human being But just a vision which you only dream. And I will say: "Console me, console, Someone is beating nails into my heart!" And I will say to you that wind is fresh And that the stars over our heads are hot. Who did not stomp on you - who did not melt you - O merchant of the non-flammable roses! One thing unshakable on this planet Did allow behind him Jesus: Israel! Your second kingdom's coming: For all the money, if they only knew, You paid with all your blood - you are the heroes, The traitors, prophets, and the traders too. In each of you - Even in him that counts His gold before a candle in the dark - The voice of Jesus resonates more loudly Than in John, Matthew, Luke and Mark. Around the earth - from ocean to ocean - Crucifixion and from the cross taking down - We'll give Jesus Christ a true burial, Israel, with the last one of your sons! You, measuring me by days, With, hot and homeless, me, Wandered under the giant moon Upon the squares heated strongly? And in the tavern filled with plague, When solemn waltz a sound did make, Did you not in a drunken fist My piercing fingers verily break? With which voice in my sleep do I Whisper - you heard? - O smoke and ash! - What can you know of me, since you With me did not sleep or get trashed? August - asters, August - stars, August - bunches Of grapes and ashberry Rusty - August! Like a child, August You play with your apple Good-natured and full of weight. Like with hand, with your imperial Name you do caress the heart: August! - Heart! Month of late kisses, Of late roses and late lightning! Of the rain beneath the stars August! - Month Of the rain beneath the stars! 1 Under the sixth birch At the corner church On the frosty dawn Wait, Don Juan! But with groom, alas, And my life I swear, There is nowhere In my land to kiss! We don't have a fountain, And the well did freeze, Strict, severe eyes Does Madonna have. And so that the beauties Trifles would not hear We have loud and clear Ringing of the bell. Here I would have lived, But - I will grow old, You don't like my world O the handsome one. Ah, in a bear coat It's hard to recognize you, If not for your lips too, O Don Juan! 2 Long upon the foggy dawn The snowstorm did weep. In a bed of snow they lay Don Juan to sleep. No hot stars above his head, Not a roaring fountain.. Othodox cross is on the chest Of our Don Juan. I have brought a Sevillian Fan, black, so that night That's eternal, for yourself Would become more light. That you'd see a woman's beauty With your own sight, I will bring without a doubt A heart to you tonight. And for now - from distant lands - Sleep now, sleep in peace! - You have come to me. Complete, Don Juan, is your list. 3 Aren't you tired, after so many roses, Cities and toasts To love me? You're almost a skeleton, I'm almost a ghost. And why should I know, that you had to call On a higher power? And why should I know, that there was smell of Nile In my hair? No, I better tell you a tale: January it was. A monk with a mask carried a flashlight. Someone threw a rose. Someone's drunken voice at cathedral walls Prayed and swore. Don Juan of Castille met Carmen At this hour. 4 Exactly - midnight. Moon - like a hawk. "Why - do you peer?" "Thus - I peer!" "Do you like me?" "No." "Do you recognize me?" "Maybe." "I am Don Juan." "And I am Carmen." 5 And this Don Juan had Donna Anna, And this Don Juan possessed a sword. Of the beautiful, unhappy Don Juan This from people is the only word. But I was a clever one today: I at midnight stepped on roadside, Someone went along with me in stride Calling names. And in fog the staff paled, a strange one.. There was no Donna Anna for Don Juan! 6 And the silk sash is falling To his feet - a snake heavenly.. And "someday, when she's underground, You will calm down" they tell me. I see my profile, old And arrogant in brocade white. And somewhere - guitars - guitars - And youths in a cloak like the night. And somebody under mask hiding: "Recognize!" - "I don't know" - "Recognize!" And the silk sash is falling On a square round like paradise. 7 And fanning in eyes of the coming Sadness and sin, You pass the city - brutally-black, Heavenly-thin. Covered with torment, like with fog, Is your eye. In loop - a rose, in all the pockets - Words of love. Aye! I hear your call over the restaurant Violin. I send a smile to you from the distance, Robber king! And then I recognize that same look, Spreading my wings, With which in Castille at me stared Your older sibling. Above the church there are blue clouds, A crows' cry... And pass - the color of ash and sand - Revolutionary troops... oh my Blue-blooded, my kingly angst! They don't have a face, don't have a name - Nobody sings! You got lost, the Kremlin ringing In this banner forest full of wind. Lie, Moscow, onto eternal sleep, and pray! Open, Open, The gates of the tsar! Darkness dimmed and poured out far. With clean heat Burns the altar - Resurrect, Christ, Yesterday's tsar! Without glory fell Two-headed eagle. Tsar - you were wrong. He'll remember inheritance Many more times - Byzantine sacrilege Of your clear eyes. Your judges - Lightning and wave! Tsar! God sought You, not men. But now there's Easter In all the land, Sleep in your village With a calm mind, Don't dream of The banners red. Tsar! Descendants And ancestors - sleep. There is a knapsack since A throne you won't keep. 1 Winds have gone to sleep - with golden dawn, Night comes - with a mountain of stone, And with his princess from hot land Rests the rabid chieftain. Having gathered his youthful shoulders in a sack He listened, his forehead leaning back, How over his hot tent it thunders - Nightingale's thunder. 2 Over Volga - night, Over Volga - sleep... Ornate rugs they have laid down, And on them the chieftain has laid With a Persian princess - black brows. One can't see the stars, one can't hear the waves, Oars and darkness extreme, this is all! And the shuttle bears away into the chieftain's Night sinful Persian soul. And such a speech Did the night hear: Don't you want, at last, To lie nearer? Out of all our women You're the pearl! Am I this scary I'm your all-time slave, Persian girl! My prisoner! -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- And she knitted the brows, The long brows. And she eyes cast down Eyes Persian. And from her lips Only one sigh rings: Djal-Eddin. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- And over Volga - a ruddy dawn, And over Volga - heaven. And the drunk crowd roars: Get up, chieftain! With a Muslim dog you did lie! See the tears in the beauty's eyes! And she - like death, Bit her mouth in blood. Thus goes a chieftain's brow so hard. This our bed, you dog, you did not want, So make do with our baptismal font! It's dark in the day, In the sky it is clear. Red is the shoe In the ship's rear. And like menacing oak stands Stepan, And to very lips pales Stepan. Ah, so tiring - it shakes, rocks! Hold up, heathens - in the eyes it's dark! Here to you is the Persian girl, The prisoner girl. 3 (DREAM OF RAZIN) And Razin dreams a dream: Like a cry of a heron of the swamp. And Razin dreams a ringing: Like silver droplets drop. And Razin dreams of the bottom: With flowers, like a kerchief, covered. And he dreams of one face - Forgotten, with black brows. He sits, like God's mother, Stringing pearls on a thread. And he wants to tell her, But only moves lips instead... The breath has been stifled - ah In the chest there is a glass chip. And the glass slope walks past them Like a guard who wants to sleep. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Down the Volga-river with The steering dawn drove he. Over just a single shoe Why did you leave me? Who will want a beauty In just one shoe? For the other shoe, friend, I will come to you! And rings, rings the bracelet: Drowned The happiness of Stepan! From a strict and elegant temple On the squealing of squares you alight. Freedom! The beautiful lady Of marquises and Russian knights. A dreadful rehearsal is on now - Still ahead is the mass! O freedom! The partying woman On the mad soldier's chest! Bitterness! On your lips, passion - Is eternal aftertaste! Bitterness! It is temptation For all times - to die at last. I from bitterness - am kissing Everyone who's young and sweet. You from bitterness - another By the hand at night do lead. With bread I eat, with water swallow Bitter woe, bitter sorrow. There is one such kind of grass, Mother Russia, on your meadows. 1 Divine, childish-plain The dress is, and short to the plait. How the sides of a pyramid Rush sides from the belt. What big rings there are On the fingers little and dark! What big buckles there are On the tiny shoes! And people eat and argue, And people are playing cards. You do not know, players, What you have bet on the card! And she - she needs nothing! And she - she needs nothing! Here's my chest. Tear my heart out - Carmen - and drink my blood! 2 She stands, throwing back the throat, And bit the mouth in blood. And set the hand against bosom - The left one - where there is love. "On your knees!" - "What to you Are my knees that I should bend, Abbot?" With these words Her last night Carmen did end. Dirt flies From under the hooves. Shawl like a shield Over the face. Newlyweds, have fun Without the young! Eh, carry them out, Disheveled stallion! We didn't have freedom Under mother and dad, The whole field for us Is marital bed! Full without bread and without wine drunk - Thus the gypsy wedding does run! Full is the glass. Empty is the glass. Guitar sound, dirt and moon. To right and to left swings the den. Gypsy - to knight! To gypsy - knight! Hey mister, careful - it burns! Thus drinks gypsy wedding! There, on the shawls' And fur-coats' heap There's ringing and rustling Of steel and lips. Ringing of spurs, Necklaces - in return. Silk has whistled Under someone's hand. Someone has howled like a wolf, Someone like a bull is snoring. Thus sleeps the gypsy wedding. The first day I recall, ferocity of childhood, Exhaustion and the darkness of the gulp divine, The carelessness of arms, the heartlessness of heart, That fell onto the chest, like hawk, like stone. And now - this time - trembling from heat and pity, One: to howl like wolf, one: to the feet to fall, To cast down - understand - penalty for sensuality Is cruel love and passion terrible. Night. North-East. The soldiers cry. Waves roar. They bombed a wine warehouse. Along the walls, Through ditches, runs a precious torrent And in it dances bloody moon. The trunks of the poplars are mad. Mad also in the night, birds sing. Empty, yesterday's monument to the tsar, And over the tsar's monument - the night. The harbor drinks, the barracks drink. The world is ours! Ours is the wine in cellars of the knights! The whole city, stomping just like bulls, Falling to murky puddle on the road - drinks. In cloud of wine - there is the moon. Who's here? You beauty, be a comrade, drink! And in the city there's a happy rumour, That somewhere two have drowned in the wine. Strong and wealthy have a hard time, It is hard to all the lords. I won't lower the light eyes A red soldier before. City's moaning and carousing, Moon in cloud made of wine. Not a living soul will touch me: Poor and arrogant am I. A Cossack, a Cossack's son... Thus the speech has begun. Homeland. Darkness. Foe. Everyone's heads fall down. Sound alarm, priests. "There's no food." "Good." Not a day should be lost! A soldier must Clean the horse... 1 You did not bend the shoulders, when the red-haired Impostor seized you and for you did reach. Where is your pride, you baroness? Your blush, You beauty? Brilliant girl, your speech? Like Tsar Peter, the law of sons despising, Did lust with avarice after your head - You answered to the Tsar of Russia truly As baroness Morozova on the sled. The fiery drink was not at all forgotten By lips of Bonapart that were so cold. The sides of Kremlin all things will endure. In your cathedral not the first time stands a stall. 2 The thief Grishka did not make you Polish, The Tsar Peter did not make you German. "What're you doing, little dove?" "I'm crying." "Where, Moscow, is your pride?" "It's gone." "Where are all your doves?" "There is no feed." "Who bore him away?" "The raven black." "Where are all your holy crosses?" "Torn down." "Where are your sons, Moscow?" "Killed." 3 Liquid ringing, meager ringing. To all sides I'm curtsying. Cry of infant, cow's roar. The tsar's daring word. Lashes' whistling, snow full of blood. The dark word of Love. The pigeons' quiet noise. The Shooter's black eyes. In vain, Cavalier de Grie, Do you dream of the full of beauty, Autocratic - her self not ruling - Your voluptuous Manon. From your rooms we are succeeding In a flock tired and willing. They recall us not past the evening. Be obedient - such is the law. We are coming in from night stormy, We really need nothing from you, Except supper - and pearls we need from you And maybe one more thing - your soul! Honor and duty, Cavalier - convention it is. Let God give you a regiment of mistresses! Showing a readiness in all this. Passionately loving you - M. Standing for homeland, word "Marina" Within your cutlass you did draft. In your magnificent existence I was your first one and your last. A night and pre-dawn I remember In hell of the soldiers' rail car. In chest I keep the shoulder pieces And in the wind I rush my hair. 1 White army, your way's a high one: Temple and chest - to the black gun. White and divine is your cause: Your white body - into the sand. Not a flock of swans in the sky: The sacred white army Melts, melts with white sight.. The last dream of the old world: Youth - Valour - Vandea - Don. 2 Who has survived will die, who has died will arise. And now descendants, remember the times long gone: Where were you? The question will roar like thunder, Like thunder will roar the answer: On the Don! "What did you do" "We were accepting torments, Then grew tired and to sleep had gone. And in the dictionary the thoughtful grandsons Before the word "duty" will write the word "Don." 3 Waves and youth - outside the law! Don has moved - we die - we drown. We ask the wind of time to bear To grandsons a wicked rumour: Yes! Broke the Don's ice! The white army - Yes! - died. But with children and wives parting, But on Don departing, With a white flock flying onto the block, We died for one thing: Huts! On the last church having baptized, White army - for centuries. Hard and marvelous - loyalty till the coffin! Tsar-like luxury in squares' time! Firm are the souls and ribs are firm likewise Where are you, people of days gone by? With ash equating altar and the throne, Like a red-haired Tatar the freedom prowls. Over the ashtrays at the table there's Fugitive soldiers' and faithless wives' growl. O, pitiful exertions of usurpers! Like sleep, like snow, like death, to all - a shrine. A ban on Kremlin! There's no ban on wings, and Therefore - there is no ban upon Kremlin. Either soldiers drove into the ground a stake, Either they covered a face with a red rag, Either deaf and dumb from punches is the Divine, Either on Easter they were banned from Kremlin - Old revelers should sit at the linen, Birds should crawl, fish should sing, women - reason, Horse on a horseman should ride out wild, Wine should be given a newborn child, Corpses carried out the window, rivers - burn, In the midnight must arise the red sun, The groom should the betrothed's name forget.. Ladies should love peasants yet. Like blood and sweat it is simple: To people - tsar, to tsar - people. Like mystery of two it is clear: The third is the spirit, the two are near. From the sky tsar is placed on the throne: That is clear like dream and snow. To the throne tsar will come again yet: It is holy like blood and sweat. The rich man loved a poor woman, The scientist loved a dumb woman, The ruddy man loved a pale woman, The kind man loved a bad woman, And the gold a copper coin. "Where, merchant, is your wealth all?" "In a wallet that's full of holes!" "Where, proud one, is what you know?" "Under a girl's pillow." "Where are your red cheeks, gorgeous sight?" "Whitened down in the black night." "Where is the cross with silver chain?" "Under the girl's boots again." Rich man don't love a poor woman, Scientist don't love a dumb woman, Ruddy man don't love a pale woman, Kind man don't love a bad woman, And the gold a copper coin. I'm - now. You're - will be. An abyss between us. I drink. You're thirsty. We cannot agree. Ten years, oh no, a hundred thousand years Do stand between us. God does not build bridges. Be! - this is my demand. Let me walk past you Without violating growth with my breath. I'm - now. You're - will be. In ten springs from now You will say "is!" - and I will say "sometime"... Dying, I won't say: I was. There's no pity, The culprits I don't seek. There are more important things on earth Than passions' storms and the lovers' feats. Beating against this bosom with a wing, You, the youthful inspiration's culprit, I demand this of you: Be! From obedience I will not flit. Like right and left arms, here, Your soul to my soul is near. In bliss and warmth we to each other cling Like right wing and left wing. But whirlwind rises - and lay the abyss From left to right between the wings! Inept and aimless is my time: I ask a beggar for a dime I proffer cash to rich and famous, Into the needle ray I weave, Unto a robber key I give, With whiting I am blushing paleness. The bum puts nothing in my palms, The rich man does not take my alms, The needle won't let through the ray, The robber enters without key, Dumb woman weeps in streams of three Over a fameless, empty day. Who didn't build homes with his hand Does not merit the land. Who the homes did not build The earth will not be: Ash - Straw.. I did not build the home. Cradle, that is wound up in red! Cradle, that is rocked by the rabble! Soldiers' thunder - by the evening - past the temples.. And beautiful will grow up the kid. With the milk of wet nurse of Ryazan He sucked in inheritance's good: Flag - and the tri-unity of God. Russian anthem - and space Russian. In the needed day, by clear sun of God, Duty he'll recall daughters and noble - Cradle, that is rocked by the rabble! Cradle, that is wound up in red! I don't disturb, I do not sing With a woman's poison. Hand That is loyal I give to you - Right one, that will hold the pen. That, with which I form the cross In the beauty of the night. That, with which the things that God Did command to me I write. My left hand is daring, Flattering and also sly. Here to you the righteous And right hand do proffer I. 1 It's not love, but fever! Light Battle's sly and full of lies. Now it's nauseous, next day sweet, Now he's dead, next day alive. Battle rages. Both are laughing: How intelligent are they! By both heroine and hero I am charmed in every way. Viewer, a battle - or a dance now? This a sword - or cattle stick? Step ahead - three steps back now, Three steps forward - one step back. Mouth like honey, in the eyes, trust, But already raised, the brow. It's hypocrisy, not love now, It is acting, and not love! And result of these (parentheses - Uncommitted so far) sins - Will be of astounding poems A stack oh-so-very thin. 2 You can't be friends with me, you can't be loving me! O beautiful eyes, look carefully! A longboat has to sail, and the mill has to turn. Is it for you to stop a heart as it whirls? The notebook by the hand - you a mister won't be! Is it not enough to sigh at comedy? The cross of love is heavy - and we won't touch it. Yesterday's day is gone - and we will keep it. 3 Your mouth is perfect for kisses, so tender.. And this is it, I am totally like a beggar. Who am I now? Alone? No, many more! A conqueror? A conquest, no! If this be love - or if this be adoring, A pen's caprice - or else an axiom, If this be torment for the angels' home - Or little bit of pretense by calling. Sadness of soul, charming of eyes, or The script of pen - is not the same it all, How and until these lips will call Your mouth, perfect for kisses, so tender. 4 You do not hope - how I am merry! They're dull after the revelry. You are the mister, I - the lady. And mainly I am just like thee! Don't be deceived! By evil chill Within the throat you yourself know That for your lips I had become Just from the hills of Champagne, foam. There are revelries full of gold. And just is this my revelry: Without the syrup of love's truth - Champagne of love's lies only. 1 Who has left - let him sing! Heart, Sing away! Now the ruddy mouth is mine, Yours - next day. Ah, but everyone is friend Of rose-beauty. There are many such like you And like me. Friend will tear from a friend Flower rose - Rose can be torn apart: there's Nothing worse. Over the pink mouth to fight Rather than - Better is to kiss the boy In his turn! Hundred girlfriends has the friend - We're all here. While he is not taken yet Do love him. 2 In the forest a bird chirped, Under window, organ grinder. "You're a liar, traitor, You're a traitor, liar." In the chorus sang Devils from a barrel: "All of you, my girl, I sold for a dime." Cows in the grass: "You are having amoo-ours!" Sheepdogs in an alley: "Fool, aurs, aurs." Lady with a beard Thought herself to drown: "That is nothing, babe! Water'll bear you down!" Comb your hair now, Wash out your clear eyes. One dear threw you down And another'll raise! 3 The rain is knocking at my window. The worker creaks at the machine. I truly once was a street singer And you were a nobleman's son. I sang about the evil fortune, And from the golden handrail You gave not ruble and not kopeck - You gave me as a gift a smile. But the old knight the plan discovered: He tore the medals from his son And to servant-lackey he did order To chase the girl from the yard. And I got drunk within that night, too! But in the blissful world - that - I was the daughter of a nobleman You were a singer on the street. You won't chase me away anytime: They don't push away the spring! I too tenderly sing before sleep: With a finger you won't push away me! Never will you make me glorious: Water for lips is my name! You will never leave me either: Door is open, empty is your home! To rule troika and guitar Means: to rule each ever Lady, means: with old beer To circle overhead! O handsome one! Halfbreed! Who baptized you? In what font? All the gypsy snowstorms Opened up your vest O the brave guitarist! Eh, I fear - your strings and hollows Will discard me down to lie! God be with you, driver Sergei! Women are Russia and I! That same youth, and these same holes, And the same nights at the fire.. Sister of your own guitar Is my divine, holy lyre. To circle souls just like a snowstorm - One is the gift that us befalls. Into my sleeping crib is lowered This title: Stealer of the souls! Breaking the arms in angst, you know: Not one alone in the day's fog With poison gypsy broth of parting The young noblemen you do drug. Know: not alone on the sharp knife You look with anguish in your blood Know, I'm alone still.. we're sisters In the great lowliness of love. Who's made of stone, who's made of mud, And I'm made from silver and shine. My act is betrayal, my name is Marina, The fragile sea foam am I. Who is made from mud, who is made from flesh - There's coffin and coffin plates.. Baptized in a sea font and unceasingly Broken in my flight! Through every heart, through every net Will poke its head my will. You will not make me the salt of the earth Can you see these my loose curls? I resurrect with each wave, pounding Against your granite knees! May be well the foam - the high foam - The high foam of the seas! I wrote on paled leaves of the fan And on the board of slate And on the river and sea sand, On glass with a ring and on ice with skates - And on the trunks, a hundred winters old, And in the end - that everyone would know That you are loved! Loved! Loved! Loved! - I signed with a celestial rainbow. How yet I wanted this, that each would bloom For centuries with me! My fingers under! And how thereafter I crossed out the name Leaning my forehead on the table yonder. But you, within the arm of sellout scribe Pressed down! You, why you sting my soul? Not sold by me! Inside the ring! You - in the tablets will stay whole. 1 And what to tome is a chilled fire, To whom the parting is a trade! With one wave it has been brought near, Removed with yet another wave. Would I not with a servile anger After my dear with a crawl creep - I, borne to term within the belly Not of my mother but the sea! Bite, my dear friend, just like an apple The entire sphere of the earth! Conversing with a swelling water, With me however you converse. Like virgin born upon this planet Won't cross the arms swinging free - Daughter, carried within the belly Not of your mother but the sea! No, our girls do not weep, do not Write, do not wait for news, yet No, once again I go out fishing Without drag-net, without a net! What power is in my singing - I alone do not know, you see - I, borne to term within the belly Not of my mother but the sea. Such is my estate: I give And give - for a whole century! I am breaking my chest as I'm breaking The stones that on the shore do lie! What I mumble on a court simple, As though an imprisoned queen - I, borne to term in the belly Not of my mother but the sea. 2 Yesterday you looked in my eyes, And all things slant aside right now! Yesterday you sat before birds And now all larks turn into crows! I'm dumb, and you are very smart, You live, I'm stupefied, I hear. O cry of women of all times: "What have I done to you, my dear?!" Tears are to her like water, blood - Like water, washed in blood, in tears! Don't wait for trial or mercy: love Is stepmother, not Mom, it's clear. Ships bear away the ones we love, A white road them away now bears... And stands the moan across all earth: "What have I done to you, my dear?" Yesterday you lay at my feet! Compared to China! When both hands You forced apart from fists to palms Life fell out like a rusty cent! At trial, as killer of a child I stand - not dear, and full of fear. And I will say to you in hell: "What have I done to you, my dear?" I'll ask the chair, I'll ask the bed: "Why do I suffer and am poor?" They answer "He has kissed - now break Upon the wheel; now kiss one more." To live he taught in fire itself, He threw on icy steppes, austere! What did you, dear, do to me? What have I done to you, my dear? I know all - do not contradict! Seeing anew - no more the lover! Where love no longer does exist, There Death the gardener comes over. Itself - why shake the tree? In time Ripe apple falls itself, you near. For all, for all forgive me please, What have I done to you, my dear! Wind, Oh wind, sweeping away things, Sweeping tracks until they're gone! Like a red bird flying, flying Into foreheads of white stone. Like a long-legged dog delving Through the oat-bearing plains. Wind, that loses his own mind At a skirt that's made of lace! It's a purple epidemic, The first missive of revolt - Wind - gallows-bird, flighty man - In my fist you I now hold! Play no more on turbid places, Heads across the snow don't beat - You are bound in my neckerchief By your hands and by your feet! We will settle obligations For your not-so-careful deeds - Wind inside red leather coat With a star upon the head! I desire no love and no honor: They intoxicate - no falling away! I don't even desire an apple Tempting - from hawker's tray.. Something drags behind me like chain, Soon the thunder will sound in the sky... How I desire - Oh how I desire - Very quietly simply to die! Others - with eyes or with face full of light, And I converse with wind in the night. Not with that Italian Zephyr oh-so-young - Russian, blow-through, A good one, a wide one! Others with all flesh are in the flesh lost, Swallow the breath from dried out lips... And I - arms wide open - like tetanus - stall So that the Russian wind blow out my soul! Others - o tangles tender and strong! No, Aeolus is doing us wrong. Perhaps you won't melt! It's just one family As if I am not a woman truly. June and July. Part of nightingale tremble. And we had something of a bird's way, when The night of the nightingale then disturbing We - each over ourselves - were frozen. August is tsar. It cares not for a roulade, It only wants October cannonade. August is tsar. You do not need the tsars, And I without the tsar such ones do not need! There's officer's straightness within my stature, There's officer's honor within my ribs. I go to all torments without being stubborn: A soldier's patience there is! As if we had corrected this step Sometime with a butt and with steel... Not in vain, not in vain the Cherkessian waist And the tight buckle of belt. My dear father! Open the gates of heaven With a storm - when the dawn I sense! As if deliberately for the hike bag The width of the shoulders. All can - some insane cripple over the cradle Has sung me a song... From this day Something persisted, remained and is here: I take the word - and take aim! And thus does my heart over Russian Republic Screech - you can feed, or no way! - As if I myself had been officer also In deadly October days. Then a friendship, now a duty. Brother wolf, God be with you! Our friendship is now dying: I'm not gift but debt for you. Disturb a verst with a verst, Send a verst into a verst! I have petted on a fur - And I have been missing angst! I'm not making you a villain - It's not your guilt, it is my sin: With my insatiability I am feeding everyone! To go after you with silicon Fire in forest - thus judged Lord - Girls are jealous of just one thing: That the paws would not grow cold. To hold - I won't move a finger: Finger - not pole, great is wood. Take away with you your gray spots, Brother fang, be with you God! Fare thee well, I won't remember In my dreams, you, O gray hide! To believe in the wolf's grayness One more idiot you will find. Your banners - not mine! Our heads apart. Not to betray in the Snake's vice My Pigeon - Spirit. Not to start in a red round dance Around a May tree. Higher than all earthly gates Are heaven's gates to me. Your victories - and not mine! Others in hallucination! We aren't on two ends of the Earth - On two constellations! What am I doing - we're jealous Of two different stars - I, throwing over the bridge With a brave arm?! Treasure more precious than the icons I have with me. There is another law, covering The laws - you hear? Before him all wedges incline, Dim precious stones. The law of a stretched-out arm, Flung open soul. And we'll be judged with the same Measure, know. And heaven in which I believe Will take us both. O love! O love! In the convulsions, in the coffin, I'll be on guard - entice - worry - and tear. Not in the snow mound of the coffin, nor a snow mound Of cloud, I will part with you, O my dear. And not for this are given to me gorgeous Two wings that weight upon my heart would lie. Pathetic village of the eyeless, voiceless, And swaddled I will never multiply. No, I wheedle the arms! Your sturdy body From out your cloth I'll beat out with one blow, Death! For a thousand kilometers all around The wood is burned and melted is the snow. And if still - shoulders, wings, knees pressing - I let you to the churchyard drive me - It is so that, laughing over the ashes, I'll rise like poem - or like rose bloom free! x x x Either at dawn or at dusk, I will die, but on which One of the two - can't be told from the orders, I know. Ah, could it be that my torch could go out twice again! At the same time at dusk and at dawn it would go! Heaven's daughter! With a full apron of roses! Not a sprout Violating! Went through earth in a dancing gait! I'll die at dusk or at dawn, this I know! God won't send After my soul like a swan the hawk-like night! Driving away the unkissed cross with a tender hand, In the kind sky I will seek the last greeting, I know it. Slit of the dawn - and the slit of a smile in response... Even in hiccup of death I will still be a poet! x x x Happy New Year, encampment Swan! Ruins so glorious! Happy New Year - in other places - Knapsack-bearing warriors! Dances, mouth foaming, not caught up, The pursuit in red! Happy New Year - beaten in the races Homeland with a hand! The whole Earth sings with a toast song To the earth do lean! Thus, Igor - with Yaroslav is crying Russia over the sea. With a tired moan it quenches sorrow: My brother! My knight! My son! Happy New Year, you across the blue sea Russia oh-so-young. To say - to be thoughtful of what? In rain - under one coat, At night - under one coat, later To grave - under one coat. 1 To be your light-haired little fellow - Oh, through all years! - To drape a student behind your dusty purple In cloak severe. To catch through people's density your sigh That life does give With soul that lives with your breath, like a cloak With blowing wind. More victorious than King David, with shoulder The crowd to move. To serve from all slights, all earthly slights As cloak to you. To be he who between the sleeping students In sleep won't dream. A shield, and not a cloak, at the first stone That crowd brought in. (This verse's not stopped willfully! The knife is Sharp to no end!) And - with inspired smile - to be the first your Fire to ascend. 2 There is an hour - just like discarded clothes: When in ourselves the pride we quench in full. The hour of study, it in every life is Triumphant-unavoidable. The high hour, when, before the feet of one with finger Appointed, our weapons laying down, We change the purple of the warrior On sand into the camel's down. Like voice that rises us to our exertion From self-will of the days, behold this hour! Behold this hour when we are leaning down From heaviness just like a ripe corn ear. And ear grew up, and beat the happy hour, And for the millstone did thirst the grain. The law! The law! Still in the womb of earth The burden I desired does remain. The hour of study! But beheld and known Is different light - the dawn still burns, still burns. Blessed to him are you, following behind him The supreme hour of loneliness! 3 Evening sun is kinder than Sun at noon. Screams fanatically, not warms Sun at noon. Meeker, more aloof is the sun At night. Wise, It does not want to beat In our eyes. Stirring with its simplicity Made for kings, Dearer is evening sun To one who sings. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Crucified by darkness Each evening, Evening sun does not bow To the throng. Thebe, remember! He, cast down From the throne. He, cast down - looks above Not below. O, don't wait upon the neighboring Bell tower! I want to be your final Bell tower. 4 The wooden load Below waves fell. Two eternal ones quietly Ascended the hill. Tightly - shoulder to shoulder - They stand, don't talk. Two breaths are walking Under one cloak. The leader of yesterday's and Today's sleeping wars Silently stand by The double black tower. They stand wiser than serpents, Milder than doves. Father, take me back into Your life above! Smoke of the wars of the Lord Across the sky. Struggles the cloak, raised With double sigh. Prays and trembles, jealousy Eats out the sight... Father, take me into sunset, Into your night! Breathe deserts, they celebrate The night's entry... Son falls like a ripe fruit Heavily. Quiet is the human flock Within its fold. Calm are the two alit On hill of gold. 5 We were like ancient ones, the hour Was wonderful and full. We side by side ascended up The hill, I do recall. The speech of the cascading streams Has wound fancily With cloak, falling on the shoulders In a wave gracefully. The final gold of the heights Is higher, higher yet. The dreaming voice: The sunrise that Comes out to meet sunset. 6 All magnificence of Pipes - is but murmur of Grass - before you. All magnificence of Storms - is but chatter of Birds - before you. All magnificence of Wings - is but patter of Eyelids - before you. 7 On the hills - round and tan, Under the ray - dusty and strong, With a boot - meek and mild - After the cloak - reddened and torn. On the sands - greedy and rusty, Under ray - burning and drinking, With a boot - meek and mild - After the cloak - with trace and trace. On the waves - angry and blown-up, Under the ray - wrathful and ancient, With a boot - meek and mild - After the cloak - lying and lying... 1 His dove to be, like an eagle! More than a mother to be, Marina! A messenger - a guard - a courier - A flag-bearer - flatterer of the court! With a seraph and dog to guard A sleep restless and full of fear. Taking a pack of sallow cards for a game, Legs in stirrup! - through water and flame! Where on horse - where to swim - where to crawl! By the swamp - by the willows - by the reeds - And where horse does not take - fly, all winds Having captured in your shawl! In a black noiseless whirlwind flying, Not a lady - a handy, I am! Not to be sole - the second! A twin - a double - slender Godbrother in flame of bonfire, To be his crooked friend. Clamor of Kremlin's uninvited guests. If Basmanov is your name, set Aside - yield before love! Threw open a chest kerchief, I. Arms wide open! That on Judgment Day Will not stand in Basmanov's blood. 2 Three usurpers' wife, Daughter of arrogant Mnishka, You did not birth a son To your husband so proud. In bare-headed sleep In resounding window flight You did not wave a trace To your husband so proud. On the square full of fate From spits and boxes on ear You did not cover with body Your own husband so proud. In a foolish mask lay, With bloody pipe in the mouth. You did not wipe the sweat Of your husband so proud. Oh the treacherous blood! Be accursed, be accursed. You that to false Dimitry was false Marina! 3 Heart, betrayal! But never parting! And the tan arm of the thief To the white lips. Short concussion of bones on the plates. Gregory! Dimitry! Tsar-killers! Blood and fluff! And - with the second jump - On the spears! 4 "Your chest is redolent, Just like a rosemary trunk... A most honorable lady..." "My young honored one..." "I'm dark, unrecognized, quiet... With what shall I repay... From underneath the eyelids Something, "With life!" did say. In every chased-down stranger We are serving Jesus Sir. Mangles in mangled confusion Handful of genuine pearls. Pearls have been sprinkled - like tears! Aiming with every eyelash, He sees, while stranger picks up Them, as if fidgeting in ash. 2 So long ago thrown down I raise the arms. In empty black window Empty arms I throw in the midnight beating Of hours - to go home I want! Thus: head down From the tower! Home! In whisper and rustle: Not on the stone of a square... My wing was shot By some young warrior. 2 More sharply, more sharptly Your arms do twist! Between us are heavenly Rivers - not versts, Between us are parting's lands azure, Where forever inseparable Are I and you. In silver harness The highway runs. I don't twist the arms! Without sound I only pull them Like mountain-ash waves Into the parting, Into the stork flock's trace. Without looking back The stork flock aspires, Conceit I won't doff! In death - well-attired I'll be - your golden-feathered speed is The final bulwark In loss of space! 3 With a dark olive Hide head of bed, Jealous of earthly Love are the gods. Every rustle And whisper they hear. Know, not just to you The youth is dear. Someone is mad at Luxury of May. Be careful of The sharp-eyed sky. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- That rocks and cliffs Lure him, you claim, That copper-voiced Call of fame Lures him - to depth, Chest on the spear? The rising wave Drowns him - you conjure? Sting of the fortune Pierced - you see? Deeper than disgrace Is tsar's mercy. That you wander late in the Low lands you shed tears. Invisible, not the Earth-born you should fear. On sight of the comb To them is each hair. Gods have a thousand Eyes to spare. Fear not the quicksand - Fear sky's blue! Insatiable Is heart of Zeus. 4 Quietly With an arm careful and thin I'll untangle the tangles: Arms - and with neighing Obedient, will rustle the amazon On empty and resounding steps of parting. Stomps his feet and neighs In the lit flight the winged one. In the eyes - Flaming of dawn. Little arms, little arms! You call in vain: The staircase of Lethe pours them between. 5 Big you won't see, You won't see me gray. You won't press the tears From motionless eyes. For all of your torment. Crying is the battle: Put down your arm! Leave the mantle! In apathy's Stone-eyed cameo Like mother I won't Tarry in the door: (With heaviness of Blood, knees, eye - In the final earthly Time!) Not with a crawling wounded beast No, with a lump of rock To leave the door - From life. What for Do the tears pour, When the stone is lifted From shoulders of yours? Not a stone! Already With an eagle's width Is the cloak! And already by river of azure Into the city of light, where The mother To take her kid Would not dare. [6] With silver growth He tore up and away. That Zeus would not See him - Pray! At the first rustle Be fearful and stand. They're jealous of Beauty of man. Their call is scarier Than jaw of a beast. Jealous of beauty Is the gods' nest. With flowers, with laurels They'll lure up and away. That Zeus would not Choose him - Pray! In thunder of eagles' Wings is the sky. With all chest shatter - That you won't hide. In eagles' thunder - O beak! O blood! The tiny lamb Is hanging - Love.. Bare-headed, With chest - prostate.. That Zeus would not Raise him - Pray! [7] Your......features Imprinted once begun. I'll become older, and you Will remain still young. Your......features, Sharpened by burning wind. I'll be hunched over, and you Will elegantly stand. Midday shade of the hair, That to my gray spots lean... My age, day to day, year to year, Will eventually become my son... Together we were thirty-six A beautiful pair we were... And - with a rainbow - a good news: .................. - I won't be old! [8] The final beauty, Last heaviness yet: The child, hitting palms At my feet. But this final beauty I'll take care of no less And I'll throw down this Last heaviness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stinging with inspired Women's flattery, As if not a teen but A lover at the feet - About the wanderings - Along the amazed Universe Under the laurel rain, Under the oak rain. The beauty final, The heaviness final - The child, the cloak grasping.. In torment born! When you'll tell the people That there was no equal In art of parting! 1 Eyelashes, eyelashes Bowing down. With the shame of eyelashes Eclipsed - suns in the arrows' crown! How clear and how loud! And his cloak was red And white was his stallion. Embarrassed is the rider, Proud is the stallion. On the dead serpent The whitest stallion Looks in half-turn. In half-window wide A spear behind Into the red jaw - blowing the nostrils something wild - With slanting fiery-eyed. The rider's embarrassed, The horse comes down. The deceased serpent's Accursed blood - Amber - with light gait Avoids - the amber blood flows Froze with a raised hoof - from the heights Of the swan turn. Meek is the horseman, Fastidious is the horse. The rattling serpent With a spear having pierced - Since you're modest and languid! In the winds - up high - is the heart of yours, At the river edge - the spear of yours Now sings at the waxen fingers At the pink lips Under cover of arrows Of eyelashes, Sings, shouts. - O fearful heaviness Of deeds done! And his cloak is red And white is his stallion. The lovely horseman Awake, stallion! The tender horseman Has a chest pain. Threads the pearls with eyelashes... The holy icon - is face of yours, With sunset ray - the spear of yours From long fingers splashes. Does he mow down with a spear The ray purple? Or the red cloud Rises like mantle? The white house. He will be Let in With the horse. The horseman leans, The horse stands on hind legs. The palm around the spearman is weaker. Now he will bring victory! Stirs - moves - and after the spear Into the amber puddle - after the horse That slipped away. The base sweep Of arrows... Red is the mantle, white is the horse. 2 O heaviness of success! Slight of victory! George, you cry, Like a beautiful lady You pale at the deed Of your two Suddenly alien to you Hands. Horse is squeamish of the serpent, You are squeamish of the voice Of victory. With heavy oil The blood pours. The dragon sleeps. Full for all your life You are. The sun is eclipsed By the lifted mantle. Union, child's bashfulness With the dignity of Horse. From the saddle - Into the sky - Bush. Fastidious sorrow Of lips. Horse is squeamish of the serpent, You are squeamish of the present Of the tsar - her engagement fire. Of the church frankincense; Strict - harsh - In the pitiless Roar of Pipes. Trumpet! Trumpet! It's not long left to hear. The tender victory reed - away. The one out-piped away Drooped - went quiet. And cloudy - above! - Post. Bow, bow, Obedient grass! Reddened under the slap of glory - Pales. - Home, trumpeters! - He sleeps. Until the judgment trumpet - Is full. 3 Celestial glow And blue versts! Glory George The Victorious! Pearly branches Of midnight, proclaim The clean youth The marvelous man: His fiery mantle, His spear's song Glory the blood-boiling Stallion. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- O great masts And each proud village! Glory the thundering- Boiling George! In strength and in meekness Like sun he'd be. Honor of honor, Luxury's luxury. His towering height, His spear's song, Glory his lightning-tailed Stallion! Winds of the lion And mass of the church! Glory the Magnificent George! Having killed the serpent, Over death having won, Entering his lady's home On a stallion! His great momentum, His spear's song, Glory his transformed Stallion! -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- Flattering willows And leaning grass, The freedom-loving And full of class Youth - glory, Youth - bemoan... Here is he, on the grass That is warrior of heaven: His pink mouth Its two halves there are - Couldn't bear victory The victory-bearer. 4 The feathers from the clouds nodding away... How your arrogance to convey, George! Creature of powers of heaven! How to convey enslaved fervor of a pupil, And of a sober blown-up nostril, At the full trot the curbed confusion. Before the beauty most filled with delight How to convey - from the archangel heights The saddles and the spears of deed done And these arrows of eyelashes - virginity Wrathful - the coat of ebony - Piercing - we are not of one bone! Having completed witnessing God's missive, How to convey, George, how you were evasive - That you have touched the ground barely - A bow - and how the hole at once, Piercing-crooked, filled with ice: Oh, don't be grateful! By the orders, squarely. 5 From the archangel height of the seat To do evangelic deeds. River burns, dark for miles far hence. O distance! Distance! Distance! In piercing straightness of the lashes of the eye With a firestorm onto the birds to fly. The hooves! The wings! Bound up tight! O height! Height! Height! To open eyes like jaw! Like gear Beyond clouds to disappear! And not to come to wits - to fall and die: O desire! Desire! Desire! 6 And I need no girl. By the cold of will, By the trace of blue I will alone go. Widowed and an orphan You were till I conquered. By the willing trace Of rushing spring water. I'll wash away feats From the glory, from pus. In your glory I'll Give drink to the horse. Keep, little dove, The sprouts from hail, The girl from the serpent, The hero from the girl. 7 O, by every wind Shaken lotus! George's shyness, George's kindness... The childish - severe - deadly importance Of gigantic eyes Wide and moist. Thus deadly torment From the rags peers. And the excessive Weight of a spear Not here - with a proud Laugh, full of height: George most mild, George most quiet. Most bitter - candle of my vigils - George, Most mild - with eyes of a deer - George! (The deer that's forgiven To the trembling pack). To whom did the day Of George strike the clock. O my lotus! My swan! Swan! My deer! You're all my vigils of night And all my dreams beside! You my Easter psalm! You my final altar! You more than my son And more than my tsar! My azure eye - In the height! You, having raised again Your escaped wife. So listen! [8] With thorn, not with laurel As a king crowned, In a saddle - with wings! Around the shape narrow On the black velvet Maltese gold is. Unbreakable thorn Needles - a vow To friend and God. High bending Of a swan, on the side A Maltese sword. The knight of Maltese Order - George, Midst sleepers - aware. The knight of Maltese Order - George, At women doesn't stare. 1 Into the treasure chest Of the midnight depths I let down An steady hand. Amid seaweed There's no sight of him! My treasure-chest Is not in the sea! Into the singing height Clouds beyond - With double thunder I get brave - and now A lark has dropped From the height for me - That you're not beyond cloud, That you're beyond sea! 2 Alive and well! Louder than thunder - Like with an axe - Joy! No, with an axe Not enough: with a bull Under the butt Of happiness! Stunned. Afraid. What in exchange - Will they tear away? And from the knees All the way to the roots Of standing hair - Terror. So it is, alive? Shutting one's eyes, Breathing, they call - Hear? Did the ship go away? Oh my crane In the whole flock Youngest! Resurrected once died? Cutting out sigh A stone from the sky, Breaking Over the head - No, till the hilt Sword into chest - Joy! 3 Not hunching under sorrow, Under the stone - winged - as An eagle - having stayed whole, The double sadness Of earthly mothers And heavenly mistresses Having raised on the shoulder - Hot Maltese steel Was left to me! But the wrathful sky To the eagles - favorably. Is this not a dream: in the waves Multitude of horse angels! Between them - hosanna! - My - whiter than snow... Lily chausibles, Horse will carry out! - Foaming lops on a mantle. Wave will carry out! - Block standing up... God will carry out... - Oh! 4 Over the sleeping youth - golden spurs. Command: Up high! Back at the heels the crowd of robbers. George, cry! With a free left hand you're feeling the cross. Command: swim! Rule, that to the last one they come under The cupola Sofian! We're lost! The joints will not bear! The end! - Give up! With double lightning it opens the wings. Command: up! 5 In the name of massacre Hold tight, my one with wings! There was an hour of crossing And will be - of getting even. In that ton-and-half hour Between fact and dream Heavily paddled The ship's wings. Between Charybdis - yes! - And Scylla paddled away. Oh my wings, The ships-cranes! Then on the steep Shore of Euxene Stomped those who escaped, Will - those who win. In that hour exhausting Between mud and muzzle The wings did not weaken, The hearts did not chill, The shoulders were pressing, In guard eyes remained. O these wings of mine, The ships-cranes! Not given to offend Narrow-faced little birds, It was said - a she-eagle's Heart of Taurides. With many a letter Onto cry long-beaked The gray-haired Monarchian Mom did awake. And here's the Sofian Cupola - far away... O these my wings, The ships-cranes! Bear! Dark constellation Will shiver up high. The vengeance will come Not from sea, from the sky. Look: having been poured With lead of heaven, The flock of ships Is menacing, heavy. And there is no end to it, There is no land... O these my wings, The ships-cranes! Horse - lame. Sword - rusty. Who - now? Leader of crowds. Step - hour, Sigh - century, Look - down. All - there. Foe. - Friend. Thorn. - Laurel. All - dream... He. - Horse. Horse - lame. Sword - rusty. Cloak - old. Stature - straight. Into the ether Leads the path. Stop, now! Blind is youth. Higher, all higher! Into blue rye! Stop, now! You'll step in the sky. Above crosses and pipes, Baptized in fire and smoke, The heavy-footed archangel - Eternal Vladimir, hello! He's the rider and he's the horse, He's the right and he's the whim. He sighed, and spat into the palms: Hold tight, the dray fame! The singer of plaza wonders - Hello, one grimy and proud, That he chose the heavy stone And was not swayed by the diamond. Hello, the thunder of stones! He yawned, saluted - and again He paddles with shaft - the wing Of the archangel dray. 1 The Khan's pollen Having fully tried I beat with the wing To escape-god. Profitable god Fast god Spurs in the side - god! To inform With word and sign, Lay them to sleep With poppy and vine, Darkness and home be, Word and sign be, Stump and ditch be - That all winds in the chest beat! A black god, Raven-god, Midnight-beats-god. With a comb-slant, With a stone-grass Over the slanting - Yuck - Tatars! My horse the ground don't touch, My foreheads the stars don't touch, My breath my lips don't touch, Rider-horse, finger-palm. A horse god, Sleepy god, Crowbar in forehead - god! To the fast legs - Strength and bravery! That would be sung In villages for centuries: Of escaped and barefoot - god, Of bare-headed - god, Flight, splash, whip, whipped - god, Devil on the oars - god. Cry - god, Whip - god, Headlong - god! 2 There is no trivet And no fire. Take me, take me! With the Tatars He will from me Eat the horse bone. Accompany, The milestone! "Where, quickness, Is cross-your-chain?" "Under khan's boots Is cross-my-chain. My town's in blood, Chest without cross - Adopt me, Mother-versts!" "Where, orphan, Is your load-home?" "Hearth - under ribs, Under saddle - home, My khan - Mamai, My bread is angst. To old one in heaven, Church's porch-versts!" "Why are you, beauty, Strict to the khan?" "Strict to the khan? Memory's long. My khan - like stone, Moscow - like hole. To angel's camp, Versts-tablecloth!" 3 Your trace is untrammeled, A crown is your tuft. The burst and the crier Screech under the hoof. An incompetent fire, An untravelled path, there. - An unshod horse Oh Russia-mother! Your cotton's not selling, Your goon has no arms. A hook's in your mansion And a trough with no charm. I'll eat lots of bark - Not a marvel it was! Oh Russia-mother, Spellbound horse! Don't jump up - don't sit! And once sat - do not blame! But one horseman, Mamai, For your taste is game! A slanting vileness, A thief's palm... The unconfessed stallion, Russia-mom! 1 Blessed are the ones that left your daughters, Earth, To fight in wartime battle and to run, Blessed are the ones that having never tried Comfort went to the fields Elysian. Thus grows the laurel - writer of the years, Heater of battle, sober, with harsh leaves. I will never exchange for bitter fate of love The friendship's over-the-clouds cliffs. 2 Already gods' - not the same generosity, Upon the shore of river's shore, not the same one. Fly, fly again, the doves of Aphrodite Into wide open gates of setting sun. I'll leave in day, in which there is no count, Lying upon the sand that's growing cold... I've outgrown my youth and look upon it Like snake that's looking at his skin of old. 3 In vain, inside the promised branches hiding, Your tender retinue thunders above. I drop a myrtle that did love so many, I drop the belt that did so sweetness love. With a dumb arrow that is heavily piercing Freed me from these my shackles your own son. Thus at the very throne of my calmness You born of foam, as a foam be gone! 4 How many, how many of them, white and blue Eat from the hands! Whole kingdoms are clucking around your lips O Lowliness! In gold of cup the deadly sweat Does not translate. The mantle-wearing general will vanish Like dove of white. Every cloud like a chest circles In a bad hour. There is your visage, O she-devil, in Each perfect flower. You fleeting foam, the salt of the sea.. In torment and foam - For what reason should I obey You, armless stone? 1 This my youth! O this my alien youth! This my alien youth, my boot unpaired! Purposefully narrowing the inflamed eyes, Thus a leaf from calendar they tear. From among your very acquisitions Nothing took away the thoughtful Muse. You were both a burden and encumbrance To me. I don't ask you back, my youth. You whetted the arrows in the nighttime, You whispered within the night with comb. I have suffered for the sins of others Pressed down with your generosity, like stone. Your scepter before its time returning - Of what use is evidence to the soul! O my youth! My tired youth you are! You my tattered rag that once was whole! 2 Soon from swallows - into sorcerers! Youth! We will say farewell before then... We will stand in the wind soul to soul! My tan one! My sister console! With a skirt of raspberry flare, You my youth! My dove you are Tan! Waste of my soul! You my youth! Dance and console! Wash me with a shawl of azure, My insane one! We have played with you For a plenty! Dance a while and spar! My gold - farewell - amber! For a reason your arms touch I, Like to a lover I say goodbye. Torn away from depths within my breast - My youth! Go to someone else! No awards, no forefathers, Not a falcon clear. She goes and is torn away - She is so far! Underneath tan eyelids A golden-winged flame. Forgotten once she took it With a windswept arm. An un-picked-up skirt, A rag that went bare. I'm not kind, not mean But like this: so far. Does not fuss or cry: Tore - and therefore dear! You gave - and forgotten With a windswept arm. With a scream and with a throat's Scattering, forgot... So distant as she is Come and keep her, God! Without self-control With complete meekness. Light and soft is Air over abyss. Growing at once, Like lightning - in time, As if by an order There will be a blossom. Answering stars, With a snake hair... Himself defenseless - Not a flame-bearer! He to me? I to him? I'll try, I know. Without intent Into death I will go. Thus swam the head and lyre down To the receding far-off place. And lips repeated: pity, pity, And "world" the lyre did convince. Bloody-silver, silver-and-bloody And double trace she did then pour, My tender brother, my dear sister Along the paralyzed Gebr. At times, the movement of head slowed Inside the unabated angst. But lyre assured: do pass me near! And lips behind her said, "Alas!" Moving together like a garland With far-off rippling head of bed - Do not the hair pour with silver? Does not the lyre pour with blood? Thus, with a staircase descending Of river - into crib of swells. Thus, to new island, where it's sweeter Than somewhere - lies a nightingale... Where then are they, the holy remnants? The salty wave - respond, respond! Maybe the net has pulled it out, Net of bare-headed Lesbian? Not for flattering chausibles, frocks of lies - I was born in this world with loud voice! Wide awake - not the night dreams of mine! I don't live, like you, with whisper-spine! From you of me, whisper-that-thorn - Lyre, lyre, a curve of a swan! With laurel, with dawn, with winds one I make merry and am not a nun! And the boy - is not dumb, is fair-haired! And it's gone to the side overboard - From you of me, whisper-that-thorn - Lyre, lyre, a curve of a swan! Heavy, I do hear, is woman's role! I don't know - did not put on the scale! My product is a gift, not for sale, But with blueness will go this my nail - From you of me, screaming-wheezing-one - Lyre, lyre, a curve of a swan! Woman's chest! The soul's frozen breath - Woman's reason! Wave, that by surprise Was caught - and always by surprise Having caught up to you - and God sees! Of the despising and despised playpen Has quieted. - Woman's chest! - Yielding was An armament! - I am thinking of those... Of those one-breasted ones - those girlfriends! To never-quiet Ave, To Easter feast - A beautiful glory Of girlfriend last. 1 Sleeps, merriment, your torment, Sleeps suffered heart's torment so. Over the Iverian cradle Blissful! Allow to go slow. Not my fussiness, not envy Brought me home - do not forbid! I came like shepherds in the village To give the glory to your kid. O silver-fake gold-mica! Not seen by the same star! Like dug in over the house, Like dug in - look - the star! I am not joyous and do not envy A saw to my heart, as I see What is it to your son I am giving? Here is my cloak - my staff is here. 2 Like in a precious chausible In infant tears, You're blessed in your wives! You're blessed, dear! Near to the roadside cross Your eyes you open. (He was an orphan just as well - Fatherless son). Like in a precious chausible In infant tears, You're blessed in your tears! You're blessed, dear. Clear, unconcerned over the sleeping Bird is your forehead. The good news' bearer was your crown, Bearer - your bed. Shiver and tree your stature is Over the sleeping bird. The good news' bearer was his dad - Be joyful, girl! Like in a precious chausible, In heaven's snow Blessed in snow you have been! You're blessed so. 3 A giant stroke of a wing, Breath whips - in wives You are blessed, In wives, alive. Where's messenger? It's wild and white. A crown? A wing? Where's messenger? By snowstorm blown - Message and wing. 4 With what to deserve you and give back your due - Blessed forever! Babe's mother you! Over the dragnet growing with glass Again repeating: Light from the east! From his blue eyes to stars of blue Having thrown a bridge with the rainbow, you! -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- I don't fall! I don't fall! I swim far And - as a rainbow - bridge over Nieva. Life-giver in hour of the end! Affirmer of kingdoms! Mother of son! In wheeze of torments - in a bad song! You - "Be" - as a child have thrown! Two poems that accidentally did not go into "Poems to Blok" 1

Not with silver I came, Not with amber I came, Not as a king I came, As a shepherd I came. Here's air of hills of mine, Here's of two eyes of mine Sharp gaze - and of fires Red glare and of dawns of mine. Where's wax - that is the fur? Through hole I won't turn! Poorer than all - But ahead of all! Behind a camel a camel See: on that round hill, See: walking are the kings, See: they are bearing bins. O - after - far! 2

Three kings, Three bins With precious gifts. The first bin - All the earth With indigo seas. Second bin: Noah within With an ark with beasts. And within? That third bin? What is there, my king? Gives the king, "Holy's my light" Don't know what it means Ahead - king, Mom - behind, And the infant weeps. S. E How comes into the middle In battles of the Don - Thus my dream is with you In cities over the ocean. For the paper dust they'll take Bookcase from the wall. All's for sale, and nonetheless Memory's not for sale. In a green wood full of firs There's no such straight pine. You and me, that is because, From one cradle come. Not for thousand fates - we're born For one, you and me. Nearer than bread to the palm - Thus do we agree. Fire and flood did not bear off Finger of gold made! In those sleepless hours we are Nearer than to forehead, hand. My widowhood will not accept Neither miller, nor flour. An inviolable bond: In one crib we were. In my chest my watch, once wound, Did not rust, you know. There's autocracy within The red Russia, know. May the whole world come to end - At night service I will stand. Thus with you before the wall - As to others with a garland. And now, keen before me, you! Brothers, do not yawn! Thus together we come at night: Our crib was one. She is unusual all the way! Beyond power! He forgot! Do not accuse me so far! You're blessed by God! To say he did will - You're blessed by God! And beyond, so level A satin stitch... Stand: wives between You're blessed by God... And beyond ringing So jubilant... little child, hear: You're blessed by God! - And silence out far Stretches... Your stripe will be harvested By which person's arms? O the black magician you! My black-plaited one! Your tumultuous century, And your midnight days... All your little workers are At once born away. Where are your campaigner friends, Your comrades in arms? O the black magician you, My one with white arms! Not with glory, not with tears Can one heal those graves. One, as though he had been choked, Walked around alive. One more went into a wall Himself to advance. (He was proud - a falcon!) - They Knocked him out at once. High above your brothers are! Can't exude a cry! O the black magician you, My one with clear eyes! And from out the cloud (praise Marvel from above!) Arrow of a falcon falls, Arrow of a dove... To know, in two feathers at once People to you write, Know, that soon you will receive A certificate, O the boulders! They will shake With their wings, O the black magician you! My one with black wings! S E Brothers! In the last hour Of year - after our Russian land, living in us! Exactly twelve times Mug to mug! After the rabble of honor, After Taman, after Kuban, After our Russian Don, Jordan of old faith... Once more, Mug to mug! Comrades! Alive still is Mother - Passion - Russia! Comrades! Whole still is In the hearts - Russia! Brothers! Into the distance look in! Delvig and Pushkin, The deeds' and the hearts' crystal... Gloriously, like steel on steel - Mug to mug! Brotherhood's glorious gown - For our brother town Prague - till - crunching Ring out, Bohemian country! Ring, Mug to mug! Comrades! Alive still is Rumor - physique - steel. Comrades! Whole still is In the hearts - steel. Brothers! The final moment! On the border of forest Disappeared old man... Tightly - like fang to fang - Mug to mug! Voluntary tributes, Hello, kind abuse! Still alive is Russian God! Who believes - stand! Ring, Mug to mug! S E He - with a tender sigh, They - cruel and tan. The eagles don't insult The migrated swan. To eagles - not by invite: Brother's he who flew inside! Free is our trapese, Wild is the New Year's rite. Guest of the eagle, Walk while you like! We are the free pilots, Two wings is our mark! Under loud vaults, battles: Look to look, steel to steel. Then the new year's night Beats with crystal on crystal. Look to look, border to border: Paired-up ringing of fates. One in New Year morning With eyes inarticulate. Don't drink, if you don't want! Near the table walk! We are the free pilots, Two wings is our mark! With cathedral avalanche New Year's collapse On the foreheads. The swan's angst, Don spent the night in your eyes. Swan's angst, to the motherland A lingering chain. We know your one only - Is this not steppe of Don? For this is the arrow - Fly where you would like. We are the free pilots, Two wings is our time! Over the mountains, Also foothills over, Together with dawns, With belltowers, Horse without control - Heading out full sail! - Into unknown land, Future, I lead way. Not an eagle to call And not swallow. She is not yet born - Do not christen her! Essence of two veins. Of the distant land. With the saw-makers, With the anvils, and Forehead - don't look back, Sigh - without a breath, To future I speak With the fiery sweat. Stumps till hollow - Is not taken yet! Do not judge her now! She is not born yet! Shadow - as a guide, Body - over a verst! Over protoxide, Also over rust. Over the new skills And faiths of times gone, Over grandsons, Russia - To the great-grandsons! (What to us is pasture Of the Kitezhs dead?) Fall in love with her! She is not born yet! Sickles are removed, Tables stand with food. With the fates they come, With the kingdoms too. With the semicircle, Sun over the sea! Next day looks between: Adamovo - be! With the breath - the spirit! By the knives - are one. Come catch up, you fool! On the seventh one! To Ehrenburg 1

In midnight darkness Sky threw mounds of snow. Like from a single uterus - Chest - and the sky - and the stones. Over the caverns' stalactites In emptiness of an alley Your name Er was Resounding hollowly. Under the sleepy curtain Bruce will not tell this to you: A leaning way into dreaming Russia - and women - two. Heavenly thunder is narrow! Er - is the leopard's maw. (Plummeting way into dreaming Passion - and women - two...) Er - an unbreakable fortress! Er - ahead through the maw! Er - in the tightened blindness Of depths - flight in a halo! Thus, between sky and the palate, One of small faith, joy proclaim! - Over the dream-vision snow mounds Of Er that is your name. 2

Not here, where it's tied, But there, where it's willed. Not here, where Lazaruses Rant with a bed, Against day's crushed stone With beasts of burden. There is no arm here To you - mine. There, where it's reduced, Not here, where it's curved, Not here, where with wings They decide - with swords, Where loud flesh on us Finally beat! There is no gift here To you - from me. Not here, where it's asked, There where answer is given... Not here, where death is Messy, and between Is heavy - with wormhole, And snake-jealousy. There's no inheritance here To you - from me. And hard-browed life will not Look back! Here There's no rendezvous There're only wires here, The ends of belts here Are bound all through... There are no matins here From me - to you. Not yard with peelings - Heaven's bits blessed! Not here, where it's sought, There, where it's released, Where days' betrayal is Splashed out all through. Where there are no words: From me - to you. 3

A strange man, for all my rivers, Is a wide bed. A passerby, in whom arms - like a snow With all heat of eyelids Guilty - after whom I come and I come, In thunder of meeting carts. Lover, whom it can and it cannot, (Sigh will survive - and not!) A strange man, A dear man, Nightfall-man, For all time-man! Unknown! - in snake oil, without candles, I'll bake the bread for wedding. Betrayal! My river will run in a course Of partings, not meetings. In meeting! - And if my speech is dark - From shoulders a stone home! On tearing of partings, on grumbling of meetings - The speech of my stream. Open space - man, From nothing - man, Through floor - man, Came through - man. 4

I've magicked, I've grumbled. From left to right I Accompanied. Only as no one Only about no one, Only night vigil - Above the icons: Sorcery-storms, Oars-fires - Grumbling of God Is proud above. I've cuckooed, I've angsted too. That with my glory - All rocks to you. That with my power - To you all rivers. In first and third time, Now and forever... That with my left arm - Weakness and help. That as no one, About no one... I've sung as nightingale, I've frozen. Without transfer To heaven - I promised, (That with my flattery to you All birds to the last one...) In heaven who knows whose. In heaven Persian... In sweetness and suffering Give through the hand, you! Hello - in parting! Farewell - in a rendezvous! 5

And soon is the parting, Snow mounds yielding. Well, Your storms' comfort, niceness Of grumblings, farewell, Grumpy spindles' Kingdom, zeal Of wolves white as snow. Snow mound heavy, noble-like, Post-like, of white stone, Knightly, and of comfort To your both siblings... And soon is the parting, Snow mounds are yielding. Ah, to discord, loss, dissension Wide is open door! Gifted luxury of orphan Winter, farewell, snow! Farewell, white eagles' retinue, Trace untried, unknown, Farewell, sin covered with snow, On the melted snow. Hunchbacks-humps-the little camels - Householders, farewell! And soon is the parting, The snow mounds do yield. With love, poor people are owed A ringing day of spring. Where there's snowstorm: cover-our-curtain, A head leaning! The entire day munches, Tireless, icicles' grain. Butchery, knackery, pieces, Droplets, and parting. Day - with belt, the night is skimpy: Not to try, nor start... And the snow mounds are yielding, Soon we too will part... In two hands I take - by both: I won't be torn - well? Beads expensive into two Rivers from the holes. Enchanted, defrosted is The way, sold to the streams. Friend! Over the steep snow mounds Left my sorceries. Do not stare that tears are pouring: Water - it may be! It is now the time of parting That snow mounds do yield. Familiar! Wherefrom you come to our country? Which wind to attack? Familiar! I will not fall in love with you: Your suit is black. While the black bonfire is burning, To beauty - spark into an eye! Familiar! Yours is a costly fancy, And costly is refusal, too, of mine. 1 Thus, in the meager labor of days, Thus, in difficult convulsion to her, You will forget the friendly trochee Of the courageous girlfriend of yours. Her severity's bitter gift, And the light shyness' hidden heat, And that whose name is distance That wireless hit. All antiquity, except: Give and Mine, All, except the earth's, jealousy, All loyalty - but in a deadly war To a Thomas who does not believe. My tender one! Do not take into your home This refugee, by the grayness of dads! Be well the left-chested smithy Of not philosophical ends! But maybe, in twitters and counts Having tired of femininity - And you will recall my arm, right-less, And a courageous sleeve. The lips, not demanding to laugh, The rights not following behind, The eyes, knowing not the eyelids, And following: light. 2 Not correcting the marvel to numbers, Find trusting girlfriends for you! I know that Venus is work of hands, I'm a craftsman - and craft I know. To full trampling of the soul From silence solemn and high: The divine staircase - From: My breath - to: do not sigh! 3 (BALCONY) Ah, from a stark overlook Down - into ash and tar! To salt the underweight with tears Of earthly love - what for? Balcony. Darkness of evil Kisses through salty rains. And sigh of endless hatred: Breathe out a poem's refrain! What: heart or Batiste rabble Is in the arm like stone Tight? To such lotions There is a name: Jordan! This battle with love, I hear, Is wild and heartless, yes. Even from granite brow Soar - to breathe out in death! 4 Hands - and resale And re-action in a round! Only the lips, Only not to mix up my hands! There is no sleep from these All these worries. Raising my hands, Friend, I curse my memory! That in the poems (In the landfill of my Highness!) You did not wither, You did not dry like others. That in the chest (In thousand-breasted brothers' grave Of mine) - you weren't Washed by the millenia's rains! Midst bodies, body - You, that were loss to me of two stars! That he won't vanish With a message: Not recognized. Hello! Not arrow, not stone: I am the most live of wives: With two arms into your sleepless Sleep. I am life. Give! (On the two-sharp tongue Take! - two-sharpness of snake!) All of me in bare-headed Joy, please do take! Cling! - today on the schooner, Cling! - on the skies! - Cling! - linen! I am today in new Gilded and the seventh skin! Mine! - and of which rewards When in the hands, at mouth - heaven: Life is the flung-open joy To say hello in the morn! In empty temple Trinity - with myrrh. I fell on my crown With grain and fire... In the night screams I entered equally - I will be your Brazier tiny: Domestic fowl: To smoke the angst, To chase night boredom, Warm earthly hands! From pitiless chest of Gods - so I'm thrown! Any love was given me: A big one! With such bonds! With such privilege! Half a life? All for you! To elbow? Here is she! For this, that you torment, For this, that you demand, For this, that there are Poor earthly hands... In vain! By amphibrach You will not regulate! Only open the eyes Wider within my breast, Not as Logos I came, Not as eternity, With empty-headedness Your twittering To the chest... Not to have power! Without word on the word - To love... a prostrate Swallow - in the world! Inimitably lies life: Above waiting, above a lie... But by the trembling of all veins You may recognize: Life! (Why that in rye you lie!) - heat, wave... Like in the rye you lie: ringing, blue... Blather - through honeysuckle - hundred veins... Be joyful! I was called by you! And since spellbound us bodies do Have the souls, friend, don't be scolding - That's now: into the dream with forehead. Otherwise - why did you sing? In the white book of your quietness, In your "yes"'s mud wild - Quietly I lean the forehead to you: For the palm is life. Lethe's underwater light, Reef of a red heart. Lancet has stopped short, Closing the singing throat: Not the red heat of metal, Not the difficulties' heat - A non-dissolved pearl In the bitterness of singing throats. Sorrow sorrow! In all We cut, swim and die. For not dissolved is the pearl In the voice's ray... With iron into roar, Thousands drills and saws - A non-extruded thorn In bitterness of singing throats. 1 In dead ones believing, To be spellbound I do not try. In ancient heather, In silver-sliding land dry, Let pipers with trumpets Glory to my shade beam! In heather-losses, In heather-dry streams. Ancient heather! Growth on the naked stone! In our orphanage's identity Having assured and known, Bits of the final brocade Having lost and taken away - In heather-ruin, In heather-streams turned dry. Two-minded friendships And choking of ugliness, life. With heat and dryness, (For severe is the chief), Higher, where mountain-ash Is prettier than David King! In heather-gray spots, In heather-dry seas. 2 When drunk on insult became The incensed soul, When to fight demons seven times She gave a vow, Not with the ones, with fiery rains Flushed into the abyss: With earthly lowliness of days, With people's bigotries - Trees! I come to you! To be saved From market cry! Like heart it's breathed inside by your Wavings up high! Oak with God wrestling! Into war With root march in! Willows - my prophetesses, you! Birches-virgins! On torture raised above The pine - you, my lips' psalm: The bitterness of ashberry, elm - Wrathful Avessalom. To you! May the crumbling be Of leaves - live mercury! First time to open the arms! To throw the manuscript! The swarms of green reflections... Like ones weaving arms! My bare-headed ones you are, My trembling ones! 3 To swimmers, in a circle light Having been beaten - A flock of guardian nymphs - suddenly, The mantles sweeping A scroll is unrolled - In a back throw Of foreheads and hands In dance that suddenly will end With blow of defense - A long arm put on the thigh... Drawing out, I scream... A silver of the birches, Alive are the streams! 4 Friends! Brotherly multitude! You, with whose stroke is blown The trace of earthly insult. Wood! - Elysium mine! A co-bottler of souls In friendships' loud band Having chosen soberness, day In quiet brotherhood - I will end. Ah, from a stomping crowd In light sacrificial fire Of groves! In great stillness of Moss! In the current of firs... The wise tiding of tree! Wood That prophesies, of the curves On the riffraff, here, Is the perfect life: Where no slavery, nor ugliness, There, where all is its height, There, where truth's better seen: On the days' other side... 5 Refugees? Messengers? Respond if you are alive! The monks on horseback, Having seen God in groves? How many sandals are running? How many buildings are flaming? How many runners and judges For the trees' running? Forest! You're now a rider! That's which people disease Call: is the last Convulsion of trees - This - in a wide dress Is a teen with nectar fed. This - at once and with root Uptorn is the wood! No, another, not flakes In a day - leafed flood I see: spears headlong I see: murmur of blood! And in upturned junk heap Flying - who could have seen? That is Saul after David: After his death so tan. 6 Not with paint or with brush! Light - his kingdom, it's gray. Here light violates color The red leaves - a lie. Color, with light violated. Light - to fight color on breast. Is not in this secret The essence and strength Of autumn forest? Over the quiet creek of days Like curtain was torn - And behind it's scary... Through chausible of parting Like seeing a son - And suddenly words rise: Elysium and Palestine. A stream... a draft... Through trembling's little script - Light, better than death - And - connection's cut. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- The autumn grayness, You, apotheosis of Goethe! Much was sung here And was unbound still more. Thus light the gray spots: Thus family heads - of the son Last out of seven The final, very last one Into the last doors - With rubbed-through light of arms... (I don't trust paint! Here Purple - is last of servants!) Not light already: They shimmer with some kind of light... Not in this or other And the connection is cut. Thus the deserts are lighting And - I said more than I could: Cupolas of Elysium And Palestine's sand. 7 That which slept without a vision - Has touched and stands. In strict gradualness of psalm, With visionary mountain - The multitudes of bodies that awaken - Hands! Hands! Hands! Like warriors under the hail of arrows, Ripe for torments. Scrolls of the falling into ash Chausibles, see-through like nets. The lashes of the old ones, not knowing Shame, and hands Covering the groin... (Of virgins!) Of teenagers' - birds! With a horsecart on the pipe of court! Body till the loins Having wheedled from coffin wraps - Flight gray-bearded: Now! - Transportation! - Legion! Entire peoples Of refugees! - On dearness and rage! Remember! - Be! - See! In the evening, on the hill, Several running trees. 8 Someone is driving - to deadly victory. Trees have the gestures of tragedy. Jews - the secret dance! The trees Have the quivers of mystery. This - is a conspiracy against century: Weight, count, time, fractions. This - is a torn curtain: Trees have gestures over the coffins. Someone's riding. Sky - entry is. Triumphal gestures have the trees. 9 With what inspiration, With what truths of God, Of what you sound, The leaves' floods? With what frantic Sevillian secrets - Of what you sound, Of what forget? What's in your fanning? I know - you heal Time's insult with Eternity's chill. But as a young genius having Risen - you decry With finger of absence The beholding's lie, That once anew, like never, The earth to us did seem. That underneath the eyelids Took place conspiracies. That with money of wonder Not to show off - so please! That underneath the eyelids Took place the mysteries! And from strength away! And from urgency away! Into the flood! - In prophecies With indirect speeches. Canopy with - leaves? Did Seville moan? Avalanches of leaves, Ruins of leaves... Gold of my hair Comes to grayness quietly. All took place, within the chest All flowed, sang. Don't pity me! Sang - in moaning pipe of land On the edge blended distance. God! Your design is the most Secret: The soul did take place. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- The incombustible salt Of my hands - will not I Give the Phoenix's ash for tar Of magnificence of time? Even you have grown silver, Satellite! To thunder and smoke, To young graynesses of deeds - Add the grayness of my thoughts. Golden flower so proud, Of your luxury don't boast: To young graynesses of troubles Laurel came - and citizen oak. And henceforth, that between me and you There are miles - having forewarned! Why do I count myself with the mob, That honest is my place in the world: Under the wheels of all excess: table Of uglies, cripples, backs with hunch... And from now, from the roof of belltower I announce: I love the rich! For their root, rotten and shaky, Growing the wound from the cradle, For the absent-minded habit From the pocket to pocket again. For the quietest request of their lips, Filfilled like a scream. That in paradise They will not be allowed, That they do not look in the eyes. For their secrets - always with courier! For - with messenger - their romantic bliss! For the nights that to them are bound, (And they violently drink and kiss!) And for this that in counts, in boredom, In gilt, in yawns, in cotton, I screech Me the impudent they won't purchase - I'm repeating: I love the rich! And still, regardless of being shaved, Of satiety, fullness (I wink - and spend!) For some - suddenly - being beaten, For some sometime doubting glance Of a dog... not a rod To the zeros? Do not weights play and rage? And for this, that among the world's outcasts There is not such an orphanage. There is such foolish tale: through the eye Of a needle a camel to pass... For their look, that at death does wonder, Apologizing in disease, Like in bankruptcy... "Judged... Be glad - Yes"... For the quiet, from lips pressed tight, to which "I counted karats, I was the brother" I am adding: I love the rich! 1 Poet - from afar starts a speech. A poet - far away starts the speech. With planets, with marks, with roundabout Tales' hollows... between yes and nay He even having swung from the belltower Took out the hook... For comets' way Is poets' way. The scattered chime of purpose - That's his connection! Forehead up - despair! You know that the eclipses of the poets Are not foretold by the calendar. He's he, who mixes cards together, Who is deceiving count and weight, He's he, who asks from the desktop, Who beats with Kant over the head, Who is like tree in its own beauty In the stone coffin of Bastille. He, on whose train all are late, Whose traces have been chilled Always... For comets' way Is poets' way: burning and not warming. Tearing, not growing - to break up and tear - Your season, o the mantled curved one, Is not foretold by a calendar! 2 There are the extras, the unneeded That do not fit within the norm. (Not counting in your dictionaries To them the landfill is their home). There are the hollow, the pushed-down, There are the mute - like dung, Nail - to your silken skirt hem! Dirt from under the wheels is wrung! There are the unseen, the imaginary: (Sign: speck of an autumn hen!) There are the Jobs within the world That would have envied Job - when: We're poets - and in rhyme with pariahs, But from the shore thus having gone, We argue over God with goddesses And argue over girls with gods! 3 What should I do, blind and a stepson, When all have fathers and have eyes, When on anathema like embankments Of passion! Where runny nose is the Name of cry! What should I do, with rib and thought Singing! - like wire! Siberia! Sunburn! Upon your dreams - like on the bridge! With their weightlessness In weights' world. What should I do, singer and firstborn, When gray is blackest in the world! Where inspiration's like in thermos! With this measurelessness in Measures' world?! 1 You do not ever think about me! (Tire-some!) You think about me: the wires: Far - lasting. You don't complain about me, that it's pity... Sweeter than all... Only about one thing: the pedal: Pain - lasting. 2 The - palm in palm: What - for you're born? Don't - pity: please: Long - last - and pain. 3 Distance stretched out long with wires... Distance and pain, is the same palm Opening - wherefore? Distance and pain, is the same way. As the distance pierces, likewise It the distance does caress. Longer - longer - longer - longer! The right pedal, this one is. It's no pity to be dying After seeing life in bliss. Deafer - deafer - deafer - deafer: The left pedal, this one is. Memory's humming Kitezh - Right! Lethean water's Take the left: the deafener Will out-sing the longerer. From the plot ones, notice, From the cast ones having tired, Life doesn't want to live... but often Death does not desire to die! It demands! From all the meatless Keys, all broken up in row. (With left pedal they do deafen, With right pedal they prolong...) It clangs! Like snake out of the falseness Of keys, broken up all the way... Further, further, further, further, With the right pedal they do lie! 1 Thus they listen (to the source Listens - the mouth). Thus they smell a flower: Deeply - till feeling's loss! Thus there's bottomless thirst In the indigo air. Thus children, in blueness of sheets, Into the memory peer. Thus the teenager feels Blood - until the lotus... Thus one falls in love: Falls into the abyss. 2 Do not scold me for this Dim and business-like look, friend. Thus they gulp down the gulp: Into depth: till feelings end. Thus working into cloth, tailor Sews his final attire. Thus children whisper in whisper, Into the cry crying. Thus they dance... (Great Is God - you turn around that's why!) Thus children are quiet in silence Crying in a cry. Thus without bane shows itself With a sting touched blood! Like falling into abyss: Thus they fall in love. "She's on the bottom, where is mud And seaweed... She went to sleep In them - but there is no sleep there!" "But I loved her, Like forty thousand brothers Can't love her" "Hamlet! She's on the bottom, where is mud: Mud! And the final garland Has floated on the river-side logs" "But I loved her Like forty thousand.." "Fewer, Still, than one lover. She's on the bottom, where is mud" "But I" (bewildered) "loved her?" With what this day will end Neither friendship nor love will know. With each day you answer more quietly, With each day deeper you go. Thus, worrying over nothing - Only branches move of a tree - Thus into the ice crevasse - Into the chest, that I smashed against thee! From the treasure-chest of likenesses Here is prediction - by guess - for thee: You in me like in crystal coffin Sleep - you like in deep wound in me Sleep - tight is the icy crevasse! Ices are jealous of their dead ones: Finger - armor - print - and belt... Without return and without response. In vain you scold Helen, widows! Not the beautiful Helen's Troy's fire! The blueness of ice crevasses, On whose bottom you sleep, sire... Sleep, dreamer! With you having met Like with Empidocles, Aetna... Chest will not give out its dead And to family say, it's in vain. On the appointed meeting I'll be late. I will come gray Having taken spring with me. You appointed him up high! I will walk for years - to bitter mercury Did not go Ophelia's taste! I will walk through mountains - and deserts, I will walk through souls - and hands. The earth will live for long! Thicket - Blood! And each droplet - creek. But always with the stream's side In bitter grass, Ophelia's look. That which quaffing passion, only Filled with mud! - On the stone, with shaft! I have loved you highly, highly, In the sky I have myself kept. Early still - not to be! Early still - not to burn! Tenderness! Cruel lash of Meetings from other world. How deeply not to lean - Bottomless vat is heaven! O, for a love like this It's early - without wounds! Life lives with jealousy! Into the earth the blood Pours. The widow will give Her right - for a sword? Life lives with jealousy! Damage to heart is blessed! Her right for a sickle Will give away the grass. Secret thirst of the grass... Every sprout: "break me down"... Given away to the rag, Still all the wounds are - mine! And till a common seam - I pour - you will not place - It is still early for ices Of other-worldly lands! Those who wound up - will remain. Further - up. In the hour of final forgetfulness Don't wake up. He has no friends who is a genius And walks at night. In the hour of final vision Don't gain sight. I'm your eyes. The owl's roof Of eyes, dear. I will call you by the name - Do not hear. I'm your soul: Urania: To gods - door. Do not check me in the final Melding's hour. In some frequent lining of a note Coddling on the sheets without fail - Linens of a railroad are appearing, Cutting through, the blueness of a rail! Pushkin's: How many of them, where It chases! (It passed - they don't sing!) Here they all are leaving and departing, Here they chill and here they linger still. Here they stay. Pain like a note Remaining... Above love all Remaining... With wife of Lot Like embankment have grown cold the poles... Hour, when with despair like with loom Sheets have been spread out - Yours! And the that-has- now-gone-voiceless Sappho Cries in pain like a final seamstress. Cry unmurmuring! Cry of a swamp Heron, knowing already... Deep Linens of a railroad spreading out, With a scissors cutting is the beep. Flow apart with an unneeded dawn, O the red unnecessary spot! The young women each in their turn Do aspire onto such a sheet. They don't wait for letters, For a letter they wait. A shred of rag Around a braid Of glue. Within - a word. And happiness. And this - is all. Thus they don't wait for joy, Thus they wait for the end: A soldier's salute And into the chest - lead Three pieces. It's red in the eye. And this is it. And only. No happiness - she's old! Wind blew - color! The black muzzles And the yard's square. (The letter's square: Of ink and spells!) No one is too old For sleep of death! The letter's square. You that loved me with the falseness Of truth - and truth of lie, Abroad! There is nowhere further! You that in me placed your love! You, that loved me for much longer Than the time. - The right hand's stroke! You don't love me any longer Is the truth in six small words. The demon in me Is not dead but lives! In self like in jail In body like in bilge. Exit is axe From the world that is walls (An actor mumbles, "A stage is the world.") And lump-legged jester Did not act sly. In body - like in glory. Like in toga - in body. Many a year! Hold dear that you're alive! (Only the poets In bone - like in lie!) We won't make merry, Singing brothers, In body like in cotton Gown of a father. We cost the better. In heat we wilt. In body - like in stall. In self - like in a pot. Transitory magnificence We do not hold. In body - like in morass, In body - like in vault, In body - like in extreme Exile. - Wilt! In body - like in secret, In temples - like in a grip Of an iron mask. Into the gray spot - temple, Into rut - a soldier. Sky - with a sea we are painting you. Like on every syllable - That on secret peer I turnaround, I make myself cute. In the shootout - scythe, In the Christ dance - switch, Sea - I choke you off with the sky. Like on every poem - On a secret screech I am stopping, Putting my guard up high. In each line: You stand! In each spot There may treasure be. Eye! With light in you I unfold myself, I come apart. With angst On guitar harmony I rebuild myself, I cover myself. Marriage - in dawn Not in feather - of swan! Marriages are altogether different! Like on hyphen sign That on secret sign Brows are starting - You suspect me yet? Not in drunken tea Of glory - strong's my soul. And my exchequer is not small! Under your finger Like bread of the Lord We are broken up, We are being milled. x x x Brother in the songtime woe - I am envying you. Let it be fulfilled this way - In separate room to die! - How many years? Century? Is the dream of every day. -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- And not pity: little lived, And no anguish: little gave. He who lived in our days, lived A lot: he who gave a song - all gave. To live (only not newer Than death!) here across the veins. For some one thing this exists - Hooks upon the ceiling. With blocks - on forehead Resides the laurel. "I cannot sing" "You will" - "Vanished, fell (Translate into Oatmeal!) Sound from the chest - Just like milk. Empty and dry. In full spring - Feeling's a bitch." "An old song! Throw, don't confuse!" "Better I go - Pound a stone" "And to sing now" "What am I, bullflinch In the day to sing?" "Do not be able to, Bird, but sing! To spite the foe!" "That just lines, two I cannot parse?" "Who ever could?!" "Torture!" - "Endure!" "Meadow mown down - Gullet!" - "Wheeze: That too is sound!" "Business of lions Not of wives." - "Kids: Broken apart - Orpheus did sing!" "Thus in a coffin?" "A board underneath." "I cannot sing" "So you sing this!" 1 That the world would not die Without desperate men, Be, baby Vladimir, ruler Of world from end to end. 2 Literary - not in it is Truth, but here - spill blood! It comes out every seven days. Departed - once in a hundred Years it comes. Killed is the first Soldier. Which, capital, Missives to you, which Article to you still? Gold - to a bourgeois: This is to us, dear. "Bass, they say, and walks in vests. Mayakovsky, Vladimir"... Hey, blood-your-blood! How to make peace with the news, When the blood of her first Soldier - on second page (Of the news). 3 "In the coffin, in the usual dark suit, in steady, rough shoes, shod with iron, lies the greatest poet of the Revolution." - One-day Newspaper, April 24 1920. In the boots shod with iron In the boots in which he took the mountain - Not with any detour or redirection Having reached the crossing - Over a run of twenty years Until they were shining, spent. Mountain of the proletarian Sinai, On which he as the prophet stands, That the resident office would not meddle In the boots - a two-foot living square - In the boots, in which, wearing a frown, He carried the mountain - and took - and sang - and swore - In the boots before, without refusal By the untilled fields of October, In the boots - almost like water-climber: Infantryman, speaking clearer: In the boots of a great hike, On the Donbass, I do fear, nails. Of hundred ten million (State Publications) Mountain of the grief of own people... In which kind, I'm asking you with honor, Of one's own, when is which year: "Nothing of one's own in the factory!" Burning mountain of all the peoples - here. Thus in these - about his Rolls-Royces Talk has not gone silent at this time - To dead pioneers he shouted: Take formation! In the boots - witnesses to the crime. 4 The lovers' boat broke against life. And a bet one would not place Upon a leader such as this. Comrade, comrade, this your boat From what dictionary is? Still within the lovers' boat Thrown one's head back - a scandal! Razin - what here does not suit you? Better mastered life, withal. This novelty - medicine Bursting, what is your faucet? Fellow, not like proletarian You behave, what's with you yet? It was worth in gods and mother Us, that - not the dawn, the blood! The white undercoat of class To turn over toward the end. Like a cadet, at the Toska From despair having shot! Fellow! Not like Mayakovky You're behaving, like a shah. With a cap upon your brow And - farewell, my dear one! You ended as great-grand-father Having lived as great-grand-son. And again, like on the checkup We will go - shame'll eat you, son: You the Soviet-Russian Werther, Gesture noble-Russian. Earlier - to police station, Now... My enemy, dear one! There are no new lover's boats Underneath the shining moon. 5 Like only by enemies, In the very soul - a shot. This today, the final temple Is destroyed by foe of God. Having not yet oriented, Went to sleep, reaching the spot. Heart began now beating, beating, Stop, within the trace of shot. (An abroad, within the meeting: "Incident! What a land mine! This means - there is a heart also? And with our own, the same one?" A shot - in the very spot now, Like into the aim of market. (Often - the left lobe Having shaved - with wife in bed. ) Hotshot! You did not miss target! And this for the woman - what! And Helen a lousy creature You will call, having thought. By but one thing, but completely, The Left poet surprised us so: Only to the right and knowing How to shoot, and left did go. In the right - would that the lancet Shine - and healthy is your chef. Well, the self-same Central Singer: A shot in the door on left! 6 The Soviet grandee, Under full Sinod... "Hello, Sergei!" "Hello, Volodya!" "Got tired?" "Just little" "By common?" "My own yet." "Did it shoot?" "Habitually." "Did it burn?" "Excellent." "Thus maybe it lived?" "Pass in which type, here." "Not so good, Sergei!" "Not so good, Vladimir! And do you remember, How in your pop Bass you did curse me?" "Well, now, stop... Thus here a boat Is this lovers' boat! Not from a skirt?" "It's worse from vodka - A bloated face. From that time on platoon here? Not so good, Sergei." "Not so good, Vladimir. And maybe - not razor - Is worked out cleanly. Thus beaten is card Completely?" "It trickles." "Apply now the plaintain" "It's good and collodium. Let's apply it, Sergei?" "Let's apply, Volodya." And what is in Russia - The mother? "Where's it?" "In USSR What is new?" "They build The parents give birth, The harmful ones sharpen, The publishers drive and The writers are writing. The new bridge is laid And washed out with half-water. It's all the same, Sergei!" "It's the same, Vladimir And the singing flock? "People, know, winding Our ground laurels Like rod of the dead ones. The old Rost With tomorrow's lacquer. You will not do with Just one Pasternak here. Let's apply the arms To that there lack of water? Let's apply them, Sergei? "Let's apply, Vladimir! Still bows to you now... "And what's the kind, our Lsan Alexandrovich?" "There -angel!" "Fyodor Kuzmich?" "On the canal: By the red cheeks He went." "Nikolai Gumilev?" "On the East (On the complete dray, In matting bloody...) "Still the same, Sergei" "Still the same, Volodya. And still this the same, Volodya dear friend - Let's apply the hands Though there are no hands Volodya." "Though there is none, My dear brother Sergei, Underneath this kingdom Let's place a grenade! And on the sunset By us bothered Let's place it, Sergei!" "Let's place it, Vladimir!" 7 He destroyed many temples, And this - more precious than all. Accept, Lord, your deceased enemy's soul. 1 Scourge of gendarmes, god of students, Bile of husbands and wives' sweetness, Pushkin - in a monument's role? In a role of a stone guest? Bare-toothed, looking like dare, Pushkin - in role of commander? Critic - whining, whiner - speaking: "Where is Pushkin's (weeping) Sense of measure?" Feeling - having Forgotten sea - beating On the granite? Salty one, Pushkin - in role of lexicon? His two legs having stretched out To warm, and upon the table Having jumped before the tyrant African man of free will - Killing of our great-grandfathers - Pushkin - in role of governor? Negro can't be painted over Can't correct it into white! Not bad is the Russian classic, Having once African sky Called his own, cursed the Nieva's! Pushkin - in role of Russia-lover? O you, the bearded augurs! Would have given to you the ball He who rhymed the tsar's censorship With the creep, and for it all "Europe's messenger" - with... Pushkin - in role of gravedigger? To the jubilee of Pushkin We will at this time give word: Ruddier than all and tanner Till this time in all the world, Livelier than all and living! Pushkin - in role of mausoleum? By the cabins of Pushkin You model, that're trash - themselves! Like from shower! Like from cannon - At the Pushkin's nightingales Words, the flight of falcons! Pushkin - in role of a gun! From the scream the ears are popping: "In a row before Pushkin!" Where did they leave the red of lips, Where did they leave the Pushkin's Mutiny? Lips' cursed pleasure? Pushkin - in the Pushkin's measure! Having placed tomes in the bookcase - You will bring laughter to him, Having mixed your refugeeness With his white insanity! White-bloodedness of brain, blueness Of morgue - with Negro's leer, a throat To the seeming... Would you, O the Copper Horseman, On all hooves behind come leap. Poor Vanya was a coward, But he - is not cowardly. He, looking in all directions - In Tatyana's role, one's own? What are you doing, you crows, This - pigeons' olives - The most free, the most far-out Forehead - having branded for centuries With the two-pieces gone low Of the middle and the gold? "Pushkin - toga, Pushkin - scheme, Pushkin - measure, Pushkin - frame..." Pushkin, Pushkin, Pushkin - like Invective is noble name Scream of parrots - of the square. Pushkin? We're very full of fear! 2 PETER AND PUSHKIN Not with fleet, not with sweat, not with back In patches, not with Swede at the feet, Not with growth - from any row, Not - to all there is time - with the drift, Not with lot, not with boat, not with German Through smoke of the stoves beer, And not even with Peter-wonder His own (his own deed of Peter!) And would there be little of big one (God gave, not a burden is man!) When he could not bear Hannibal-Arab Onto the white Russian land. This African into learning Having taken, the noses of Russians Having wiped and insisted - there's light In Russia from Negro grandson! The turning one he would not have In the string! "Onto freedom? Instead! He was such a chamber officer As I'm king of masquerade!" Having learned, not with foam, not with pumice Of Africa - literary tsar Would've decided: "From now of your African Passions I am a censor." And having hit him on curly Neck (cut - not cut!) "Go, son, Onto a short little visit Into the wilds African! Sail - and be sad of nothing! There's someone into sails to blow! If you'll get bored - come back to me, If not - forget even the door! Order: having abandoned Icy fogs - inch, an inch behind To trace the hot countries And with a verse to describe." And past the retinue placed there, Left behind - at the warehouse, straight, A giant, having left the poet, Ran - on or over the land? The tan-faced one not on Russian Snow - the snow's Ismael! He, now, with the archives The foreign bird did not kill! He, not on the fast Slavic blood, He is a mestizo also! You, now, on the homeland archives Of him simply would not sour! He would have made peace with you! For the unforced bow Complained by Nicholas, By Peter would be granted so! The gendarmes' search he would not cover With "homeland of feelings"! He would for you - a demon Glance! - not freeze the lips. He would not crumple Poltavan Ends, would not blunt the pen. For what as unworthy descendant - As a creep - Peter's agaric - was sent Into Romanian area And with it - by him was granted - He killed his shy son, having shyness Of man so much hated. "This chaff - I? Here Now grow, having been born!" His true son was the Negro, As his true great-grandson You'll remain. The pact of equals. And having not asked for alms here The great-grandson of giant's godson Peter's spirit made its heir. And step, and the lightest of the light Glances, to which it's light now... The final - posthumous - immortal Peter's gift to Russia. 3 (MACHINE) All his science is - Might. It's light - and I look: The hand of Pushkin I press, do not lick. Friend to great-grandfather: In the same old shop! Like with one's own hand Each and every blot. Under piles - to a free one? To me, in wonders' cauldron Weight that is exploring Bracket open, Minding written notes - Meaning, than all more brief. There's not greater search Than relationship! It was sung - is sung And now - it is so. We know how it's "given"! Over you we know, "Trifle" - how it sweated! Out of you, O stroke, How I wanted forest - Ball - and sleigh - I know... And how - sleep I wanted! How above love's flower - I know, how it creaked With teeth of Negro! Feathers on alert - I know how he fixed! Fingers have not dried yet From his ink! And midst tallow candles, Midst card games, I know How it shook! From naked Shoulders, from mirrors, From the glasses beaten On the floor - How it ran on naked Table I know! Battle, without evil: Of self with self, I knew! Do not beat with Pushkin! With him I'm beating you! 4 Conquest Of inertness Russian - Genius of Pushkin? Pushkin's muscle On the fate's carcass Of the sperm whale - Muscle of flight, Running, Struggle. With morning languor Vigorously having battled! Of a long walk, Of running equal - Muscle. A muscle Of flights the steppe over, Of boat that bears Through whirlwind to the shore. Not burdened With blood Russian - O, not a camel's Or ox's vein (From under the belt He did work hard!) - Mine is the muscle Of horse's heart. Prettier than ever - More ballast! Muscle of acrobat And gymnast, That on the rope Of one's own tendons From casemate - Flew as a falcon! Pushkin - from guiding Of monarch's hands Beating, like beats To the death (Might - arrived, Strength did grow) With muscle of shaft Muscle of oar. Someone, having carried On cart: "Of athlete Musculature is this, Not of poet!" That was the strength Of an angel: Wing's muscle Unbreakable. (POET AND TSAR) 1(5) With other-sided Tsar's hall. - And is this one not Unbowed, of marble? In ornaments' gold So grandly framed. - A pitiful gendarme Of Pushkin's fame. He ran down the author, Cut text writ by hand. A brutal butcher Of Polish land. Look more intensely! And do remember: Tsar Nicholas the First Is the first-born's Murderer. 2(6) No, the drum beat before the dark brigade When the chief we did inter: The teeth of the tsar over the dead singer Beat out the drill of honor. Such is the honor, that for closest friends There's no space. At the head, feet - arms, To the sides - on the right, on the left - Are chests and mugs of gendarmes. Is this not a wonder - in quietest box A supervised boy now to be? Like something, like something, like something it is His honor, honored - overly! Look, now, the country, how in spite of the talk Monarch dotes over the poet! Honorably - honorably - honorably - arch- Honorably - honorably - to hell yet! Whom then this way - like a thief, shot to death They bore over the land? A traitor? No. Through the gatekeeper's yard - The smartest of Russian men. 3(7) The people's power, having overthrown the throne, Not celebrated - friction: To executioners not to allow burial Of victims, the burial of Pushkin To censors. In the unassigned time, In prevention of strife. Not to bear under the (great!) noise Over the route of the thief - Not to doom to the final dark, The complete deaf-and-dumbness Of the body, cropped as such With scissors - in the poems. With the flashlight turn the world Under moon into a ball! On the map or in the space there's No such country, not at all. Drank like from a saucer, And the bottom shines. Can one come back home To a house that's gone? In the newer country Once again be born! On the spine of horse That threw you, return Now at last! The bones Are the whole - although? To such a guest Breadmaker - the broken Slices, carpenter - Will not sell the coffin! He - for the uncounted Miles, kingdoms of heaven, Such, where on the coins Is the youth of me, There's no such a Russia - There's no such a me. 1 In the century of giant, Fateful speeds - Glory to sturdy brotherhood Of the walkers' feet! Tightly, all-terrain, Straight, without roads, Mightily beating down The nature's threshold, Daringly violated by century. (In time of dynamos and turbines Only to live, as invalids!) But to you avenging Over the advertisement stamps On the chest reared and fed. No, the footless tribe, Reach distance with your feet! Glory to the thick soles, With the nails, boots, To walkers, speed-runners - To in boots shod gods! If there's ode in the world To god of strength and peaks - It's the look of the walker At the motor that's stuck. Grin in all fifteen inches, Than the face it's wider: Popping is look of walker Upon the tire. Look now at the torso Shattered by arrogance! Alcoholics of distance, Parasites of wide space - That through dusty cloud Of arm-dancing mobs Break apart. An occurrence? Of one's foolishness post. 2 Here's he, sword of the dreamers, Lash of loads on the spine! Casting beauty, like rapist, From its feet: to lie down! He won't answer and lie down - Like a bed - like a grave - But he won't show the face And the soul will not give Back... He'll give you back nothing Not July, not April - O the eyeless, bespectacled, Lacquered null! Creator of trouble Between South and North! (Records of speed: Emptiness) your Fords. Your Rollses and Royces - That old snake, flattery! Son! Be fearful of God, To trudge feet he told thee. Precious dolls from Oper And Madeleine, to you In exchanged for the lacquered Boat - quiet shoes Of the dead. O, The lie so cold Of the mannikin blocks, The unstepped-upon soles! Glory to God in heaven - God of strength, God of tsars - For granite and crushed stone, For the quartz and the spar, Under silicon hoof Change given in cash... And for this that he made me Walking marvel in flesh. 3 Growing cozy in sponging, From a tire hurries grandson. Walkers! Hold to your feet Like great-grandfathers - arms. Where there's boundary for rubber - There for legs there is space. Room for breath in the bosom When there's not enough gas! Like a flood Prague is thirsty, Thus thirsts thrill of expense. Do not dare teach the children Anything but the steps! By the streams, by the seashores, Ahead - no! Ahead - stop! That with feet the savannas You knew, with knees the Alps. For the openings of schools, Friends, I'll kick my two bones That from the first step To the last - my grandson Went! Muscle, putting Hades to shame! My offshoot! That in kingdom of mollusks - On my own two feet! Elderberry fills the whole garden! Elderberry is green, green, Greener, than mold on the vat! Greener, than summer at the start! Elderberry - till the end of days! Elderberry greener than my eyes! And after - through the night - with the fire Of Rostov! - it is red in the eyes From the trill of bubbly elderberry. Redder than measles on one's own body In all your times, azure, Measles that scatters and pours Of elderberry - till winter, till winter! That in small berry sweeter Than poison, what are dissolved paints! Of red cotton, sealing wax and Hades Mix, a shimmer of corral beads, And a taste of baked blood. Elderberry has been killed, has been killed! Elderberry the whole hall filled With blood of young and pure, With blood of branches of fire - With the blood most merry - With blood of heart of you and me... And later - grain's waterfall will be, And later - black is elderberry: With plum something, sticky something. Over the gate, moaning with violin, Near the house, which is empty, Is lonely bush of elderberry. Elderberry, without mind, without mind, Of your beads, elderberry, am I! Steppe - to Mongol, Caucasus - to Georgian will go, To me - elderberry bush under window Give. Instead of Arts Palace, only Give this bush of elderberry. Newcomers in my country - From the berry - elderberry, My ruddy childhood thirst, From the tree and from the word: Elderberry (till this day - at nights...), Poison - sucked in by the eyes... Elderberry is red, is red! Elderberry - took the whole land In its paws. In power, my childhood all. Something like passion criminal, Elderberry, between you and me Century's disease - elderberry I would call... Despair for homeland! Long ago Exposed torment! To me It is completely all the same Where completely lonely to be, By which stones on the road home With the bazaar knapsack to drag Home, not knowing, that it's mine, Like hospital or a barrack. It's same to me, among which faces Like an imprisoned lion to bristle, And from among which people's midst To be forced out - without fail - Into oneself, into individual feelings. As polar bear without ice floe Where not to live - it's the same to me (And I don't dare) - where to go low. I won't be tempted by the milky Call of my own native tongue. It is the same to me on which To be not sensed by meeting ones. (To reader of newspaper tons, To gulper, milker of rumors.) He Is of the twentieth century, And I - without a century! Grown petrified just like a log Remaining only of an alley, They're all the same, it's all the same, And maybe most the same - to me - Dearer than everything that was. All marks from me, all signs that were, All dates - brushed off as if by hand: Soul, that had once been born - somewhere. Thus my land did not keep me there, That the detective most keen Along the soul, across it all! The birthmark has not sought or seen! Alien is home, temple - empty, And all's the same and one to me. But if along the road a bush Rises, especially - ashberry... The time did not think of a poet, And I don't care to think of him. God be with him, with noise and thunder, He did not come within my time! If time has not time for ancestors, I've no time for grandsons as well. My time's my bane, my time's my damage, My time's my foe, my time is hell. They cut Ashberry Keen. Ashberry - Is bitter Fortune. Ashberry - With gray-haired Descents+ Ashbery! Fortune Russian. 1 In the world bellowing: Glory to the coming! What whispers in me: Glory to the gone be! To you, passing, That won't counted be, Not bearing children, Preceding me. With brush, with key They argued, with deed Written - pure Was their life, with honor. White - than treasures Of snow more fair! - A novel - your Conscience's - hair. 2 Generation with lilac And on Easter in Kremlin, My hello to generation In the earth to the knee, And with gray spots - in stars! Than the reed louder, To you, speaking: "so-ul" Will tremble the air. Only having saved the soul From wealth of family Without brotherhood or equals To older contemporaries, Arms of faith and of friendship, Like Caucasian - an ewer Full of grape! - to the foe Stretching out - the two! Not with Siren - with lilac Locked in cave with a key, Generation - with soaring! With gravity From the earth, over earth, From the grain and the worm! Generation - without soil, But with such - to bottom, With seen bottom's abyss. That from orbits sunken Looks as if one alive Like a pleasant virgin. Generation, where he looked The best who suffered the most! Continuation of mirrors. Generation! I'm yours! Yours - in physique and essence, And respect for the mind, And contempt for the flesh's Dress dissolving with time! You - to the child doomed A poet to be, Having persuaded to honor All but ringing money: All gods - all times - all tribes Except the god Vaal! My immortal bow Generation with fall! To you, that with one unheard of Were able to - live, To you, that among noisy ball Were able to - love! Having turned to the stars Till the hour final - Departing race, Gratitudes to you all! Not a warrior of two camps, but - if occasional guest - Like a bone in throat - guest, like a nail in sole - guest. I was given a head - on it knocked two hammers: For some - profit and for others - meanness. You from this head - to creator's wonder My proletarian patience add - You from this head - what did you demand? - lechery! Wondering at the insistent answer: cut off the head. You from this head, leveled - like rows Of mountains, divine draft writ in heights, You from this head - what did you demand? - Row. Wondering at the answer (speechless): cut off the feet! You from this head, tuned - like a lyre: On the highest kind: lyrical... - No, stand! Two builders: Homebuilder and Dnieperbuilder - for choosing! Wondering at the insane answer: Lyres - build. And From this head, from the forehead of gray granite, You demanded: love us! Hate them all! Is it not the same for her, from which side it's beaten, To be muffled from which profile of the soul? There are times, there are times, when the heads are not needed. But to reduce the word to the beets used for feed - More honest with Orpheus' head - serenades! Herodias with John the Baptist's head! You're a tsar: live alone... (But tsars have concubines' Minute). God is one. He - in empty skies. Not a warrior of two camps: judge - prophet - hostage - Freedom fighter of two! Spirit - for freedom fights. The underground snake crawls, Crawls, carries people. And each - with his own Newspaper (with his own Eczema!) Newspaper Bone eater, chewing tick. Readers of newspapers, Chewers of mastics. Who's the reader? Old man? Athlete? Soldier? Not features, not years, Not faces. Skeleton - since no Face: sheet of newspaper! Which - entire Paris From navel to forehead wears! Enough, girl! You'll give birth to - Reader of newspaper. Rock - "lives with sister" - ing - "his father he killed!" - Rocking - of vanity Pumped themselves full. What do such men care If it is dusk or dawn? Swallowers of voids, Newspaper-reading ones! Read newspapers: slander, Read newspapers: waste. A column - calumny, A paragraph - disgust... With what on Terrible court In the light you'll appear! Seizers of minutes, you Readers of newspapers! He went! Vanished! Got lost! Old is the mother's fear. Mom! Guttenberg's press than Schwartz's dust is scarier. Better on churchyard Than in hospital of pus To cast scratchers of scabs, Readers of newspapers! Who is it that rots our sons In their prime of years? Mixers of blood, they are, Writers of newspapers! Here, friends, - and where Stronger than in these lines! What do I think, where With writing in my palms I stand before the face - There is no emptier space! That means - not with face Of editor of news - Paper filth. Baby walked along the road Shivering and turning blue An old woman walked that road She took pity on the orphan... 1 Icy tiara of mountains - Is a frame to sight transitory. On the castle's granite today I traced parting to ivy. I have chased today on all roads Towering figures of pines. I have taken a tulip today Like a child to the chin. 2 With surrounding of mountains I hug you, With the granite crown of rocks. (That you breathe easier and sleep tighter I am busying you with talk.) With the sides of a feudal castle, With the ivy hands of down - You know - in four hundred streams and rivers Is the ivy, hugging the stone? But I'm not woodbine - and not ivy! Even you, dearer than my hand, Are not flattened - and freely let out Onto every side of my mind! Round the flower-bed, round the well too, Where to gray-haired ones stone will come, With the round pledge of an orphan - With the loneliness my round! (Thus not one silver braid did weave Into my light-brown braids!) And with river, into two parting - Island to create - and embrace. With entire Savoy and Piedmont And - cracking the ridge a bit - I embrace you with blue horizon, With two arms I embrace you yet. 3 (CAVE) If I could - I would take you Into the womb of a cave: Into the cave of a dragon, Into the panther's grove. Into the panther's - paws - If I could - I would take, so. To bosom of nature, to bed of nature. If I could - my own skin of panther I'd take off... I would give in the grove - to study! In bushy, in firry, in streamy, in ivy - Where in darkness, in dusk, and in dreaming Branches weave for eternal weddings! Where in granite, in milk and in bast For centuries intertwine arms - Like branches - and rivers... Into cave without light, without trace into thicket. In leaves, in ivy, in ivy - like in coat... Not white light, not black bread: in dew In leaves, in leaves - like in relationship too... That did not knock on the door, That henceforth did not happen, That did not shout in window, That for century didn't end! But not enough - cave, And not enough - grove! If I could - I would take you Into the womb of a cave. If I could - I would take. 4 On the ice floe - Loved one, On the mine - Loved one, On the ice floe, in Guyana, in Gehennah - loved one. In the scab - desired one, From churchyard - desired one: Be a desired guest! Only teeth and bone - desired one! With the under-knees angst Till ruined darkness With the last seizure of smoke - pitied one. And there's no such hole, and there's no such abyss: Loved one! Wished one! Pitied one! Full of illness! 5 With rapid speech - with stream of water Beating: - Loved one! Sick one! Dear! With recitation - lingering blues: Weak! Half-alive! Paper! See-through! With lengthwise cut from stomach to pharynx: Loved one! Wished one! Pitied one! Full of illness! 6 Finally I've encountered One that I do need: Somebody possesses Deadly need of me. What to eye is rainbow, Ground to the grain, To man - is being needed By another man. I need more than rainbow, More than rain or hand, Need of this my hand By another man. This - wider than Ladoga Than mountain more true - Is need of my hand By another's wound. And for that with ulcer Palm had brought to me - This my hand - immediately In fire after thee! <7> In thoughts of another, otherwise, Like a treasure chest not found, Step by step, poppy by poppy - Garden's I cut off the head. Thus, sometime in a dry summer, On the very edge of field, Death my head will sever With an absent-minded hand. "It's time! I'm old for this fire!" "Older than me is love-desire!" "All fifty years has this hill!" "Love's older than that hill still: Old like a snake, old like a plant, Older than ambers of Livan, Older than all the ghostly boats, Older than seas, older than stones... But agony that's in the chest - In years, love's less, in years, love's less. "I dressed the table for the six" I still convey the word and still The first one verse I do repeat: "I dressed the table for the six"... But seventh one you did forget. It is not merry for us six. On faces are the streams of rain+ How could you over such a table Forget the seventh - seventh one+ It is not merry for the guests, Idle is pitcher of crystal, Sad are they all, sad are you too, But saddest is the one uncalled. It is not merry and not light. Ah! You don't drink and do not eat. How could you have forgotten this? How could you have erred in the count? How could you, dared, not understand, That six (two brothers, the third - You, with wife, father and mother) there Are seven - that I'm in this world? You dressed the table for the six, But with six the world did not die. More than the scarecrow midst the live I want to be a ghost - with (mine), Yours... Shy just like a thief, O - never touching but a soul! - Behind the silverware unmade I sit as seventh one, uncalled. At once! I overthrew the glass! An all that thirsted to be poured - All salt from eyes, all blood from wounds - From tablecloth - on the floorboards. And - there's no coffin! No - parting! Broken is spell, wakes up the home. Like death - onto the wedding feast, I'm - life, that to dinner have come. And I still scold, for nobody - Not brother, husband, son or friend: "You, dressed the table for six souls, Did not seat me upon the end."

Last-modified: Sat, 23 Mar 2002 07:43:42 GMT
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