Andrei Voznesensky
The last suburban train

Boys carrying knives and girls with false teeth...
Two women conductors like drowsy sphinxes...

In sleeping car the workers
Are in the grip of sleep,
And in crowded entry
The drunk guitar strings weep...

I'm in this crowded entry,
Heat giving me the hump, .
Guitars and thieves are buzzing
Like in a gipsy camp.

Well, somehow it so happened
That I began to read
My rhymes amid big shadows,
Butts, husk and rests of feed.

They have their own crafts , and
I read my rhymes for them
About a girl got frozen
To icy windows then.

They sued time out of number
And spit on firing squad
They would avoid all troubles,
Escape, no matter what...

Like hell they need the girlie
And rhymes of my array!
The girl with bang of hair
And powdered face? No way.

The features of a drunkard,
Her blouse- what a choice!
The whole of dactylography
Of Malakhovka boys...

Well, why you're shedding tears
In such a lighted, mode?
And tell me, why you whisper
Obscenely cleanest word?..

You suddenly get out,
Driving all insane
you're purer than Beatrice
As you get off the train.

Translated by Alec Vagapov