Why am I too amicable with others
Feeling that of all he is the farthest?
Why can’t I though shunning him elsewhere
Still not run him into, here and there?
Why on seeing him do I get angry,
At all exasperated, all and sundry?
Why when I am left with him in private
Do I scoff at him offended by it?
Afterwards the night through I'll be crying.
Who can tell the answer, who is prying?
Отчего со всеми я любезна,
Только с ним нас разделяет бездна?
Отчего с ним, хоть его бегу я,
Не встречаться всюду не могу я?
Отчего, когда его увижу,
Словно весь я свет возненавижу?
Отчего, как с ним должна остаться,
Так и рвусь над ним же издеваться?
Отчего — кто разрешит задачу? —
До зари потом всю ночь проплачу?
«To every infant love is given, — / but between work, / profits / and other stuff, / from evening to evening, / the crust of the heart grows rough. / The heart wears a body, / that body — a shirt. / and that's not all, they're obsessed! / an idiot! — / inventing cuff-links,...»
«As a kid, I was gifted with lots of love. / From childhood on, / folks / are overcome by chores. / I — / ran away once I had enough, / and procrastinated, / walking along the Rion shores. / My mom got angry: / “What a wicked child!” / My dad said his belt would teach me som...»
«In adolescence, major decisions are made. / Any fool is taught grammar and reason. / But I / was kicked out of my school in 5th grade / and thrown in and out of the Moscow prisons. / Your / apartment-sized world / is one of the littlest. / There, you breed many curly-haired lyricists...»
«You know French. / You divide / and multiply even better. / Derive easily. / Well, keep deriving, you hear me? / Tell me this — / can you sing with the buildings / together? / Do you know the language streetcars are speaking? / The human fledgling / from the egg first rises —...»