In these days of unheard-of suffering
One is lucky indeed to have no heart:
Crack-shots plug me again and again,
But have no luck.
Riddled with holes, I laugh
At the furious pack: “Tally-ho, boys!
I am a lattice. Look through me.
Isn’t the landscape lovely?”
But suppose a gun should locate,
Tied by an aching thread,
Beating a hair’s breadth off target,
My Achilles heart.
Beware, my darling. Hush. Not a sound,
While I charge noisily
From place to place around Russia,
As a bird diverts the hunters from its nest.
Are you still in pain? Do you act up at night?
This defenseless extra is what saves me.
Do not handle it roughly;
The shudder would bring me down.
Our destruction is unthinkable,
More unthinkable what we endure,
More unthinkable still that a sniper
Should ever sever the quivering thread.
В дни неслыханно болевые
быть без сердца — мечта.
Чемпионы лупили навылет —
ни черта!
Продырявленный, точно решёта,
утешаю ажиотаж:
"Поглазейте в меня, как в решетку, —
так шикарен пейзаж!"
Но неужто узнает ружье,
где,
привязано нитью болезненной,
бьешься ты в миллиметре от лезвия,
ахиллесово
сердце
мое!?
Осторожнее, милая, тише...
Нашумело меняя места,
Я ношусь по России —
как птица
отвлекает огонь от гнезда.
Все болишь? Ночами пошаливаешь?
Ну и плюс!
Не касайтесь рукою шершавою —
я от судороги — валюсь.
Невозможно расправиться с нами.
Невозможнее — выносить.
Но еще невозможней —
вдруг снайпер
срежет
нить!
«Oh peaceful hours of precious solitude! / Epiphanies I treasure like prized grain — / Which sprouts from my soul’s dark terrain / From inspiration’s seed to charmed and verdant fruit. Souls' torments in the days gone by / And wine — set heart aflame; / While now sole remains / ...»
«He hung without swaying / Thin belt on branch's bend. / His hat — a black remainder / Marred freshly combed sand. / Left palm, pierced by the nails, / Of still, yet stiffened hand. The sun ascended slowly / For noon its horses set, / He faced the morning Helios / In somber tet-a-...»
«Blizzard wails past my window, / Covers my porch with mounds of snow. / Diddle time away, cast shadows — / From the wedding ring I wore. My old cat makes new discovery — / Chairs don’t purr. So he is still. / Blind blizzard in old livery — / Icy staff raps like a bill. Winter n...»
«Light clear drops by Time are beaded: / Hour past hour, day by day. Has my child by you been seeded? / Dug for you — this early grave? To our outcries — Time is silent! / Raise my hands to steely sky, — Pattern's end, last stitch, it's final. / Punctured canvas. Vacant sigh.»