And it seemed to me those fires
Were about me till dawn.
And I never learnt —
The colour of those eyes.
Everything was trembling, singing;
Were you my friend or enemy,
And winter was it, or summer?
...И мне показалось, что это огни
Со мною летят до рассвета,
И я не дозналась — какого они,
Глаза эти странные, цвета.
И все трепетало и пело вокруг,
И я не узнала — ты враг или друг,
Зима это или лето.
«I call you to try with a sword / To touch the shirt. / It’s away. / Say with the sword: the King is naked. / What we’ve done with fuzz of breath / I call you to do with iron.»
«To snow you / With silver of powder. / To give you a big broom, / The right to chase winter — / To give you.»
«The Neva-river knows many Last Supper eyes. / Yesterday here the blood of saviors housled / With the body of north, paving-stone. / Here’s caroled the love of pages ablaze. / It’s with ash of the love that the evening’s so black / Both of workmen and pale librarians. / Stream is fl...»
«Lice stupidly prayed godding me, / Every morning they crawled through my clothes, / Every morning I killed them, — / Listen to their cracks, — / But they came again like quietly confident surf. The white godlike marrow of mine / I gave, Russia, you: / Be Khlebnikov, be my mind. / ...»