When you’re drunk, you’re so much fun —
Your rambling tales make no sense.
The early fall arrived and hung
Bright yellow flags upon the elms.
In the land of fraud and guile,
We have strayed, and now, repent,
But, what are these fictitious smiles,
On our lips, so strangely bent?
Not happiness or peace of mind,
A biting torment — we pursued…
I will not leave my friend behind, —
So tender and so dissolute.
Мне с тобою пьяным весело —
Смысла нет в твоих рассказах.
Осень ранняя развесила
Флаги жёлтые на вязах.
Оба мы в страну обманную
Забрели и горько каемся,
Но зачем улыбкой странною
И застывшей улыбаемся?
Мы хотели муки жалящей
Вместо счастья безмятежного…
Не покину я товарища
И беспутного и нежного.
«I had a bird in my hand / but my bird has flown. / I held a bird in my hand / but am now all alone. My small bird has left me / full of anger and rage; / my blue bird has left me / alone in a cage.»
«When the streets empty out / and the singing dies down / and a white fog covers / the swamps and the town, / from the forests in silence / one after another / the wolves come out and go hunting. Seven wolves walk on bravely; / in front of them walks / an eighth with white fur; / w...»
«One mirror must mirror another; / each mirror mismirrors the other. Not that evil cannot be defeated, / only that we cannot escape defeat; I believe in the ash left behind by the fire; / not in the music that burned my life.»
«Where can I hide in this January? / Wide-open city with a mad death-grip... / Can I be drunk from sealed doors? — / I want to bellow from locks and knots... And the socks of barking back roads, / and the hovels on twisted streets — / and deadbeats hurry into corners / and hurriedly ...»