Wrung-out insomnias,
Pooled wax at the base
Of a guttering candle,
The morning’s first sound
Of a hundred white bells.
Warm sills under Chernigov moons.
Bees and clover, darkness and dust,
Suffocating heat.
Владимиру Нарбуту
Это — выжимки безсонниц,
Это — свеч кривых нагар,
Это — сотен белых звонниц
Первый утренний удар…
Это — тёплый подоконник
Под черниговской луной,
Это — пчёлы, это — донник,
Это — пыль, и мрак, и зной.
«Longing, desires still ravage / my soul which strives to reach you. / In recollection's twilight / I try to catch your image. / I can't forget your face. / It is a lovely constellation, / timeless, in every place, / unreachable, not knowing fluctuation.»
«Not everyone can sing, / Not everyone can fall / Like an apple at a stranger's feet. This is the greatest confession, / That a hooligan can have. I go unkempt on purpose, / With my head, like a kerosene lamp, on my shoulders. / The leafless autumn, your souls in darkness — / I love t...»
«I have not heard the tales of Ossian, / I have not tasted age-old wine — / why then do I seem to see a field / and Scotland's murderous moon? And in the sinister silence I seem to hear / the roll-call of the raven and the harp, / and, streaming in the wind, the scarves of men-at-arms / ...»
«For joy’s sake, from my hands, / take some honey and some sun, / as Persephone’s bees told us. Not to be freed, the unmoored boat. / Not to be heard, fur-booted shadows. / Not to be silenced, life’s dark terrors. Now we only have kisses, / dry and bristling like bees, / that die ...»