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.
«Over fish, under stars, / the little boat races — / three Greeks are aboard, / smuggling goods to Odessa. / Jibing and tacking, / skipping over the waters, / are Yanaki, Stavraki, / and Papa Satyros. / The wind — how it whoops! / How it whistles right past — / sets the nail...»
«And Pushkin crumples into blueish brittle / Snow’s blanket. And he knows this is the end… / The cruel bullet’s sting is true and it’ll / Take poet’s lifeblood with its flighted trend. / The bloodied shirt… The fur cape now abandoned. / The sledge’s runners’ rattles seem to ...»
«He lifeless fell. And by my hand / A savage courage it was leading. / A needle’s useless – understand – / To staunch a swordsman’s wounded bleeding. / My debt’s repaid. No wonder now / I find my conscience reminisces / About the purest love and how / For blood blood’s paid ...»
«I find a sweet fatigue in silence and in dreams, / In languidness of sloth and din of artless chanting, / I find the roostered fringe of towel’s white enchanting – / And all the stern-faced icons’ ancient sooty streams. / Beneath the flyblown fetid rustle turns each day, / Imbued wit...»