The cult of personality is stained,
But after forty years, the cult
Of gray monotony and disdain
Persists like in the days of old
Each coming day appears lackluster,
Until it’s truly hard to bear,
It brings but photographic clusters
Of pig-like and inhuman stares.
The cult of narrow-minded thinking
Is likewise cherished and extolled,
And people shoot themselves, while drinking,
Unable to sustain it all.
Культ личности забрызган грязью,
Но на сороковом году
Культ зла и культ однообразья
Еще по-прежнему в ходу.
И каждый день приносит тупо,
Так что и вправду невтерпеж,
Фотографические группы
Одних свиноподобных рож.
И культ здоровья и мещанства
Еще по-прежнему в чести,
Так что стреляются от пьянства,
Не в силах этого снести.
«Hoofs plod / seeming to sing, / Grab. / Rib. / Grub. / Rob. / Ice-shod, / wind a-swing, / the street skidded. / On the roadway a cob / toppled, / and immediately, / loafer after loafer, / sweeping the Kuznetsky / with trousers bell-bottomous, / came mobbing. / Laughte...»
«at Pushkino, Akulov Hill, / Rumyantsev s dacha, / 27 versts from Moscow / by Yaroslavl railway. The sunset blazed like sixty suns. / July was under way. / The heat was dense, / the heat was tense, / upon that summer’s day. / The slope near Pushkino swelled up / into Akulov Hill,...»
«This is to you, / well-fed baritones, / from Adam / to the present day / shaking the dives called theatres with the groans / of Romeo and Juliet or some such child’s play. To you, / maitres painters / fattening like ponies, / guzzling and guffawing salt of the earth, / secluded ...»
«Spanish stone / rose in cliff and wall / dazzling white, / jagged as saw-teeth. / Till twelve / the steamer / stood swallowing coal / and...»