June would be clammy, January crisp;
and concrete solid, sand unstable.
For there was order. Real order.
People got up and went to work.
And then they watched The Happy FeIlas
at cinemas. For there was order.
In pedigrees and in parades,
political police, and apparatus,
even in parodies — there was order.
People made fun, and were afraid,
only of those they were supposed to,
for there was order, real order.
An order of the bent and bashed.
In hours, in minutes, and in seconds,
in years as well, there was real order.
It would have gone on without end,
but then a certain person fell,
and all this order went to hell.
Июнь был зноен. Январь был зябок.
Бетон был прочен. Песок был зыбок.
Порядок был. Большой порядок.
С утра вставали на работу.
Потом «Веселые ребята»
в кино смотрели. Был порядок.
Он был в породах и парадах,
и в органах, и в аппаратах,
в пародиях — и то порядок.
Над кем не надо — не смеялись,
кого положено — боялись.
Порядок был — большой порядок.
Порядок поротых и гнутых,
в часах, секундах и минутах,
в годах — везде большой порядок.
Он длился б век и вечность длился,
но некий человек свалился,
и весь порядок — развалился.
«The cold wind from a lagoon. / The silent coffins of gondolas. / I, in that night — so ill, and young so — / Had stretched myself against a lion. There on tower, with a song irony, / The giants tolls in that night hour. / Mark sank in the lagoon, all moonlit, / Iconostas, patterned...»
«There fades the boom of life, quite teasing, / And back is the affairs' tide. / But wind through a black velvet's singing / About the future and somewhere's life. Where shall I wake? In other country? / Not in this gloomy land, isn't it? / And won't I be just abundant / To recollect thi...»
«All on the earth will die — and youth and mother, / Wife will betray you, leave once faithful friend, / But you learn to enjoy the bliss another — / Look in a mirror of the polar land. Get on your bark, sail to the distant Pole / In walls of ice — and bit by bit forget / How they l...»
«I’m sick, for sure: deep darkness holds my heart, / I’m bored with the people and the stories, / And dream of treasures of the kingdoms, glories, / And yataghans, all covered with blood. It seems to me – and this is no fraud – / A Tartar, squint, was one of my begetters, / That fi...»