Those poems that I wrote and forgot
and burnt before I could forget them —
there are not enough hammers and chisels
to knock them down and beat them down.
Those poems that I shouted out on the radio
and published in the newspaper:
better for me to have silenced them, so to speak —
I forged not steel but paper.
No matter! I'm still walking and breathing.
I'll still write something more revealing.
Те стихи, что я написал и забыл
И сжег перед тем, как забыть —
Не хватило б резцов, недостало б зубил,
Чтобы их сковырнуть или сбить.
Те стихи, что по радио я прокричал
И в газете опубликовал —
Лучше я бы их, так сказать, промолчал,
Я не сталь, а бумагу ковал.
Ничего! Я покуда хожу и дышу.
Я еще настоящее напишу.
«You loose your darling only once, / And never find his trace on planet. / And he was so close before, / But, he had left, and darkness settles. And even if he left at day, / This does not matter any longer. / Let’s get him back, before too late, / Before he reached his final road. Y...»
«Unto loss of yours or gain, / Simple is the truth: / Never go down memory lane / To the days of youth. Although past ruins may seem fine / To your careful eye, / What we seek we won’t divine, / Neither you, nor I. I’d prohibit in the end / Trips to times of yore, / And I ask yo...»
«He sleeps not, drowses not. / The Koran In the placid ancient city of Skutari, / As evening wends its way into the night, / From minarets that loom o’er Dede Efendi, / Resounds the pensive music of Temdzhid. At witching time midway twixt gloaming hour / And morning’s dawn the dervish...»
«An even, hazy hum runs through the glade, / The rustling leaves to laze and drowse incline . . . / The roosters faraway in sun-specked shade, / Their vernal tidings sing, in crows benign. A quiet, hazy hum runs through the glade . . . / To succor me and send my soul repose, / I lie midst ...»