My city is asleep now, but I don't care a bit.
I was its baby-sitter, I was its little kid.
Its soldier and its worker, too, I used to be.
It always had the feeling of striking love for me.
Its helping hand it stretched me in an estranging way
remembering my week-days, but not my holiday.
And if I am to perish, and if I cease to be,
as it wakes up next morning will it remember me?
Will it send charming women late in the afternoon
to pay me their tribute, cry over me and mourn?
And yet I love it fiercely, I love it more each day,
and out of my love I model gods some way.
I don't need anything now, and I have no regrets
for there's my guitar and a pack of cigarettes.
Мой город засыпает. А мне-то что с того?
Я был его ребенком, я нянькой был его,
я был его рабочим, его солдатом был...
Он слишком удивленно всегда меня любил.
Он слишком отчужденно мне руку подавал,
По будням меня помнил, а в праздник забывал.
И если я погибну, и если я умру,
Проснется ли мой город с печалью поутру?
Пошлет ли на кладбище перед заходом дня
Своих счастливых женщин оплакивать меня?..
...Но с каждым днем все чище, все злей его люблю
И из своей любови богов себе леплю.
Мне ничего не надо, и сожалений нет:
В руках моих гитара и пачка сигарет.
«We'll depart this world for ever, surely, / To repose in peace and quite. Oh, my Lord! / Maybe, I shall also have to duly / Pack my things preparing for the road. / / Oh, my birch-tree woods! Amazing pictures! / Oh, my dear land! My sandy plains! / In the face of crowds of mortal crea...»
«how many times encircled by / a motley crowd / in front of me / as in a dream cacophonies of dance / & music / speeches learned by heart / in phatic whispers mixing with shapes of people / absent a mind or soul / grimacing masks / yet so fastidious much as they touch / my cold...»
«The eyes beg helplessly and dearly / For mercy. Can I ease their pain / As someone is uttering near me / His short and resounding name? I cross the field along the trail, / Where silver timber logs are piled. / Down here, the gentle gusts prevail / As in the springtime, fresh and wild. ...»
«A perfectly ripened trill, / The cackling of crushed ice, / Night, frosting a leaf, / A duel between nightingales. A sweet pea-vine grown wild, / God's tears upon a peapod, / Figaro from flutes and conductors' stands / Crashing down like hail on a flower bed. The crucial discovery of n...»