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.
«Secret world, old world of mine, / Windlike, you crouch expectant and still. / Look, the stone arms of the highway / Squeeze the village's neck - to kill. Hither, thither the powers of terror / Over the snowbound country race. / Hello, you there, my black destroyer, / I go to meet you f...»
«My dear, one and only land! / Autumn rain from а tin sky drips. / In а puddle а shivering lamp / Reflects а head with no lips. Better don't look! Or something worse / May е, take me by surprise come / So all this rust-coloured murk / I view through screwed-up eyes. It's warmer tha...»
«The lives of us all are moulded / At birth — such is my belief. / I well might, if not а poet, / Have been а rogue or а thief. А thin little boy, but ever / А hero in the eyes of those / Young playmates of mine, I' d often / Come home with а bleeding nose. In а thick voice I'd...»
«Self-deception is not in my nature, / On my heart there weighs а thought appalling: / How come I have earned the reputation / Of а charlatan, а tavern-brawler? I’m no thug, I've not stopped folk and stripped them, / Shot wretches in jail or other places. / I’m а rake, the kind you...»