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.
«Through villages and fields, he’d go, / Determined, asking passersby: / “Where has she gone, where is the glow / Of silver stars that are her eyes? The final days of spring are here, / They burn with dull and waning embers, / And in my dreams, her face appears / More often every nig...»
«The evening sky is gold and vast. / I’m soothed by April’s cool caress. / You’re late. Too many years have passed, — / I’m glad to see you, nonetheless. Come closer, sit here by my side, / Be gentle with me, treat me kind: / This old blue notebook — look inside — / I wrot...»
«I am lost in the sky — what to do? / He to whom it is near, reply! / It was easier to ring for you, / Dante's discuses nine. Not I can be sundered from life. / Its dream is: to kill, then to kiss. / And my ears, my eyes, my eyeholes / Overflow with Florentine grief. Then lay not upon...»
«I’m given a body — what to do with thee, / So much unique, so much belong to me? For the quiet happiness to breathe and live / My gratefulness — to whom it shall I give? I’m a gardener and I’m a flower as well, / I’m not alone in th’ earthly prison cell. And all my breath and ...»