You may live uncleanly and absurdly:
Bullies’ giggles, rattles in the dust,
Open is your street, and foul overtly:
Laughter of a prostitute, like rust.
Dirty girlfriends, swarming, crazy psychos,
Anger, vice, deep poverty, and filth,
How can there appear in such a cycle
Dreams and inspirations to fulfill?
Still, they’ll come! They always keep arriving!
People’s life conjures creative ways.
Just above the blurry foam, alive now,
Worldwide beauty, built upon its waves.
Ты живёшь безумно и погано,
Улица, доступная для всех, —
Грохот пыльный, хохот хулигана,
Пьяной проститутки ржавый смех.
Копошатся мерзкие подруги, —
Злоба, грязь, порочность, нищета.
Как возникнуть может в этом круге
Вдохновенно-светлая мечта?
Но возникнет! Вечно возникает!
Жизнь народа творчества полна,
И над мутной пеной воздвигает
Красоту всемирную волна.
«a Sonnet Forehead – / Chalk. / Coffin / Pale. Priest / Sang. / Shaft / Bang! Day / Sacred! / Crypt / Blind. / / Shade – / To hell!»
«In me is the beginning, in me the end. / What’s been accomplished by me a blink! / Yet still I am a reliable chain link: / This happiness to me has been given. In the new but greater Russia they will / erect to me a Janus-faced idol at / the broad cross-roads of two city streets / whe...»
«Walked up — / businesslike, / behind my roar, / behind my height, / took one look, / and saw I was just a boy. / Without a second thought, / you took my heart away / and simply / went off to play — / like a girl with a ball. / And every one — / as if witnessing a miracl...»
«Let us praise, brothers, freedom’s twilight, / The great diminishing year! / A heavy forest of nets is lowered / Into the turbulent waters of night. You are ascending in desolate years, / Oh sun, judge, people. / Let us praise the fateful burden / Which, in tears, the people’s leade...»