Thirty years now Russia’s lived in fetters,
in Magadan, in Kolyma —
but the Russia that will live for ever
is the one now dying in Kolyma.
Россия тридцать лет живёт в тюрьме.
На Соловках или на Колыме.
И лишь на Колыме и Соловках
Россия та, что будет жить в веках.
Всё остальное — планетарный ад:
Прокля́тый Кремль, злощастный Сталинград.
Они достойны только одного —
Огня, испепелящего его.
«The Landowner glares like a ferocious watchdog / The Kulak [rich peasant] snorts through his bulbous nose / The habitual drunk boozes his woes away / The [village] priest frantically whoops and and wails. / / The corrupt journalist spits and hisses / The capitalist sharpens his tusks / ...»
«It’ll sneak up on me, so quiet — / Like the forest during the night. / I’ll bring you the dove, — I’ll hide it / In my apron and bring it inside. I’ll stand in your doorway — inert! / Shame — like the weight of a stone. / But the apron’s too tight for a bird, / And ...»
«I wrote in school, with chalk upon the slate, / On leaves of fans whose color had been lost, / On windows with my ring, on ice with skates / On riverbanks and seashore’s sandy coasts, On century-old tree trunks, worn, and rough, / And finally, — just to erase all doubts — / That you...»
«I don’t know, I can’t explain... / Do I love or do I die? / Is it a dream or is it Verlaine? / Is it spell or a prison cell? Either the torment of the ideal / Or the beauty’s torment / Is spilled in the whole world / From a broken goblet. The dream might be wrong as well / Whe...»