With this inhuman fate
How can one argue? How can one fight?
This is mirage, illusion.
Still this blue evening yet
Is my domain, possession.
And the sky is red between the trees
While it is pearly on the sides…
In lilacs the nightingale still whistles.
The ant crawls in grass between the thistles –
And someone needs it otherwise.
Someone might even think it’s fair
That I can still breathe in this air
That my old-fashioned coat
Is soaked in sunset on the right
And drowned in stars on the left side.
С бесчеловечною судьбой
Какой же спор? Какой же бой?
Все это наважденье.
…Но этот вечер голубой
Еще мое владенье.
И небо. Красно меж ветвей,
А по краям жемчужно…
Свистит в сирени соловей,
Ползет по травке муравей —
Кому-то это нужно.
Пожалуй, нужно даже то,
Что я вдыхаю воздух,
Что старое мое пальто
Закатом слева залито,
А справа тонет в звездах.
«Literal Translation The Wind Running full tilt, skipping along, past the covered / Passageways of the marketplace, limping on the fly, / By way of the wall, the boulevard, the ripped-up newspaper, / The one not read all the way through, not all the way unfolded, / The one born yesterday—...»
«Literal Translation Silence and dreams, and a languid boredom / Have left me sweetly enervated, / I’m fond of the roosters on white dishtowels / And of ancient soot on austere icons. Day after day goes by to the hot rustle of flies, / Each day replete with the most pious humility, / A ...»
«Literal Translation The Watermelon The gale is straining its guts; our old tub / Heads out into the risky business of the Sea of Azov. / Watermelons piled on top of each other, and the hold is overloaded, / And the wharf is covered with melons. In the pre-dawn chill we don’t get our first...»
«Everything’s plundered, betrayed, in ruin’s jaws, / The black wing of death flicks and gleams; / A hungry sick anguish at bowels and guts gnaws, / And yet here we are dreaming our dreams? By daylight the woods near the outskirts of town / Breathe out an astringent and cherry-laced smell...»