Youre in no way like other women at all:
You have laughter controlled and expressive,
You wear dresses measured and fashionably long
And you slip out from my embraces.
You do not cut your hair to look upscale,
Deepen brows or wear make up,
You have Smirnoff, but also a nightingale
Who in nature becomes his replacement,
You are able to see in the sugar the salt,
And in just uttered word, a full sentence.
In Akhmatova you value pain without halt
And in Gumilev - charm and cadence.
For you, connoisseur of all kinds of verse,
Sharpness of Sologubov means something,
And that you and Blok never did kiss
You are grieving sixth summer and counting.
And in your eyes, as they are now getting well —
Ocean breeze and a rye field in season.
Youre in no way like other women at all,
And youve become my wife for that reason.
Ты совсем не похожа на женщин других:
У тебя в меру длинные платья,
У тебя выразительный, сдержанный стих
И выскальзыванье из объятья.
Ты не красишь лица, не сгущаешь бровей
И волос не стрижешь в жертву моде.
Для тебя есть Смирнов, но и есть соловей,
Кто его заменяет в природе.
Ты способна и в сахаре выискать «соль»,
Фразу — в только намекнутом слове...
Ты в Ахматовой ценишь бессменную боль,
Стилистический шарм в Гумилеве.
Для тебя, для гурманки стиха, острота
Сологубовского триолета,
И, что Блока не поцеловала в уста,
Ты шестое печалишься лето.
А в глазах оздоравливающих твоих —
Ветер с моря и поле ржаное.
Ты совсем не похожа на женщин других,
Потому мне и стала женою.
«Neither fragile Japanese shadows / Nor mellifluous Indian daughters / Sound as sorrowful / As the last supper orations. / On the verge of death all that has happened / Repeats itself quickly but differently. / And that is the basis / For the dance of death and its achievement.»
«Oh Asia! You are my torment. / I fancy thunderclouds like maiden's brows, / And lengthy gatherings at night / Like the bloom of tender shoulders. / Where is the prophet of a new day? / Oh, If only Asia would cover my knees / With the hair of blue rivers, / And whisper her cryptic pl...»
«While Achmatova's tears and songs / Were raining over Tsarskoe Selo, / I, unwinding the enchantress' ball of thread, / Dragged myself through the wilderness / Where impossibility was dying, / A tired actor / Striding forward. / Meanwhile the curly head / Of the subterranean bull wa...»
«If I turn humankind into a clock / And show how the century hand moves / Wouldn't war disappear from our age / Like an obsolete letter from the alphabet? / Our kind got itself piles / From the springy chairs of war, / But I tell you what I learned about the future / Through my preterh...»