The dull sounds of gas flares
Above the dead brightness of heads,
The tedium’s black contagion
From deserted tables,
And there, among the sallow-faced,
Harbouring the anguish of the habit,
Trying to solve on the discoloured pages
The odious puzzle of being.
Тупые звуки вспышек газа
Над мёртвой яркостью голов,
И скуки чёрная зараза
От покидаемых столов,
И там, среди зеленолицых,
Тоску привычки затая,
Решать на выцветших страницах
Постылый ребус бытия.
«Do I need excuses / For divine mismatching? — / Poetry and music / Aren't cure-all magic. And why hum insanely / Tunes and verses hopeless? / Having nothing saintly / Feels more fun and homeless. And our gain is pretty / Minuscule and fleeting — / Only heartfelt pity, / So th...»
«T. O.-T. My evening, silver-feathered, / All-consecrating light! / As if no longer present, / I turn to you my sight – With gratefulness: for every / Revitalizing breath, / That in my final craving / You granted to my breast, For every elevation / Of your becalming hand, / For a...»
«Our rendezvous, their each and every moment, / we celebrated as a holy omen, / Epiphany for just the two of us. / As daring as a wing, more light than dust, / you, down the stairway, like a dizzy torrent / ran skipping treads, and navigated past / the veil of lilac to the territory / u...»
«You were sleeping, today, while I was looking about us / into the shadows, a horseman in patrol. / It was then I understood exactly how late it was: / how death is waiting on stage, and how everything passes, / and though it looks innocent to scribble these lines / poetry is no longer priv...»