Night does not melt. Night is like
Stone, only ice melts, weeping,
And a flame spreads through one’s
Body on its fantastic flight.
But the ice-pack on one’s head
Mutters in vain while melting:
In reckoning, it does not remember
That there are only two pillows.
And that one must lie down in
The charcoal-fumy blue fog of
The pyre if the lantern’s ray on
The axe’s glancing is disgusting...
But until the dawn the heart is flooded
With comforting drowsiness; it will
Forgive them everything... if this
Is only This, and not That.
Ночь не тает. Ночь как камень.
Плача тает только лед,
И струит по телу пламень
Свой причудливый полет.
Но лопочут, даром тая,
Ледышки́ на голове:
Не запомнить им, считая,
Что подушек только две
И что надо лечь в угарный,
В голубой туман костра,
Если тошен луч фонарный
На скользоте топора.
Но отрадной до рассвета
Сердце дремой залито,
Все простит им… если это
Только Это, а не То.
«No more Europe, no more America. / The end of Tsarskoye, of Moscow, too. / A fit of nuclear hysteria – / life atomized into a radiant blue. Transparent, all-forgiving haze will stretch / over the seas. And he who could have done / something yet chose not to, will be left / in the expa...»
«You took me – / I was sullen, without affection, / with only black thoughts / and convict ravings / and a widow’s unhealed anguish / and a past love that wasn’t past / You took me as a wife – / not for joy’s sake, / not of your own accord / but out of love.»
«Moscow, who are you? / Enchantress or enchanted? / Forger of freedom / or fettered lady? / What thought furrows your brow / as you plot your worldwide plot? / Are you a shining window / into another age? / O Moscow, are you femme fatale / or fetter-fated, / fated or fêted? / D...»
«Moscow, who are you? / Are you charming or charmed? / Are you forging freedom / Or chained? / What thought knits your brow? / With the world of conspire. / Perhaps you’re a window, giving light / Into another time, / Or an expert cat you’re: / Do sciences order to crucify, / ...»