Here among you: your lodgings, your lucre, your smoke,
Your ladies, your Legislatures,
Having not got used to you, having not been blunted by you
Like a certain —
Schumann scudding along with spring on the sly:
From above! and beyond!
Like a nightingale’s suspended tremolo —
A certain one — is chosen.
The most timorous one, and having stretched him on the rack —
You lick his feet!
Having lost his way among your hernias and love-handles
God is left to wander among your lechers.
Superfluous! Embroidered! Walk-out! Upstart! Uppity
And not grown out of it . . . Unwilling to submit
To the gallows... Among your riot of currencies and visas
An exile from Vega — from a distant star.
Здесь, меж вами: домами, деньгами, дымами
Дамами, Думами,
Не слюбившись с вами, не сбившись с вами,
Неким —
Шуманом пронося под полой весну:
Выше! и́з виду!
Соловьиным тремоло на весу —
Некий — избранный.
Боязливейший, ибо взяв на дыб —
Ноги лижете!
Заблудившийся между грыж и глыб
Бог в блудилище.
Лишний! Вышний! Выходец! Вызов! Ввысь
Не отвыкший… Виселиц
Не принявший… В рвани валют и виз
Беги — выходец.
«The sailors near the port / shouted in chorus, demanding wine, / and over Stambul and over the Bosphorus / the full moon shone. Tonight they will hurl an unfaithful wife / to the bottom of the bay, / a wife who was too beautiful / and looked like the moon. She loved her daydreams, / ...»
«Describing circle after circle, / The wheeling kite looks down upon / A dream-like, empty meadow. A mother / Grieves in the cabin for her son: / “Here, suck this breast, here, take this bread. / Grow up, be humble, trust in God.” The ages pass, endless war rages, / Revolt flares, vi...»
«Over the empty fields a black kite hovers, / And circle after circle smoothly weaves. / In the poor hut, over her son in the cradle / A mother grieves: / “There, suck my brest: there grow and take our bread, / And learn to bear your cross and bow your head.” Time passes. War returns. ...»
«1. Black night. / White snow. / The wind, the wind! / Impossible to stay on your feet. / The wind, the wind! / Blowing across God’s world! The wind swirls round / The clean, white snow. / Under the snow — there’s ice. / It’s sl...»