Either soldiers drove into the ground a stake,
Either they covered a face with a red rag,
Either deaf and dumb from punches is the Divine,
Either on Easter they were banned from Kremlin —
Old revelers should sit at the linen,
Birds should crawl, fish should sing, women — reason,
Horse on a horseman should ride out wild,
Wine should be given a newborn child,
Corpses carried out the window, rivers — burn,
In the midnight must arise the red sun,
The groom should forget the betrothed's name...
Ladies should love peasant men.
Коли в землю солдаты всадили — штык,
Коли красною тряпкой затмили — Лик,
Коли Бог под ударами — глух и нем,
Коль на Пасху народ не пустили в Кремль —
Надо бражникам старым засесть за холст,
Рыбам — петь, бабам — умствовать, птицам — ползть,
Конь на всаднике должен скакать верхом,
Новорожденных надо поить вином,
Реки — жечь, мертвецов выносить — в окно,
Солнце красное в полночь всходить должно,
Имя суженой должен забыть жених…
Государыням нужно любить — простых.
«A lilac heat sickened the meadow; / high in the wood, a cathedral’s sharp, nicked groins. / No skeleton obstructed the bodies — / all was ours, obsequious wax in our fingers... Such, the dream: you do not sleep, / you only dream you thirst for sleep, / that someone elsewhere thirsts f...»
«Every Sunday they left a circus of dust behind them, / as they poured out on the turnpike in stately, overcrowded carriages, / and the showers found nobody at home, / and trampled through the bedroom windows. It was a custom at these staid Sunday dinners / to serve courses of rain instead o...»
«It seems I am choosing words that will stand, / and you are in them, / but if I blunder, it doesn’t matter — / I must persist in my errors. I hear the soiled, dripping small talk of the roofs; / the students’ black boots drum eclogues on the boardwalks, / the undefined city takes on...»
«Beneath a willow entwined with ivy, / we look for shelter from the bad weather; / one raincoat covers both our shoulders — / my fingers rustle like the wild vine around your breasts. I am wrong. The rain’s stopped. / Not ivy, but the hair of Dionysus / hangs from these willows. What a...»