Wiping tears of hurt and childish sorrow,
Cotton dress you took—your best attire —
Always somepne straight from out a story,
To a world of fables you retired.
Ever since, by dreams I’ve been bedevilled
That you’d left your fable-land domain,
That I had been married to a bluebird
Who once set the ocean-blue aflame.
Вытерла заплаканное личико,
Ситцевое платьице взяла,
Вышла — и, как птичка-невеличка,
В басенку, как в башенку, пошла.
И теперь мне постоянно снится,
Будто ты из басенки ушла,
Будто я женат был на синице,
Что когда-то море подожгла.
«a Sonnet Forehead – / Chalk. / Coffin / Pale. Priest / Sang. / Shaft / Bang! Day / Sacred! / Crypt / Blind. / / Shade – / To hell!»
«In me is the beginning, in me the end. / What’s been accomplished by me a blink! / Yet still I am a reliable chain link: / This happiness to me has been given. In the new but greater Russia they will / erect to me a Janus-faced idol at / the broad cross-roads of two city streets / whe...»
«Walked up — / businesslike, / behind my roar, / behind my height, / took one look, / and saw I was just a boy. / Without a second thought, / you took my heart away / and simply / went off to play — / like a girl with a ball. / And every one — / as if witnessing a miracl...»
«Let us praise, brothers, freedom’s twilight, / The great diminishing year! / A heavy forest of nets is lowered / Into the turbulent waters of night. You are ascending in desolate years, / Oh sun, judge, people. / Let us praise the fateful burden / Which, in tears, the people’s leade...»