A Psalter of Tsar' Aleksii,
Its pages — scarves, funeral groats,
Restless Russia
Wanders, wheezing, through decrees.
The peasant jacket is torn,
The disgraced headscarf flaps .
Now a bench by' the door would be good,
And tales about Constantinople,
Honey buns on the table,
The bells of Dormition across the fence...
Oh, to hide from the rumors
Of the indefatigability of iron.
To take a nap, as before, on the stove bench...
Except that gunpowder and smoke are in the wind...
Is it foreign devils that the quietest
Tsar Is washing off in the bathhouse?
Aren't they binning Avvakum
To the cawing of countless crows?..
From Bukhara to the Lapp tents
Calico May is flaming.
Under apple blossom, the jacket and
The lenten Psalter are swept away...
Behind the Soviet summer of posters
Flower roses and ginger.
In the luminescence of astral sowing,
Like an ear of grain to its furrows,
Eve gleams in her nakedness
Smiling at other worlds.
Псалтырь царя Алексия,
В страницах убрусы, кутья,
Неприкаянная Россия
По уставам бродит кряхтя
Изодрана душегрейка
Опальный треплется плат…
Теперь бы в сенцах скамейки,
Рассказы про Китяж-град.
На столе медовые пышки,
За тыном успенский звон
Зачураться бы от наслышки
Про железный неугомон
Как в былом заснуть на лежанке…
Только в ветре порох и гарь…
Не заморскую ль нечисть в баньке
Отмывает тишайший царь?
Не сжигают ли Аввакума
Под вороний несметный грай?…
...
От Бухар до лопского чума
Полыхает кумачный май.
Заметает яблонным цветом
Душегрейку, постный Псалтырь…
За плакатным советским летом
Расцветают розы, имбирь.
В лечезарье звездного сева,
Как чреватый колос браздам,
Наготою сияет Ева,
Улыбаясь юным мирам.
«Three apples — sagas' favorite selection, / Three symbols of rebellion on the earth, / In endless gardens of imagination, / They burn and shudder in illusions' breath. Oh, you, an apple — the first peoples' lure, / You took the Eden's light of those two, / You sent on heads of people...»
«You have to be high as a banner, / You have to be sharp as a sword; / Your face, like the Dante's one, forever / By flames of the Hell must be burnt. A cold observer of actions — / See all — in the white and the black. / And let be your highest perfection — / Intention to stride ...»
«Oh, my pale youth with your look full of fire, / Now, I give you my three sacred gnomes: / First, do not live in the everyday mire, / Just in the future, bards build their domes. Second, don't give to the people your fervor, / But fell in love with yourself, and — in whole, / Third, wor...»
«When curtains of house fall down, / And the lamps' mitigating light / Makes peaceful all shadows around, / I hear the song of delight. I needn't the astonishing glow, / The beauty and great of the sky. / A curtain, fall down, fall low! / The world, go out and fly! I have here my books ...»