Where can I hide in this January?
Wide-open city with a mad death-grip...
Can I be drunk from sealed doors? —
I want to bellow from locks and knots...
And the socks of barking back roads,
and the hovels on twisted streets —
and deadbeats hurry into corners
and hurriedly dart back out again...
And into the pit, into the warty dark
I slide, into waterworks of ice,
and I stumble, I eat dead air,
and fevered crows exploding everywhere —
But I cry after them, shouting at
some wickerwork of frozen wood:
A reader! A councillor! A doctor!
A conversation on the spiny stair!
Куда мне деться в этом январе?
Открытый город сумасбродно цепок...
От замкнутых я, что ли, пьян дверей? —
И хочется мычать от всех замков и скрепок.
И переулков лающих чулки,
И улиц перекошенных чуланы —
И прячутся поспешно в уголки
И выбегают из углов угланы...
И в яму, в бородавчатую темь
Скольжу к обледенелой водокачке
И, спотыкаясь, мертвый воздух ем,
И разлетаются грачи в горячке —
А я за ними ахаю, крича
В какой-то мерзлый деревянный короб:
— Читателя! советчика! врача!
На лестнице колючей разговора б!
«We’re all boozers and floozies here, / altogether a joyless crowd! / On the walls, the flowers and birds / yearn for clouds. You sit puffing your black pipe; / smoke is rising; strange and dim. / This tight skirt makes me look / slimmer than slim. The windows boarded up for good — ...»
«We had thought we were beggars, / with nothing at all, / but as loss followed loss / and each day / became a day of memorial, / we began to make songs / about the Lord’s generosity / and our bygone wealth.»
«Choke all week in the fumes and air stinking / of fear, for the bare means of life; / spend the Saturday dozing and drinking, / with your arm round an unlovely wife. Then on Sunday by train for an outing, / with a rug to spread out on the grass, / just to doze off again, never doubting, /...»
«The stars glow blue. The trees are swaying. / A routine evening. Routine winter, too. / All is forgiven. Nothing’s forgiven. / Music and gloom. We are all heroes, we are all traitors; / all words are worthless, each and every one. / My dear contemporaries — / having fun?»