And truly, one cannot predict
Who in the world will be one’s reader:
A ball can’t know what it will hit
Once it’s shot into the distance.
Well, then, my life-creating verse,
Whom I breathe and in whom I live,
Fly off into darkness, into the void,
Or simply, into the secret drawer!
Our path was blocked at midpoint by
A cruel century. But we’re not complaining, –
Let it be! And yet, and in the main, it’s
A splendid thing, this century!
Perhaps it has no use for verse,
Or for names and patronymics,
Or for separate lonelinesses, –
Still, it kneads the mash of centuries!
И вправду, угадать хитро,
Кто твой читатель в мире целом:
Ведь пущенное в даль ядро
Не знает своего прицела.
Ну что же, — в темень, в пустоту.
— А проще: в стол, в заветный ящик —
Лети, мой стих животворящий,
Кем я дышу и в ком расту!
На полпути нам путь пресек
Жестокий век. Но мы не ропщем, —
Пусть так! А все-таки, а в общем
Прекрасен этот страшный век!
И пусть ему не до стихов,
И пусть не до имен и отчеств,
Не до отдельных одиночеств, —
Он месит месиво веков!
«To snow you / With silver of powder. / To give you a big broom, / The right to chase winter — / To give you.»
«The Neva-river knows many Last Supper eyes. / Yesterday here the blood of saviors housled / With the body of north, paving-stone. / Here’s caroled the love of pages ablaze. / It’s with ash of the love that the evening’s so black / Both of workmen and pale librarians. / Stream is fl...»
«Lice stupidly prayed godding me, / Every morning they crawled through my clothes, / Every morning I killed them, — / Listen to their cracks, — / But they came again like quietly confident surf. The white godlike marrow of mine / I gave, Russia, you: / Be Khlebnikov, be my mind. / ...»
«Russia gave freedom to many thousands. / A pretty affair! It will be remembered for long. / And I just took off my shirt / And mirror sky-scrapers of every hair, / Every chink / Of body-city / Hung out carpets and red bunting cloths. / All citizens, male and female, / Of Me, Me — a...»