I’m neither flesh, nor spirit yet
And daily bread seems hardly needed,
As if my punctured finger bled
Not blood, but sky drops faintly sleeted.
And there are times when pouring wine
Up to the brim feels hardly ample,
When bread all drenched in salty brine
Does not singe lips, tastes eerie gentle.
And stuffy dreams are whispering
That I’ll be tried by my own essence
Dispensing her capricious whims
Like pregnant wives, the loath despots.
Oh, murky, murky, murky way,
Why are you murky, unrelenting?
As if a slightly pulled up drape
Is being promptly drawn descending!
And I must raise myself to God
To crush at night like a dead stone,
And wait, and wait until I’m thawed
And burned by lazy flames through bone.
Еще не дух, почти не плоть,
Так часто мне не надо хлеба,
И мнится: палец уколоть, —
Не кровь, а капнет капля неба.
Но есть часы: стакан налью
Вином до края — и не полон,
И хлеб мой добела солю,
А он губам моим не солон.
И душные мне шепчут сны,
Что я еще от тела буду,
Как от беременной жены,
Терпеть причуду за причудой.
О, темный, темный, темный путь,
Зачем так темен ты и долог?
О, приоткрывшийся чуть-чуть,
Чтоб снова запахнуться, полог!
Себя до Бога донести,
Чтоб снова в ночь упасть, как камень,
И ждать, покуда до кости
Тебя прожжет ленивый пламень!
«Muses, enough, cease your sobbing, / Pour out your grief into singing, / Sing about Dante soul-stirring, / Or play the flute, play with feeling. Move on, annoying faun deities, / Music is dead in your screaming! / Haven’t you learned only lately / Beatrice exited Eden. All white a...»
«Yet all but once you’ll reminisce of me / And of my world mysterious and thrilling, / The quirky world of songs and fervency, / But among all, unique and undeceiving. It could have been yours also, but alas, / It was too much for you, or was too scanty, / I must have failed at poetry an...»
«For us the artist reproduced / The lilac in the deepest faint, / And on the canvas he diffused / Like scabs, the piercing steps of paint. He grasped the density of paint, / And the parched vision of his summer, / Warmed up within the lilac brain, / Dilated in a stifling slumber. The li...»
«In the yard I washed up late at night — / Rough-hewn stars shone on the vault of heaven. / On the ax like salt the starlight's bright, / And the barrel cooled filled to the brim forsaken. All the gates are padlocked, and the Earth / Comes across as consciousness severe, — / One can...»