To Khodasevich
A childhood memory: those pears,
wrinkled, little, tight,
and hidden inside
tart flesh that puckered the mouth:
exactly so my delight
in the bitter shards of your verse.
С детства помню: груши есть такие —
сморщенные, мелкие, тугие,
и такая терпкость скрыта в них,
что едва укусишь, — сводит челюсть:
так вот для меня и эта прелесть
злых, оскомистых стихов твоих.
«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...»