On the pavement
of my trampled soul
the soles of madmen
stamp the prints of rude, crude words.
Where cities
hang
and in the noose of clouds
the towers’
crooked spires
congeal —
I go
and solitary weep
that cross-roads
crucify
policemen.
По мостовой
моей души изъезженной
шаги помешанных
вьют жестких фраз пяты.
Где города
повешены
и в петле о́блака
застыли
башен
кривые выи —
иду
один рыдать,
что перекрестком
ра́спяты
городовые.
«There’s no way for me to go back! / I scream at full anguish. / I run around the squares / Of the chess board. I step on every other one: / The others — are not mine. / Oh, my stingy joy, / You split me, too, in two. So that I’m to measure by half. / That I’m to believe by ha...»
«At first You loved / Beauty best, / Curls touched with henna, / Plaintive call of the zurna, / Ringing — of hooves — on flint, / A shapely dismount, / In two Turkish slippers / Embroidered with semi-precious . . . Then You loved — someone else — / Sharp arched eyebrow, / S...»
«Still darkness, darkness everywhere. / And still so early in the world, / Innumerable stars appear / And each so bright in the night air / That if the earth could count them there, / It would sleep through Easter, lulled / By chanted psalm and chanted prayer. Still darkness, darkness ev...»
«A girl is freezing in a telephone booth, / huddled in her flimsy coat, / her face stained by tears / and smeared with lipstick. She breathes on her thin little fingers. / Fingers like ice. Glass beads in her ears. She has to beat her way back alone / down the icy street. First frost. A...»