for Sergei Krechetov
A thin howl from the dogs on guard.
Tonight still camped in the same place,
no-good vagabond orphans, we are
warming our hands at the bonfire.
A sullen look beneath the brows
from empty nights of far-fetched sleep.
The smoke is full of ruby floaters
whirled from flames that whistle and crack.
The waste says nothing. Silent, barbed,
a distant wind pursues the dust;
we sing with an evil dreariness
that's chafing at our curling lips...
A thin howl from the dogs on guard.
Сергею Кречетову
Чуть воют псы сторожевые.
Сегодня там же, где вчера,
Кочевий скудных дети злые,
Мы руки греем у костра.
И дико смотрит исподлобья
Пустых ночей глухая сонь.
В дыму рубиновые хлопья,
Свистя, гремя, кружит огонь.
Молчит пустыня. Вдаль без звука
Колючий ветер гонит прах, —
И наших песен злая скука
Язвя кривится на губах…
Чуть воют псы сторожевые.
«It was near midnight when I entered: / She was asleep; the moon was shining / Through her window, lighting up / The dangling satin of her blanket. She lay face up, / Bare breasts parted, / And as she slept, her life was still / As a saucer of water.»
«High up on a snowy peak, / I carved a sonnet with a steel blade. / Time passes. To this day, perhaps, / The snows still bear my solitary mark. High up, where skies are ever blue, / In the exhilarating clarity of winter, / Only the sun to witness, as my knife / Inscribed the poem in the ...»
«Sultry heat; dry, dead grass; endless steppes; / Just the horizon’s faint, blue haze. / Over there, the skeleton of a horse’s head, / And here, look here! A Stone Idol. What sleepy, Hat features! / What primeval coarseness of body! / Yet I stand still; I fear you... But you. / You m...»
«At the gates of Zion, over Kedron, / There is a windswept hillock; / And where the wall gives temporary shade, / I happened to sit down beside a leper, / Who was eating toxic seeds. His stench was indescribable. / The fool was poisoning himself. / But he would smile, for all that, / L...»