All days are fractured as though by crime,
The passage of hoary time grows rusty,
My body's fettered with rigidity,
My heart oppressed and my blood cold as ice.
But there comes lightning: everything can change
In a prophetic dream or wide awake.
The sword of the Archangel touches me
With burning flame and I'm alive again!
Все дни изломаны, как преступлением,
Седого Времени заржавел ход.
И тело сковано оцепенением,
И сердце сдавлено, и кровь — как лед.
Но знаю молнии: всё изменяется...
Во сне пророческом иль наяву?
Копье Архангела меня касается
Ожогом пламенным — и я живу.
Пусть на мгновение, — на полмгновения,
Одним касанием растоплен лед...
Я верю в счастие освобождения,
В Любовь, прощение, в огонь — в полет!
«I’ll sew myself a pair of black trousers / from the velvet of my voice. / A yellow smock from three yards of sunset. / I’ll saunter along the Nevsky Prospect of the world, / along its polished strips, / with the step of Don Juan and a fop. Let the earth, gone to seed from neglect, ye...»
«A / street. / Mastiff / faces / sharp- / er / than years. O- / ver / iron horses / the first cubes leapt / from the windows of running houses. / Swans of bell necks / curve themselves in nooses of cables! / In the sky a cartoon giraffe is about / to show off motley rusty ...»
«When the noisy day quiets down / and the translucent shadow of night descends / on the muted streets of the city, / sleep–the reward for the day’s works – is granted to normal men. / But for me, agonizing hours of insomnia / drag by in silence. / In the dead stillness my conscience...»
«I drink to this ruined home, / To my evil life, / To our mutual loneliness, / And I drink to you — To the lie from the lips that betrayed me, / To the deadly coldness of your eyes, / To the fact that the world is cruel and crude, / To the fact that God did not save us.»