sing" "So you sing this!" To Mayakovsky 1 That the world would not die Without desperate men, Be, baby Vladimir, ruler Of world from end to end. 2 Literary - not in it is Truth, but here - spill blood! It comes out every seven days. Departed - once in a hundred Years it comes. Killed is the first Soldier. Which, capital, Missives to you, which Article to you still? Gold - to a bourgeois: This is to us, dear. "Bass, they say, and walks in vests. Mayakovsky, Vladimir"... Hey, blood-your-blood! How to make peace with the news, When the blood of her first Soldier - on second page (Of the news). 3 "In the coffin, in the usual dark suit, in steady, rough shoes, shod with iron, lies the greatest poet of the Revolution." - One-day Newspaper, April 24 1920. In the boots shod with iron In the boots in which he took the mountain - Not with any detour or redirection Having reached the crossing - Over a run of twenty years Until they were shining, spent. Mountain of the proletarian Sinai, On which he as the prophet stands, That the resident office would not meddle In the boots - a two-foot living square - In the boots, in which, wearing a frown, He carried the mountain - and took - and sang - and swore - In the boots before, without refusal By the untilled fields of October, In the boots - almost like water-climber: Infantryman, speaking clearer: In the boots of a great hike, On the Donbass, I do fear, nails. Of hundred ten million (State Publications) Mountain of the grief of own people... In which kind, I'm asking you with honor, Of one's own, when is which year: "Nothing of one's own in the factory!" Burning mountain of all the peoples - here. Thus in these - about his Rolls-Royces Talk has not gone silent at this time - To dead pioneers he shouted: Take formation! In the boots - witnesses to the crime. 4 The lovers' boat broke against life. And a bet one would not place Upon a leader such as this. Comrade, comrade, this your boat From what dictionary is? Still within the lovers' boat Thrown one's head back - a scandal! Razin - what here does not suit you? Better mastered life, withal. This novelty - medicine Bursting, what is your faucet? Fellow, not like proletarian You behave, what's with you yet? It was worth in gods and mother Us, that - not the dawn, the blood! The white undercoat of class To turn over toward the end. Like a cadet, at the Toska From despair having shot! Fellow! Not like Mayakovky You're behaving, like a shah. With a cap upon your brow And - farewell, my dear one! You ended as great-grand-father Having lived as great-grand-son. And again, like on the checkup We will go - shame'll eat you, son: You the Soviet-Russian Werther, Gesture noble-Russian. Earlier - to police station, Now... My enemy, dear one! There are no new lover's boats Underneath the shining moon. 5 Like only by enemies, In the very soul - a shot. This today, the final temple Is destroyed by foe of God. Having not yet oriented, Went to sleep, reaching the spot. Heart began now beating, beating, Stop, within the trace of shot. (An abroad, within the meeting: "Incident! What a land mine! This means - there is a heart also? And with our own, the same one?" A shot - in the very spot now, Like into the aim of market. (Often - the left lobe Having shaved - with wife in bed. ) Hotshot! You did not miss target! And this for the woman - what! And Helen a lousy creature You will call, having thought. By but one thing, but completely, The Left poet surprised us so: Only to the right and knowing How to shoot, and left did go. In the right - would that the lancet Shine - and healthy is your chef. Well, the self-same Central Singer: A shot in the door on left! 6 The Soviet grandee, Under full Sinod... "Hello, Sergei!" "Hello, Volodya!" "Got tired?" "Just little" "By common?" "My own yet." "Did it shoot?" "Habitually." "Did it burn?" "Excellent." "Thus maybe it lived?" "Pass in which type, here." "Not so good, Sergei!" "Not so good, Vladimir! And do you remember, How in your pop Bass you did curse me?" "Well, now, stop... Thus here a boat Is this lovers' boat! Not from a skirt?" "It's worse from vodka - A bloated face. From that time on platoon here? Not so good, Sergei." "Not so good, Vladimir. And maybe - not razor - Is worked out cleanly. Thus beaten is card Completely?" "It trickles." "Apply now the plaintain" "It's good and collodium. Let's apply it, Sergei?" "Let's apply, Volodya." And what is in Russia - The mother? "Where's it?" "In USSR What is new?" "They build The parents give birth, The harmful ones sharpen, The publishers drive and The writers are writing. The new bridge is laid And washed out with half-water. It's all the same, Sergei!" "It's the same, Vladimir And the singing flock? "People, know, winding Our ground laurels Like rod of the dead ones. The old Rost With tomorrow's lacquer. You will not do with Just one Pasternak here. Let's apply the arms To that there lack of water? Let's apply them, Sergei? "Let's apply, Vladimir! Still bows to you now... "And what's the kind, our Lsan Alexandrovich?" "There -angel!" "Fyodor Kuzmich?" "On the canal: By the red cheeks He went." "Nikolai Gumilev?" "On the East (On the complete dray, In matting bloody...) "Still the same, Sergei" "Still the same, Volodya. And still this the same, Volodya dear friend - Let's apply the hands Though there are no hands Volodya." "Though there is none, My dear brother Sergei, Underneath this kingdom Let's place a grenade! And on the sunset By us bothered Let's place it, Sergei!" "Let's place it, Vladimir!" 7 He destroyed many temples, And this - more precious than all. Accept, Lord, your deceased enemy's soul. Poems to Pushkin 1 Scourge of gendarmes, god of students, Bile of husbands and wives' sweetness, Pushkin - in a monument's role? In a role of a stone guest? Bare-toothed, looking like dare, Pushkin - in role of commander? Critic - whining, whiner - speaking: "Where is Pushkin's (weeping) Sense of measure?" Feeling - having Forgotten sea - beating On the granite? Salty one, Pushkin - in role of lexicon? His two legs having stretched out To warm, and upon the table Having jumped before the tyrant African man of free will - Killing of our great-grandfathers - Pushkin - in role of governor? Negro can't be painted over Can't correct it into white! Not bad is the Russian classic, Having once African sky Called his own, cursed the Nieva's! Pushkin - in role of Russia-lover? O you, the bearded augurs! Would have given to you the ball He who rhymed the tsar's censorship With the creep, and for it all "Europe's messenger" - with... Pushkin - in role of gravedigger? To the jubilee of Pushkin We will at this time give word: Ruddier than all and tanner Till this time in all the world, Livelier than all and living! Pushkin - in role of mausoleum? By the cabins of Pushkin You model, that're trash - themselves! Like from shower! Like from cannon - At the Pushkin's nightingales Words, the flight of falcons! Pushkin - in role of a gun! From the scream the ears are popping: "In a row before Pushkin!" Where did they leave the red of lips, Where did they leave the Pushkin's Mutiny? Lips' cursed pleasure? Pushkin - in the Pushkin's measure! Having placed tomes in the bookcase - You will bring laughter to him, Having mixed your refugeeness With his white insanity! White-bloodedness of brain, blueness Of morgue - with Negro's leer, a throat To the seeming... Would you, O the Copper Horseman, On all hooves behind come leap. Poor Vanya was a coward, But he - is not cowardly. He, looking in all directions - In Tatyana's role, one's own? What are you doing, you crows, This - pigeons' olives - The most free, the most far-out Forehead - having branded for centuries With the two-pieces gone low Of the middle and the gold? "Pushkin - toga, Pushkin - scheme, Pushkin - measure, Pushkin - frame..." Pushkin, Pushkin, Pushkin - like Invective is noble name Scream of parrots - of the square. Pushkin? We're very full of fear! 2 PETER AND PUSHKIN Not with fleet, not with sweat, not with back In patches, not with Swede at the feet, Not with growth - from any row, Not - to all there is time - with the drift, Not with lot, not with boat, not with German Through smoke of the stoves beer, And not even with Peter-wonder His own (his own deed of Peter!) And would there be little of big one (God gave, not a burden is man!) When he could not bear Hannibal-Arab Onto the white Russian land. This African into learning Having taken, the noses of Russians Having wiped and insisted - there's light In Russia from Negro grandson! The turning one he would not have In the string! "Onto freedom? Instead! He was such a chamber officer As I'm king of masquerade!" Having learned, not with foam, not with pumice Of Africa - literary tsar Would've decided: "From now of your African Passions I am a censor." And having hit him on curly Neck (cut - not cut!) "Go, son, Onto a short little visit Into the wilds African! Sail - and be sad of nothing! There's someone into sails to blow! If you'll get bored - come back to me, If not - forget even the door! Order: having abandoned Icy fogs - inch, an inch behind To trace the hot countries And with a verse to describe." And past the retinue placed there, Left behind - at the warehouse, straight, A giant, having left the poet, Ran - on or over the land? The tan-faced one not on Russian Snow - the snow's Ismael! He, now, with the archives The foreign bird did not kill! He, not on the fast Slavic blood, He is a mestizo also! You, now, on the homeland archives Of him simply would not sour! He would have made peace with you! For the unforced bow Complained by Nicholas, By Peter would be granted so! The gendarmes' search he would not cover With "homeland of feelings"! He would for you - a demon Glance! - not freeze the lips. He would not crumple Poltavan Ends, would not blunt the pen. For what as unworthy descendant - As a creep - Peter's agaric - was sent Into Romanian area And with it - by him was granted - He killed his shy son, having shyness Of man so much hated. "This chaff - I? Here Now grow, having been born!" His true son was the Negro, As his true great-grandson You'll remain. The pact of equals. And having not asked for alms here The great-grandson of giant's godson Peter's spirit made its heir. And step, and the lightest of the light Glances, to which it's light now... The final - posthumous - immortal Peter's gift to Russia. 3 (MACHINE) All his science is - Might. It's light - and I look: The hand of Pushkin I press, do not lick. Friend to great-grandfather: In the same old shop! Like with one's own hand Each and every blot. Under piles - to a free one? To me, in wonders' cauldron Weight that is exploring Bracket open, Minding written notes - Meaning, than all more brief. There's not greater search Than relationship! It was sung - is sung And now - it is so. We know how it's "given"! Over you we know, "Trifle" - how it sweated! Out of you, O stroke, How I wanted forest - Ball - and sleigh - I know... And how - sleep I wanted! How above love's flower - I know, how it creaked With teeth of Negro! Feathers on alert - I know how he fixed! Fingers have not dried yet From his ink! And midst tallow candles, Midst card games, I know How it shook! From naked Shoulders, from mirrors, From the glasses beaten On the floor - How it ran on naked Table I know! Battle, without evil: Of self with self, I knew! Do not beat with Pushkin! With him I'm beating you! 4 Conquest Of inertness Russian - Genius of Pushkin? Pushkin's muscle On the fate's carcass Of the sperm whale - Muscle of flight, Running, Struggle. With morning languor Vigorously having battled! Of a long walk, Of running equal - Muscle. A muscle Of flights the steppe over, Of boat that bears Through whirlwind to the shore. Not burdened With blood Russian - O, not a camel's Or ox's vein (From under the belt He did work hard!) - Mine is the muscle Of horse's heart. Prettier than ever - More ballast! Muscle of acrobat And gymnast, That on the rope Of one's own tendons From casemate - Flew as a falcon! Pushkin - from guiding Of monarch's hands Beating, like beats To the death (Might - arrived, Strength did grow) With muscle of shaft Muscle of oar. Someone, having carried On cart: "Of athlete Musculature is this, Not of poet!" That was the strength Of an angel: Wing's muscle Unbreakable. (POET AND TSAR) 1(5) With other-sided Tsar's hall. - And is this one not Unbowed, of marble? In ornaments' gold So grandly framed. - A pitiful gendarme Of Pushkin's fame. He ran down the author, Cut text writ by hand. A brutal butcher Of Polish land. Look more intensely! And do remember: Tsar Nicholas the First Is the first-born's Murderer. 2(6) No, the drum beat before the dark brigade When the chief we did inter: The teeth of the tsar over the dead singer Beat out the drill of honor. Such is the honor, that for closest friends There's no space. At the head, feet - arms, To the sides - on the right, on the left - Are chests and mugs of gendarmes. Is this not a wonder - in quietest box A supervised boy now to be? Like something, like something, like something it is His honor, honored - overly! Look, now, the country, how in spite of the talk Monarch dotes over the poet! Honorably - honorably - honorably - arch- Honorably - honorably - to hell yet! Whom then this way - like a thief, shot to death They bore over the land? A traitor? No. Through the gatekeeper's yard - The smartest of Russian men. 3(7) The people's power, having overthrown the throne, Not celebrated - friction: To executioners not to allow burial Of victims, the burial of Pushkin To censors. In the unassigned time, In prevention of strife. Not to bear under the (great!) noise Over the route of the thief - Not to doom to the final dark, The complete deaf-and-dumbness Of the body, cropped as such With scissors - in the poems. Country With the flashlight turn the world Under moon into a ball! On the map or in the space there's No such country, not at all. Drank like from a saucer, And the bottom shines. Can one come back home To a house that's gone? In the newer country Once again be born! On the spine of horse That threw you, return Now at last! The bones Are the whole - although? To such a guest Breadmaker - the broken Slices, carpenter - Will not sell the coffin! He - for the uncounted Miles, kingdoms of heaven, Such, where on the coins Is the youth of me, There's no such a Russia - There's no such a me. Ode to Walking 1 In the century of giant, Fateful speeds - Glory to sturdy brotherhood Of the walkers' feet! Tightly, all-terrain, Straight, without roads, Mightily beating down The nature's threshold, Daringly violated by century. (In time of dynamos and turbines Only to live, as invalids!) But to you avenging Over the advertisement stamps On the chest reared and fed. No, the footless tribe, Reach distance with your feet! Glory to the thick soles, With the nails, boots, To walkers, speed-runners - To in boots shod gods! If there's ode in the world To god of strength and peaks - It's the look of the walker At the motor that's stuck. Grin in all fifteen inches, Than the face it's wider: Popping is look of walker Upon the tire. Look now at the torso Shattered by arrogance! Alcoholics of distance, Parasites of wide space - That through dusty cloud Of arm-dancing mobs Break apart. An occurrence? Of one's foolishness post. 2 Here's he, sword of the dreamers, Lash of loads on the spine! Casting beauty, like rapist, From its feet: to lie down! He won't answer and lie down - Like a bed - like a grave - But he won't show the face And the soul will not give Back... He'll give you back nothing Not July, not April - O the eyeless, bespectacled, Lacquered null! Creator of trouble Between South and North! (Records of speed: Emptiness) your Fords. Your Rollses and Royces - That old snake, flattery! Son! Be fearful of God, To trudge feet he told thee. Precious dolls from Oper And Madeleine, to you In exchanged for the lacquered Boat - quiet shoes Of the dead. O, The lie so cold Of the mannikin blocks, The unstepped-upon soles! Glory to God in heaven - God of strength, God of tsars - For granite and crushed stone, For the quartz and the spar, Under silicon hoof Change given in cash... And for this that he made me Walking marvel in flesh. 3 Growing cozy in sponging, From a tire hurries grandson. Walkers! Hold to your feet Like great-grandfathers - arms. Where there's boundary for rubber - There for legs there is space. Room for breath in the bosom When there's not enough gas! Like a flood Prague is thirsty, Thus thirsts thrill of expense. Do not dare teach the children Anything but the steps! By the streams, by the seashores, Ahead - no! Ahead - stop! That with feet the savannas You knew, with knees the Alps. For the openings of schools, Friends, I'll kick my two bones That from the first step To the last - my grandson Went! Muscle, putting Hades to shame! My offshoot! That in kingdom of mollusks - On my own two feet! Elderberry Elderberry fills the whole garden! Elderberry is green, green, Greener, than mold on the vat! Greener, than summer at the start! Elderberry - till the end of days! Elderberry greener than my eyes! And after - through the night - with the fire Of Rostov! - it is red in the eyes From the trill of bubbly elderberry. Redder than measles on one's own body In all your times, azure, Measles that scatters and pours Of elderberry - till winter, till winter! That in small berry sweeter Than poison, what are dissolved paints! Of red cotton, sealing wax and Hades Mix, a shimmer of corral beads, And a taste of baked blood. Elderberry has been killed, has been killed! Elderberry the whole hall filled With blood of young and pure, With blood of branches of fire - With the blood most merry - With blood of heart of you and me... And later - grain's waterfall will be, And later - black is elderberry: With plum something, sticky something. Over the gate, moaning with violin, Near the house, which is empty, Is lonely bush of elderberry. Elderberry, without mind, without mind, Of your beads, elderberry, am I! Steppe - to Mongol, Caucasus - to Georgian will go, To me - elderberry bush under window Give. Instead of Arts Palace, only Give this bush of elderberry. Newcomers in my country - From the berry - elderberry, My ruddy childhood thirst, From the tree and from the word: Elderberry (till this day - at nights...), Poison - sucked in by the eyes... Elderberry is red, is red! Elderberry - took the whole land In its paws. In power, my childhood all. Something like passion criminal, Elderberry, between you and me Century's disease - elderberry I would call... x x x Despair for homeland! Long ago Exposed torment! To me It is completely all the same Where completely lonely to be, By which stones on the road home With the bazaar knapsack to drag Home, not knowing, that it's mine, Like hospital or a barrack. It's same to me, among which faces Like an imprisoned lion to bristle, And from among which people's midst To be forced out - without fail - Into oneself, into individual feelings. As polar bear without ice floe Where not to live - it's the same to me (And I don't dare) - where to go low. I won't be tempted by the milky Call of my own native tongue. It is the same to me on which To be not sensed by meeting ones. (To reader of newspaper tons, To gulper, milker of rumors.) He Is of the twentieth century, And I - without a century! Grown petrified just like a log Remaining only of an alley, They're all the same, it's all the same, And maybe most the same - to me - Dearer than everything that was. All marks from me, all signs that were, All dates - brushed off as if by hand: Soul, that had once been born - somewhere. Thus my land did not keep me there, That the detective most keen Along the soul, across it all! The birthmark has not sought or seen! Alien is home, temple - empty, And all's the same and one to me. But if along the road a bush Rises, especially - ashberry... x x x The time did not think of a poet, And I don't care to think of him. God be with him, with noise and thunder, He did not come within my time! If time has not time for ancestors, I've no time for grandsons as well. My time's my bane, my time's my damage, My time's my foe, my time is hell. x x x They cut Ashberry Keen. Ashberry - Is bitter Fortune. Ashberry - With gray-haired Descents+ Ashbery! Fortune Russian. To Fathers 1 In the world bellowing: Glory to the coming! What whispers in me: Glory to the gone be! To you, passing, That won't counted be, Not bearing children, Preceding me. With brush, with key They argued, with deed Written - pure Was their life, with honor. White - than treasures Of snow more fair! - A novel - your Conscience's - hair. 2 Generation with lilac And on Easter in Kremlin, My hello to generation In the earth to the knee, And with gray spots - in stars! Than the reed louder, To you, speaking: "so-ul" Will tremble the air. Only having saved the soul From wealth of family Without brotherhood or equals To older contemporaries, Arms of faith and of friendship, Like Caucasian - an ewer Full of grape! - to the foe Stretching out - the two! Not with Siren - with lilac Locked in cave with a key, Generation - with soaring! With gravity From the earth, over earth, From the grain and the worm! Generation - without soil, But with such - to bottom, With seen bottom's abyss. That from orbits sunken Looks as if one alive Like a pleasant virgin. Generation, where he looked The best who suffered the most! Continuation of mirrors. Generation! I'm yours! Yours - in physique and essence, And respect for the mind, And contempt for the flesh's Dress dissolving with time! You - to the child doomed A poet to be, Having persuaded to honor All but ringing money: All gods - all times - all tribes Except the god Vaal! My immortal bow Generation with fall! To you, that with one unheard of Were able to - live, To you, that among noisy ball Were able to - love! Having turned to the stars Till the hour final - Departing race, Gratitudes to you all! x x x Not a warrior of two camps, but - if occasional guest - Like a bone in throat - guest, like a nail in sole - guest. I was given a head - on it knocked two hammers: For some - profit and for others - meanness. You from this head - to creator's wonder My proletarian patience add - You from this head - what did you demand? - lechery! Wondering at the insistent answer: cut off the head. You from this head, leveled - like rows Of mountains, divine draft writ in heights, You from this head - what did you demand? - Row. Wondering at the answer (speechless): cut off the feet! You from this head, tuned - like a lyre: On the highest kind: lyrical... - No, stand! Two builders: Homebuilder and Dnieperbuilder - for choosing! Wondering at the insane answer: Lyres - build. And From this head, from the forehead of gray granite, You demanded: love us! Hate them all! Is it not the same for her, from which side it's beaten, To be muffled from which profile of the soul? There are times, there are times, when the heads are not needed. But to reduce the word to the beets used for feed - More honest with Orpheus' head - serenades! Herodias with John the Baptist's head! You're a tsar: live alone... (But tsars have concubines' Minute). God is one. He - in empty skies. Not a warrior of two camps: judge - prophet - hostage - Freedom fighter of two! Spirit - for freedom fights. Readers of Newspapers The underground snake crawls, Crawls, carries people. And each - with his own Newspaper (with his own Eczema!) Newspaper Bone eater, chewing tick. Readers of newspapers, Chewers of mastics. Who's the reader? Old man? Athlete? Soldier? Not features, not years, Not faces. Skeleton - since no Face: sheet of newspaper! Which - entire Paris From navel to forehead wears! Enough, girl! You'll give birth to - Reader of newspaper. Rock - "lives with sister" - ing - "his father he killed!" - Rocking - of vanity Pumped themselves full. What do such men care If it is dusk or dawn? Swallowers of voids, Newspaper-reading ones! Read newspapers: slander, Read newspapers: waste. A column - calumny, A paragraph - disgust... With what on Terrible court In the light you'll appear! Seizers of minutes, you Readers of newspapers! He went! Vanished! Got lost! Old is the mother's fear. Mom! Guttenberg's press than Schwartz's dust is scarier. Better on churchyard Than in hospital of pus To cast scratchers of scabs, Readers of newspapers! Who is it that rots our sons In their prime of years? Mixers of blood, they are, Writers of newspapers! Here, friends, - and where Stronger than in these lines! What do I think, where With writing in my palms I stand before the face - There is no emptier space! That means - not with face Of editor of news - Paper filth. Poems to Orphans Baby walked along the road Shivering and turning blue An old woman walked that road She took pity on the orphan... 1 Icy tiara of mountains - Is a frame to sight transitory. On the castle's granite today I traced parting to ivy. I have chased today on all roads Towering figures of pines. I have taken a tulip today Like a child to the chin. 2 With surrounding of mountains I hug you, With the granite crown of rocks. (That you breathe easier and sleep tighter I am busying you with talk.) With the sides of a feudal castle, With the ivy hands of down - You know - in four hundred streams and rivers Is the ivy, hugging the stone? But I'm not woodbine - and not ivy! Even you, dearer than my hand, Are not flattened - and freely let out Onto every side of my mind! Round the flower-bed, round the well too, Where to gray-haired ones stone will come, With the round pledge of an orphan - With the loneliness my round! (Thus not one silver braid did weave Into my light-brown braids!) And with river, into two parting - Island to create - and embrace. With entire Savoy and Piedmont And - cracking the ridge a bit - I embrace you with blue horizon, With two arms I embrace you yet. 3 (CAVE) If I could - I would take you Into the womb of a cave: Into the cave of a dragon, Into the panther's grove. Into the panther's - paws - If I could - I would take, so. To bosom of nature, to bed of nature. If I could - my own skin of panther I'd take off... I would give in the grove - to study! In bushy, in firry, in streamy, in ivy - Where in darkness, in dusk, and in dreaming Branches weave for eternal weddings! Where in granite, in milk and in bast For centuries intertwine arms - Like branches - and rivers... Into cave without light, without trace into thicket. In leaves, in ivy, in ivy - like in coat... Not white light, not black bread: in dew In leaves, in leaves - like in relationship too... That did not knock on the door, That henceforth did not happen, That did not shout in window, That for century didn't end! But not enough - cave, And not enough - grove! If I could - I would take you Into the womb of a cave. If I could - I would take. 4 On the ice floe - Loved one, On the mine - Loved one, On the ice floe, in Guyana, in Gehennah - loved one. In the scab - desired one, From churchyard - desired one: Be a desired guest! Only teeth and bone - desired one! With the under-knees angst Till ruined darkness With the last seizure of smoke - pitied one. And there's no such hole, and there's no such abyss: Loved one! Wished one! Pitied one! Full of illness! 5 With rapid speech - with stream of water Beating: - Loved one! Sick one! Dear! With recitation - lingering blues: Weak! Half-alive! Paper! See-through! With lengthwise cut from stomach to pharynx: Loved one! Wished one! Pitied one! Full of illness! 6 Finally I've encountered One that I do need: Somebody possesses Deadly need of me. What to eye is rainbow, Ground to the grain, To man - is being needed By another man. I need more than rainbow, More than rain or hand, Need of this my hand By another man. This - wider than Ladoga Than mountain more true - Is need of my hand By another's wound. And for that with ulcer Palm had brought to me - This my hand - immediately In fire after thee! <7> In thoughts of another, otherwise, Like a treasure chest not found, Step by step, poppy by poppy - Garden's I cut off the head. Thus, sometime in a dry summer, On the very edge of field, Death my head will sever With an absent-minded hand. x x x "It's time! I'm old for this fire!" "Older than me is love-desire!" "All fifty years has this hill!" "Love's older than that hill still: Old like a snake, old like a plant, Older than ambers of Livan, Older than all the ghostly boats, Older than seas, older than stones... But agony that's in the chest - In years, love's less, in years, love's less. x x x "I dressed the table for the six" I still convey the word and still The first one verse I do repeat: "I dressed the table for the six"... But seventh one you did forget. It is not merry for us six. On faces are the streams of rain+ How could you over such a table Forget the seventh - seventh one+ It is not merry for the guests, Idle is pitcher of crystal, Sad are they all, sad are you too, But saddest is the one uncalled. It is not merry and not light. Ah! You don't drink and do not eat. How could you have forgotten this? How could you have erred in the count? How could you, dared, not understand, That six (two brothers, the third - You, with wife, father and mother) there Are seven - that I'm in this world? You dressed the table for the six, But with six the world did not die. More than the scarecrow midst the live I want to be a ghost - with (mine), Yours... Shy just like a thief, O - never touching but a soul! - Behind the silverware unmade I sit as seventh one, uncalled. At once! I overthrew the glass! An all that thirsted to be poured - All salt from eyes, all blood from wounds - From tablecloth - on the floorboards. And - there's no coffin! No - parting! Broken is spell, wakes up the home. Like death - onto the wedding feast, I'm - life, that to dinner have come. And I still scold, for nobody - Not brother, husband, son or friend: "You, dressed the table for six souls, Did not seat me upon the end."