Я ещё вышивать умею и на машинке шить
Вернее, когда-то умел.
* * *
Don't crash my creed,
Don't break my breath,
Don't gnaw my need,
Don't flap my faith.
Около 2004
A Meditation in Time for Sleep
How to complete a poem sketched before?
To wear again the face I had that day,
Call back the fears, banished with so much toil,
Relight the hopes that have burnt all their fuel,
And to believe again that with a line
Of characters, reflecting not the world
Around me, nor my feelings, nor my thoughts,
But only my small luggage of books read,
I might obtain a lady fair, support
Her needs, and even find some resonance
In minds of the postrerity, and grip
My pilfered shred of immortality?
I'm not that young to take the words for life,
I think the only immortality
Is children, and good fame amidst the neighbors,
And so I must fulfil my duties well
And carry on the chosen social roles,
But still sometimes I cannot get to sleep
Until the lines have left my burning brain
And fixed a thought I never thought to fix,
While some I thought to still remain unborn
And die because their lungs are filled with water.
How can this happen when I have no muse
Nor inspiration? I don't understand.
Says John, “Life is what happens to you while
“You're busy making other plans.” 'Tis true.
2003
* * *
Don't crash my creed,
Don't break my breath,
Don't gnaw my need,
Don't flap my faith.
Около 2004
A Meditation in Time for Sleep
How to complete a poem sketched before?
To wear again the face I had that day,
Call back the fears, banished with so much toil,
Relight the hopes that have burnt all their fuel,
And to believe again that with a line
Of characters, reflecting not the world
Around me, nor my feelings, nor my thoughts,
But only my small luggage of books read,
I might obtain a lady fair, support
Her needs, and even find some resonance
In minds of the postrerity, and grip
My pilfered shred of immortality?
I'm not that young to take the words for life,
I think the only immortality
Is children, and good fame amidst the neighbors,
And so I must fulfil my duties well
And carry on the chosen social roles,
But still sometimes I cannot get to sleep
Until the lines have left my burning brain
And fixed a thought I never thought to fix,
While some I thought to still remain unborn
And die because their lungs are filled with water.
How can this happen when I have no muse
Nor inspiration? I don't understand.
Says John, “Life is what happens to you while
“You're busy making other plans.” 'Tis true.
2003