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ANDREY VOZNESENSKY
Collection of Poems
Translated by Alec Vagapov
Click to see Andrey Voznesensky's article
on Yevgeny Yyevtushenko
Contents:
1. THE PARABOLIC BALLAD
2. THE ANTIWORLDS
3. MY FRIEND'S LIGHT
4. HER STORY
5. POOR RUSSIA!
6. RUSSIAN-AMERICAN ROMANCE
7. EVANGELISTS WERE WRONG IN CLAIMING:
8. DEAR COLLEAGUES, I M SO HAPPY:
9. ABUSES AND AWARDS
10. A BALLAD (THESIS FOR A DOCTOR'S DEGREE)
11. WE'VE LIVED MUCH TOO LONG. IT'S SO PLEASANT.
12. WHEN PIGS FLY
13. RUBBER SOULS
14. A SHAKESPEARELIKE SONNET
15. FLYING SIDEWAYS THE EARTH HE LEFT 16.
16. 1987
17. WASHED DOWN BY SUNLIGHT, THE TREES
18. TO YOU
19. PORNOGRAPHY OF THE SPIRIT
20. FORGIVE ME, LORD! GOING THROUGH STAGES
21. YESTERDAY JUST LIKE TODAY
22. DO NOT GO BACK TO FORMER LOVERS
23. I FEEL I'M NEARING MY FINAL DESTINATION
24. THE ONLY LIVING ONE AMONG THE DEAD
25. FATE
26. OH GEORGIA, A VIEW FOR THE SIGHTSEERS!
27. THE TAVERN SONG OF ROBBERS 28. MICHAELANGELO'S THEME
29. SELF-PORTRAIT
30. A STAR, HE DIDN'T CARE A THING FOR PRAISE
31. THE SCALE OF LIFE INVESTMENT 32. THE SONG
33. WE NEEDN'T LOOK FOR REASONS AND EXCUSES
34. I'LL COME BACK WHEN YOU ARE AWAY
35. MODERN NATURE
37. Silence, I want silence ...
38. Dream
39. Nostalgia for the Present
40. Pornography of the Spirit
41. Old Photo
42. Saga
43. Italian Garage
THE PARABOLIC BALLAD
My life, like a rocket, makes a parabola
flying in darkness, — no rainbow for traveler.
There once lived an artist, red-haired Gauguin,
he was a bohemian, a former tradesman.
To get to the Louvre
from the lanes of Montmartre
he circled around
as far as Sumatra!
He had to abandon the madness of money,
the filth of the scholars, the snarl of his honey.
The man overcame the terrestrial gravity,
The priests, drinking beer, would laugh at his «vanity»:
«A straight line is short, but it is much too simple,
He’d better depict beds of roses for people.»
And yet, like a rocket, he flew off with ease
through winds penetrating his coat and his ears.
He didn’t fetch up to the Louvre through the door
but, like a parabola,
pierced the floor!
Each gets to the truth with his own parameter
a worm finds a crack, man makes a parabola.
There once lived a girl in the neighboring house.
We studied together, through books we would browse.
Why did I leave,
moved by devilish powers
amidst the equivocal
Georgian stars!
I’m sorry for making that silly parabola,
The shivering shoulders in darkness, why trouble her?...
Your rings in the dark Universe were dramatic,
and like an antenna, straight and elastic.
Meanwhile I’m flying
to land here because
I hear your earthly and shivering calls.
It doesn’t come easy with a parabola!..
For wiping prediction, tradition, preamble off
Art, History, Love and esthetics
Prefer
to take parabolical paths, as it were!
He leaves for Siberia now, on a visit.
It isn’t so long as parabola, is it?
THE ANTIWORLDS
There is Bukashkin, our neighbor,
in underpants of blotting paper,
and, like balloons, the Antiworlds
hang up above him in the vaults.
Up there, like a magic daemon,
he smartly rules the Universe,
Antibukashkin lies there giving
Lollobrigida a caress.
The Anti-great-academician
has got a blotting paper vision.
Long live creative Antiworlds,
great fantasy amidst daft words!
There are wise men and stupid peasants,
there are no trees without deserts.
There’re Antimen and Antilorries,
Antimachines in woods and forests.
There’s salt of earth, and there’s a fake.
A falcon dies without a snake.
I like my dear critics best.
The greatest of them beats the rest
for on his shoulders there’s no head,
he’s got an Antihead instead.
At night I sleep with windows open
and hear the rings of falling stars,
From up above skyscrapers drop and,
like stalactites, look down on us.
High up above me upside down,
stuck like a fork into the ground,
my nice light-hearted butterfly,
my Antiworld, is getting by.
I wonder if it’s wrong or right
that Antiworlds should date at night.
Why should they sit there side by side
watching TV all through the night?
They do not understand a word.
It’s their last date in this world.
They sit and chat for hours, and
they will regret it in the end!
The two have burning ears and eyes,
resembling purple butterflies...
...A lecturer once said to me:
«An Antiworld? It’s loonacy!»
I’m half asleep, and I would sooner
believe than doubt the man’s word...
My green-eyed kitty, like a tuner,
receives the signals of the world.
MY FRIEND’S LIGHT
I’m waiting for my friend. The gate’s unlocked.
The banisters are lit so he can walk.
I’m waiting for my friend. The times are dull and tough.
Anticipation lightens our life.
He’s driving down the Ring Road, at full speed,
the way I did it when he was in need.
He will arrive to find the spot at once,
the pine is lit well in advance.
There is a dog. His eyes are phosphorescent.
Are you a friend? I see you’re not complacent...
Some headlights push the darkness off the drive.
My friend is to arrive.
He said that he would come at nine or so.
People are watching a TV show.
Should animosity drop in I’ll turn it out, —
I’ll wait around.
Months, years go by, but Herman’s not in sight.
The whole of nature is cut off from light.
I’ll see my friend in hell, or paradise, alive.
I have been waiting for him all my life.
He said he’d come at nine or so today.
God save him while he’s on his way.
HER STORY
I started up the engine and I lingered.
Where should I go? The night was fine, I figured.
The bonnet trembled like a nervous hound.
I shivered. Night lit up the houses around.
The Balzac age, I felt its burning pain,
Chilled to the bone, I couldn’t hold my own.
The age of balsam wine mixed with champaign!..
So I looked up, and wound the window down.
They were young, two pretty-pretty fellows,
wearing fur coats, looking slightly careless.
«You’re free, Miss, aren’t you ? Care for delight?
Five hundred now. One thousand for the night».
I flared up. They took me for a prostitute.
My heart was jumping. What an attitude!
They want you, you’re young, you’re a whore!
Indignant, I said «Yes», instead of «No».
The other one, so «sweet and pure»,
swaying his hips, looking aside,
said: «Have you got a friend, as rich as you are?
I, too, will take it. A thousand for the night».
The brutes! I thought I’d better vanish!
I stepped upon the gas and left the site.
My heart, however, jumped for joy and anguish!
«Five hundred now. One thousand for the night».
+++
in memory of B. and S.
Poor Russia!
All is dark.
There’s a fetor of a dog.
Past the power stations, lorries,
funnels, space flights, masts, so high,
like a satellite of Progress,
a decaying dog
gets by.
RUSSIAN-AMERICAN ROMANCE
In my land and yours they do hit the hay
and sleep the whole night in a similar way.
There’s the golden Moon with a double shine.
It lightens your land and it lightens mine.
At the same low price, that is for free,
there’s the sunrise for you and the sunset for me.
The wind is cool at the break of day,
it’s neither your fault nor mine, anyway.
Behind your lies and behind my lies
there is pain and love for our Motherlands.
I wish in your land and mine some day
we’d put all idiots out of the way.
+ + +
Evangelists were wrong in claiming:
it was to heaven that His hands He stretched
when legionaries, the metal-brained men,
into the flesh the metal pins had fetched.
Let’s shake our hands, it’s time for separation!
He was prepared now for resurrection,
He stretched His hands turning his eye
to the two thieves on crosses nearby.
+ + +
Dear colleagues, I m so happy:
nowadays when all is well
I’m the only one who happens
to be criticized like hell.
I’m a black sheep. No objection,
for my living does make sense
‘cause I set off the perfection
of my flawless author friends.
ABUSES AND AWARDS
A poet can’t be in disfavour,
he needs no awards, no fame.
A star has no setting whatever,
no black nor a golden frame.
A star can’t be killed with a stone, or
award, or that kind of stuff.
He’ll bear the blow of a fawner
lamenting he’s not big enough.
What matters is music and fervour,
not fame, nor abuse, anyway.
World powers are out of favour
when poets turn them away.
A BALLAD
(THESIS FOR A DOCTOR'S DEGREE)
My doc announced yesterday :
«You may have talent, though it’s hidden,
your beak, however, is frost-bitten,
so stick at home on a cold day».
The nose, eh?
As irretrievable as time,
conforming to the laws of medicine,
your nose, like that of any person,
keep growing
steadily,
with triumph!
The noses of celebrities,
of guards
and ministers of ours
grow, snoring restlessly like owls
at night, along with plants and trees.
They’re cool and crooked, resembling bills,
they’re squeezed in doors,
get hurt by boxers,
however, our neighbour’s noses
screw into keyholes, just like drills!
(Great Gogol felt by intuition
the role they play in man’s ambition.)
My friend Bukashkin who was boozy
dreamed of a nose
that grew like crazy:
above him, coming like a bore,
upsetting pans and chandeliers,
a nose
was piercing
the ceilings
and threading
floor upon the floor!
«What’s that? — he thought, when out of bed.
«A sign of Judgement Day — I said —
And the inspection of the debtors!»
He was imprisoned on the 30th.
Perpetual motion of the nose!
It’s long, while life is getting shorter.
At night on faces, pale as blotter,
like a black hawk, or pumping hose,
the nose absorbs us, I suppose.
They say, the Northern Eskimos
kiss one another with the nose
It hasn’t caught on here, of course.
+ + +
We’ve lived much too long. It’s so pleasant.
Such a thrill.
No poet gets killed for the present
which means there is no one to kill.
WHEN PIGS FLY
(W. Smith’s theme)
I will no longer love you, my fair
when two Sundays meet, neck and neck,
when the roses spring up everywhere,
turning blue as the blackbird’s egg.
When houses stands on their chimneys,
when a mouse commences to coo,
when hot dogs eat up human beings
and when I think of marrying you.
RUBBER SOULS
I hate you, rubber souls, you seem
to stretch to fit any regime.
They’ll give a yawning smile, stretched wide,
and, like an octopus, they’ll draw you tight.
A rubber man is an elusive rogue:
a fist gets sucked into the bog.
The rubber editor is scared of script,
the author is bogged down in it.
A rubber office I used to know
where «yes» was stretched to courteous «no».
I pity you, elastic crank,
as if erased, your past is blank.
You have erased many a passion, many a thought,
but you were happy and excited, were you not?...
Above the waist you are a cowardly man,
an ace of spade, and an unlucky one...
A SHAKESPEARELIKE SONNET
Tired with all these, for restful death I cry...
Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.
Sonnet LXVI
«I look around and I want to die, in earnest,
a drunkard is the only one who’s honest,
my land is being plundered, I can't like it,
I’d die before all people kick the bucket.
I want to die on hearing idle chatterers.
A Soho graduate lectures on moral matters.
A boor appears innocent and gracious,
and lust for augmentation laughs in our faces.
Those ugly creatures (did you see any?),
I want to die for they are many...
There is my friend among those mates but, really,
deserting him would be unfriendly».
I should have killed myself long, long ago,
but love for you deters me from the action,
and I repeat : «trust passion evermore»,
trust passion!
Long live the saying : «I wish I were dead»!
Love tends to cause a negative reaction;
it is, of course pernicious passion, — yet
trust passion.
Authority will fall. The selfish mind — betray.
The transport routes will be refashioned.
Believe in passion, do not leave me, pray,
trust passion!
+ + +
Flying sideways the Earth he left,
the East and West were on his left,
the North and South were on his right,
the heartbeat led him in his flight.
It was somebody’s heart which called
from a remote,
unknown world.
He saw what no one could define,
he got it, and he said: «You are divine».
And he dissolved, lost in the Crux of love.
But it was love
that he knew not of.
1987
10
What's that, flying over you,
ten comes first and one comes last?
Seven, six, five, four, three, two.…
Start? Blast?
9
Bethlehem flies to the rear?
Living feelings turns to dust?
Nine, eight, seven, six, four, three —
Start? Blast?
8
Countdown starts with ten…
Anti-counter's switched on.
Voreman, Pushkin, Budda, Zen.
Has the time of apes begun?
7
Stalin. Peter. Back to front.
Taxi meter starts to count.
There is one year left until
Russia's christened at its will.
6
Someone in «The Cloud In Pants»
is old fashioned, and he counts:
«Eight, nine, ten». Do count it right:
«Nine, eight, seven». Done in flight.
5
Building shrines, old Greeks were smart.
Nietzsche says: «In God we trust!»
Which of us involves a start?
Which of us involves a blast?
4
Hatha-Yoga. Drugs for pain..
There's no mail at all again.
Only «Goethe-Eckermann»
And «Astafyev-Eidelmann»
3
Like a horror up to heaven
the word «If» is flying past.
Countdown: nine, eight, seven,
six, five, four, three. Start? Or blast?
2
Sorry for us stupid wits,
Time of video clips and pics.
Sorry for the little kids
aged ten, nine, eight, seven, six.
1
We release what they have banned,
like «Zhivago», thrilling me.
Are there many names at hand?
Nine…eight… seven…five… four… three…
0
Slowly, in the storm of fight
freedom target moves along
like a road post on the right :
«9», «8», «7» and so on.
1
Why do we have Kitty, Levin,
Jesus Christ, Marx, Budda-zen?
Countdown: nine, eight, seven…
Ends with zero, starts with ten…
+ + +
Washed down by sunlight, the trees
quietly come into sight
reminding of feathers of geese —
Take one and write!
TO YOU
(A. Josef's Theme)
I love You so. I love You when
I feel Your back, Your voice, Your shoulder,
You shroud me with Your whole body
like waterfall or poring rain!
I love to be inside Your fate,
Your doubts and Your perturbation,
I wish Your faint blood circulation
were open, like a green garden gate.
Blessed be the fruit of good intent,
Your drowning bosom, and your lenience!
I've chosen You out of millions
just for that reason, dear friend.
Like leaves of bushes, thin and fine,
I feel Your lungs pulsate and shiver.
I hear Your entrails, Your liver,
You are all pure and divine!
Why has life taken such a course?
I only want when days break out
to see a glass, a hand stretched out
marked with a blue vein of Yours.
PORNOGRAPHY OF THE SPIRIT
A girl and her stark naked bonny
are dancing in public. They dig it.
Rejoice, it's the porn of the body!
But there's the porn of the spirit.
A man with an air of importance,
an expert in art, like a wizard,
is lecturing to the audience
revealing his porn of the spirit.
Picasso to him isn't clear,
Starvinsky's corruption of ear.
Even a whore from Paris
to hear it would be embarrassed.
Dressed up and bedecked by jewels
the millionaires pig it.
They wallow in riches like boors
revealing their porn of the spirit.
When people censure at meetings
adultery of a spouse,
demanding intimacy details,
the porn of the sprit howls.
How dare you! How can you shout!
Our habits can be so beastly!
We want it unveiled and let out
while even for two it's a mystery…
Adultery should be condemned… but
the eye in the hole, I presume,
is much more indecent compared
with what it can see in your room.
Strip-teasers and belly-dancers
have got to be scourged as wicked;
the spirit — that is the answer.
Away with the porn of the spirit!
* * *
Forgive me, Lord! Going through stages
I've known many different changes:
from a triangular, three-cornered pear
to a quadrangular headwear.
YESTERDAY JUST LIKE TODAY
My older rhymes, to my dismay,
go with a swing and how.
They were written yesterday,
which means they're written now.
I wrote to issues of the day,
enraged for evermore.
They curse and censure me to-day
the way they did before.
They're stiff with issues of the times.
To hell they all must go!
There is no end to their crimes
to-day, just like before.
The rhyme is nice, but — God forbid! —
your heroes should no more
be «epochal» in word and deed
the way they were before.
You're sitting on the window-sill,
your knees swing to and fro.
I met you long ago, and we'll
be meeting, like before…
* * *
Do not go back to former lovers,
the former lovers are all gone.
There are just copies,
like little houses,
where they used to get along.
You will be given a hearty welcome,
a dog will meet you with a bark,
two groves up on the hill will echo
the sound of barking in the dark.
Two echoes in the groves will sever
like stereo speakers split in two,
they spread around the world whatever
we have been doing, — I and you.
At home the echo will drop the saucer,
the phony echo will give you tea,
the phony echo will want to host you
whereas she ought to shout to me :
«Do not come back, oh my beloved one,
we were before, but we are gone.»
Though two amazing kicks for once
will be uncovered in response.
When you depart, and you are bound
to throw the key into the stream
the groves up there on the mount
will shout echoing your scream:
«Do not desert your former lovers,
they're perished and will never rise…»
But you won't follow the advice.
* * *
I feel I'm nearing my final destination.
The body seeks relief in a carouse.
The spirit, tired of the body, calls,
for a back up, a cup of desperation!
The world is lost in a thick wood and desert
amid grass-snakes and vipers, vicious ones.
The gossips creep out of ears, like worms.
The Truth is quite a rare guest at present.
I'm tired of waiting, and believing, too.
Oh God, when will the seeds you planted sprout?
The hour of death will find us filled with shame,
for we shall never know the truth sent down by you;
and even death won't save us, and, no doubt,
the angels will repudiate us, just the same.
* * *
The only living one among the dead,
he knew what Hell and Paradise were all about.
Like an anatomist he knew the ins and outs
of righteous Purgatory he chanced to tread.
He witnessed God. The poem, starred with grace,
like a church bell over my land kept ringing.
A poet needs awards from heaven for his singing,
what he does not need is the human praise.
(It's Dante whom I mean, of course.
Contemporaries misunderstood his mission.)
The brutal gang laughed at his poetry and prose.
Misunderstanding men of genius, I suppose,
is an unwritten law. Give me his vision —
and may I be condemned the way he was.
FATE
Fate is above me. Why should I browse?
Sleeping in dosses, an outcast, I rove.
Grief is a cellar,
that opens in every old house.
A ditch is below me and fate is above.
What did I want? Well, a life of contentment.
What did I get? Just a coffin and wreath...
Under the cradle a grave has been latent.
Fate is above me, a ditch is beneath.
Up in the sky my soul, like a hound,
howls, despaired,
the trigger to pull it was keen.
Fate has come over my family background,
and on the earth where fate is my kin.
What have I done, apart from the simple
poems I've written in passing to date?
I've been a lightening conductor for people.
Now I have broken my back. Such is fate.
* * *
Oh Georgia, a view for the sightseers!
Eternity of human minds.
You're female fortitude of rivers,
male chromosomes of ancient shrines.
THE TAVERN SONG OF ROBBERS
«I have serious liver trouble,
therefore I mustn’t drink.
As for me I’m conscience-stricken,
so I mustn’t kill, I think.»
For the ones who’re conscience-stricken
empty glasses we shall fill.
As for those with liver trouble
we shall have to shoot and kill.
MICHAELANGELO’S THEME
The holy crosses here resemble spears,
they sell the blood of God here on tap
and use a chalice as an armored cap,
while God has run out of patience, it appears.
If He descended now, — upon my honor! —
He would be seized and slashed and stained with blood;
they’d strip the holy skin off Him, tear him apart
and sell Him to the first man round the corner.
I don’t need any dole from double-dealers,
it’s not incumbent on creators to succeed.
New times bring new chimerical ideas.
I feel ashamed for future: a new creed,
a holy one, may once again bereave us
of all that’s sacred to our hearts indeed!
SELF-PORTRAIT
Unshaven and thin, with an angular face
He’s lain on my mattress
for several days.
A cast-iron shadow hangs down the stair,
the lips, huge and bulging, smuggle and flare.
«Hello, Russian poets, — his voice sounds wistful —
shall I give you a razor or, maybe, a pistol?
Are you a genius? Disdain all this chaos…
Or, p’rhaps, you will say your confessional prayers?
Or take a newspaper, clip out a bar
and roll self-reproach like you roll a cigar?»
Why is he cuddling you when I’m there?
Why is he trying my scarf on? How dare?
He’s squinting at my cigarettes… Oh yes!
Keep off me! Keep off!
SOS! SOS!
* * *
A star, he didn’t care a thing for praise.
I called those worthy of him, merely.
The voice of admiration we won’t raise
but those who censured him we’ll scold severely!
He went through the appalling doors of Hell,
the doors of God were opened for the man as well;
whereas dull creatures, men of no esteem,
have shut the doors of Motherland for him.
Oh Motherland ! You were really shortsighted
when executing your most brilliant son,
preparing yourself for rigorous perdition.
It’s bad to be away from homeland, extradited;
but there has never ever been under the sun
a better singer and a worse proscription!
THE SCALE OF LIFE INVESTMENT
First it’s cheap, and then it’s valued high.
Prices grow because of false assessment.
Value can be only measured by
the efficiency of our life investment!
Yogis need no knife to make a hack.
Scholars spend their lives on bomb invention.
Some will crush a hedgehog with the naked back
spending a decade on the projection.
What’s the prison term at mutiny and strife?
What’s the length of torment at creation?
All is measured by the scale of life —
the integral scale of estimation.
Even age it can somehow defer.
Look at the young jade, whom they call «honey» —
hundreds have invested their lives in her
as if she were a box for saving money.
Talent is the constant value scale
given to the care-free and generous
who will quench their thirst, without fail,
with the biggest gold-secured shares.
Man, don’t hide your gift, for goodness sake.
Roads are false, but death will not deceive you.
Put yourself into a single check.
You did not mistake the cash-desk, did you?
THE SONG
Sailor, my dear, my heaven-made spouse!
There is one thing that I beg of you, man:
Kiss any strangers, and give them your flowers,
love many women. But, pray, don’t love one.
These are the words that I send with my letter,
piercing land after land they will moan;
stay there as long as you wish, and you’d better
love all the countries, but, pray, don’t love one.
Give me a whistle — when tired of roving.
Held in sweet bondage, or about to drown,
play with your life as you wish, when you’re roaming,
but don’t ruin ours because it is one.
* * *
We needn’t look for reasons and excuses.
We are not apes — don’t frown and complain.
Your mind won’t understand. My explanation’s useless.
Your soul knows all. So why should I explain?
* * *
I’ll come back when you are away,
and I’ll cling to your rain-coat and blouse,
and I’ll know: it has rained night and day,
and you did go out of the house.
You would run down the porch to the gate,
then walk back to the porch feeling bitter…
It’s nice when they love us and wait,
but it doesn’t make us feel better.
MODERN NATURE
Red cows
on the asphalt road have settled.
Lazing on the asphalt pan they lie.
We drive them round
for cows are sacred!
They are loyal to the highway,
we wonder why.
«Old herdsman, we want our question answered:
Why have the cows gone mad?» «God forbid!
The point is that flies do not like asphalt.»
Those modern cows! The are wise indeed!
They got it, the sly ones! Cattle of genius!
Unlike the poor, unfortunate flies.
«The flies know that asphalt
is carcinogenic.»
Those modern flies! They are really wise!
Andrey Voznesensky
Silence!
(Translated from the Russian
by Alec Vagapov)
I want silence and peace… I want peace...
Is it my burning nerves? What is this?
What I want
is the shade of the pine
To tickle and move in silence,
as cool as a prank, keeping balance
from top to toe down the spine
I want peace…
All the sounds are off it seems.
What shall I call your tinted brows?
Understanding
is silent. No sounds.
I want peace.
Light is much faster than sound
Much too often we stand open-mouthed
The present hasn’t got name, and, no doubt,
We must live with tint all around.
Skin is also a living thing
With impressions, voices and willing
Like the song of a bird, a feeling
Is music and songs to sing
How are you,, wind-bags, tell me please,
All hands on deck in the lobby?
Aren’t you tired of riding your hobby?
Silence and peace…
We’re absorbed in quite other things:
In inscrutable nature and tints
And by caustic smell of the smoke
We see the shepherds taking a walk.
It’s evening. They boil up some broth.
They fume, still as shadows for once.
Like cigarette lighters, the dogs
Let off lights of their quiet tongues.
Andrey Voznesensky
The Italian Garage
(Translated from the Russian
by Alec Vagapov)
The floor is mosaic
like a carp.
The Night time-garage
sleeps on palace’s lap.
Motorcycles are Saracens,
or sleeping locusts in farm fields.
There’re no Paolos, there’re no Juliets
There are sweating and breathing "Chevrolets."
Like mechanics, Giotto’s frescoes
Are reflected in their accessories..
There’s plunder and war like mirage.
What do you dream of,
A night garage?
Halberds?
Or, maybe, tyrants?
or just women
from restaurants and taverns? ..
Only one bike has quieted down –
the reddest one of the young.
Why is he awake? Tomorrow is Christmas-tide.
Tomorrow he’ll be smashed to pieces all right!
Oranges, applause, all in total ...
Those smashed to bits –
are immortal!
We are not born to survive,
But to squeeze speedometers as we drive!..
Purple one, step on it! Roll!
But sorry for the racer girl…
Andrey Voznesensky
The Dream
(Translated from the Russian
by Alec Vagapov)
I walked along the bank of the Ob
along with the drake I was walking,
along the bank of my love and my hope,
with villages yelling and talking.
I was walking along with the cry of the stream,
no barking of dogs and no voices;
the 20th century in its extreme
was moving nailed up with crosses
Both in the cities and in farms
there were Ingas and Ustinyas ,
the waste will suck out their lives,
like ghouls are sucking blood within us.
A fish cried out from beneath:
"Take all my kids and all you wish for,
but leave the river as it is,
at least a trickle, for the issue."
I made my way through pines of blue
Portraying all that I could witness,
Just like the killers tend to do
Before they murder their victims.
There were Russian woods with furrows,
with their bodies slightly trembling.
They looked into my eyes resembling
a mortal man before the gallows.
The oaks were looking at the dusk:
no Michelangelo, no Phidias,
nobody else can do the task.
As well as they, who had to leave us.
.
“You man, the killer, do repent!” –
I heard the living creatures shout.
The bursts will shortly put an end
to all of them, without doubt.
"You butcher of the birds and beasts,
you build-up monkey, do come round!
You’re destroying the genial gist
of nature and the ambient background.
I couldn’t find You nearby
amidst ludicrous environs,
nor could I find myself, though I
have never tried, not ever once.
I understood there were no years
and there was no new century,
there was no time on our earth,
for it was broken off eventually ...
The earth is empty, like a nut,
and someone sang about that:
"You worm, you little man, bark-beetle,
the kind of planet you have eaten!"
... I dreamed about the entrance gate
and saw a tiny button tremble
it was a ring to hell with the intent
to kill the Earth, which it was able.
I had no other way. So, well,
I went in, furious and valorous, -
Instead of ringing the dreadful bell
I pulled it out along with wires!
Andrey Voznesensky
Nostalgia for the Present
(Translated from the Russian
by Alec Vagapov)
To other people’s amazement,
who cannot even imagine it,
it's not for the past but the present
I feel extremely nostalgic.
Like a novice that longs for God’s answers
But only has access to rector,
I devoutly beg for the access
to the present, with no mediator.
As if I have done something wrong, and
Maybe, someone around
nostalgic for living homeland,
I shall fall on the open ground.
There’s no one to break and split us,
But when I embrace you, you see,
It really gives me the jitters
as if somebody takes you from me.
The joiner's shop in the garden
Will not redeem isolation.
I do not set my heart on art, and
for the present is my invocation.
When I hear the hateful oration
of the man that has gone astray,
I want original, not relation,
and long for the present, not yesterday.
All is of plastic, and even of tatters.
I’m tired of living in contour.
We will be gone but what really matters
is little church haunter ...
When idiotic mafia, all to a man,
laugh in my face in obsession,
I say: “All idiots are past and gone.
The present is growing perception”.
Black water from the tap gushes,
Red, settled water is running.
Red water from the tap gushes,
I’ll wait for genuine water’s coming.
.
What is past is past. For the best. And
like a mysterious thing, I bite it, -
the nostalgia for the present, - .
which is due. But I shan’t find it.
Andrey Voznesensky
The Old Photograph
(Translated from the Russian
by Alec Vagapov)
Oh nihilist, my grangrandnihalist!
The gendarmes on horseback are waiting.
The girl’s stand-up collar from stylist,
like a white water-lily, is waving.
I’m afraid for this forest lily,
and the plait, such a ripe, such amazing plait!
Open your eyes, girl, do not be silly.
For revolution, you have to wait.
“I’m ready, - you say, - and that’s what will matter”.
When I get through the ages, the lilies of white
all of a sudden in the pond will shudder
Like beheaded necks of schoolgirls all right.
Andrey Voznesensky
Saga
(Translated from the Russian
by Alec Vagapov)
In the morning you will awake me,
Barefooted, you’ll see me out.
You will never ever forget me.
You will never see me around.
From cold I will shield and protect you,
and I’ll I think, "God help me out!
I will never ever forget you.
I will never see you around”.
This dam and these creepy waters,
this Admiralty, the Stock Market House…
I will never forget these quarters,
I will never see them arouse.
Chestnut cherries under depression
Do not blink, and do not shed a tear
Coming back is a bad indication
I will never see you, my dear.
Even if, as Hafiz asserted,
back to earth again we’ll come down
our ways will be somehow diverted.
I will never see you around.
Our current mutual confusion
will be minimal, it appears,
in face of future delusion
of two living things with dead zeros..
Two phrases will sway up and down,
Silly words that have flown from here:
“I will never see you around”.
I will never ever forget you, dear”
Andrey Voznesensky
The Italian Garage
(Translated from the Russian
by Alec Vagapov)
The floor is mosaic
like a carp.
The Night time-garage
sleeps on palace’s lap.
Motorcycles are Saracens,
or sleeping locusts in farm fields.
There’re no Paolos, there’re no Juliets
There are sweating and breathing "Chevrolets."
Like mechanics, Giotto’s frescoes
Are reflected in their accessories..
There’s plunder and war like mirage.
What do you dream of,
A night garage?
Halberds?
Or, maybe, tyrants?
or just women
from restaurants and taverns? ..
Only one bike has quieted down –
the reddest one of the young.
Why is he awake? Tomorrow is Christmas-tide.
Tomorrow he’ll be smashed to pieces all right!
Oranges, applause, all in total ...
Those smashed to bits –
are immortal!
We are not born to survive,
But to squeeze speedometers as we drive!..
Purple one, step on it! Roll!
But sorry for the racer girl…
Andrey Voznesensky
Silence!
(Translated from the Russian
by Alec Vagapov)
I want silence and peace… I want peace...
Is it my burning nerves? What is this?
What I want
is the shade of the pine
To tickle and move in silence,
as cool as a prank, keeping balance
from top to toe down the spine
I want peace…
All the sounds are off it seems.
What shall I call your tinted brows?
Understanding
is silent. No sounds.
I want peace.
Light is much faster than sound
Much too often we stand open-mouthed
The present hasn’t got name, and, no doubt,
We must live with tint all around.
Skin is also a living thing
With impressions, voices and willing
Like the song of a bird, a feeling
Is music and songs to sing
How are you,, wind-bags, tell me please,
All hands on deck in the lobby?
Aren’t you tired of riding your hobby?
Silence and peace…
We’re absorbed in quite other things:
In inscrutable nature and tints
And by caustic smell of the smoke
We see the shepherds taking a walk.
It’s evening. They boil up some broth.
They fume, still as shadows for once.
Like cigarette lighters, the dogs
Let off lights of their quiet tongues.
Click here to see Andrey Voznesensky's article on Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Click to go to Yevgeny Yevtushenko's poems
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