Selected poems 3

1. The Ship Off Course

The ship has lost its course.
Water has broken into the holds.
The waves have thrown the captain overboard.
The navigator perished in the night storm.
The ship goes on —
uncontrolled.
Passengers have locked themselves in their cabins
and quietly wait for death.
The ship flies
through the raging Pacific,
straight toward the reefs
of some unknown island.
Why did the ship lose its course?
Was it inner quarrels and disputes?
Or an external force —
the storm —
that led to this:
the ship sails on,
no one knows where.

2. You Move the Cursor to the Past

You move the cursor toward the past —
but it is no longer there.
It has evaporated,
dissolved,
risen as a thin mist into the sky.
There is no past.
We were deceived.
No last summer.
No winter.
No suffering.
No love.
Even time has begun to race
as if afraid of pursuit.
Soon we, too, will not be here.
And there will be no one left to chase.
The future is unstable, unreliable —
at any moment you may sink
into the swamp of illusion.
The past has vanished.
We cling to the thin branch of the present
so as not to drown.
Nothing exists.
What was it?
Life — as illusion.
We remember nothing.
Our former life lies in fog.
God, like a magician, distracts our eyes
so that a rabbit may leap from the hat.

Mortgages.
Loans.
Debts.
Empty refrigerators.
Old torn boots.
Round and round for years.
But you can draw a simple thread
from point A
to point B —
and live
along that thread.

3. The Castle Where You Never Lived

The castle where you will never die.
The castle where you never lived.
The castle to which you will never come,
where no road leads
between village roofs.
Winter.
Snow falls.
Silence.
And you stand, watching
as the surveyor walk

4. One Summer Day

One summer day
floating —
a summer day hovering
like a flock of seagulls.
It merges with the tiny soul of a dragonfly
moored by a cold, crystal river.
Winding like a snake
it drifts across the field,
tracing an amber line from the forest.
To fly like a feather in the sky
without feeling weight.
To float like a water lily in the clouds
like a stewardess between worlds.
Angels carry me away in sleep.
I fall asleep on an overturned boat
like on a dish,
in the quiet
of the Voronezh wilderness.
I lie in sand
like a lion in tall grass —
free.
It was a boat —
now it is broken.
To burn in the sun
and dissolve in kefir —
what could be better?
Perhaps only
to fall in love.