From a triptych dedicated to Vanessa Benelli Mosell

I don't know how to deal with your music. −

Your music knows how to deal with me.

I don't know how the grand-piano works. −

I only know it makes my heart work.

Yet, I am sure there's somebody tiny inside,

Winking at a beautiful-beautiful girl,

Sitting on a piano-stool.

To Vanessa Benelli Mosell

She does exist, I love to think.

Such thoughts and cares are my daily duty.

From seas of Harmony she likes to drink,

The white-maned horse, bestowing upon us Beauty.

AN ENGLISH TRIBUTE TO "WAIT FOR ME"

BY KONSTANTINE SIMONOV

Wait for me despite the sorrow.

Wait for me today, tomorrow.

Wait, when others do not wait.

Wait for me − it's never late!

Wait, when winter's raging bitter,

Wait, when rains wash autumn's litter.

Wait, when there is no rain,

When the sun says: "All in vain";

When all friends refrain the same;

When all excuse is only lame.

Wait when even my closest kin

Wear all an unbelieving grin.

Wait for me, and I'll come back.

I'll put down my rucksack:

Where are our fire-woods to burn?

Where are the glasses to raise for my return?

And let me kiss you and embrace, my dear. −

I feel that you are so sweet and near!

I don't care what expects us − sorrow or mirth.

You've just been waiting as no one on Earth!

AN OLD BULLET

I know, once you flew to kill.

A piece of lead − you're now nil!

MY ARC IN THE DESERT

Raindrops are falling

on my head,

raindrops are falling.

(A song)

Raindrops are falling

on the desert of my forehead.

I am a coiled snake

absorbing the moisture,

uncertain about my beginning

and my end,

but certain to kill,

and pile up the dead,

for them to scratch the sky

with their toes and

to tear down the clouds,

until the Sun

comes out shining again…

Amidst blood-stained wreckage

of a huge ship with her name

"Arc" on a missing board,

engulfed by the desert,−

I am a master of survival,

unhappy to be solitary,

happy to be a Solitaire of Death!

***

She was grotesquely pretty

And picturesquely nuts.

I wished to touch her titty,

But didn't have the guts.

***

There is an opening in the clouds,

Just only raise your head.

There is a star without her shrouds,

The star of the Living, the star

of the Dead.

Whatever her omen will tell me,

I won’t divert my eyes.

I’ll take all her verdicts tamely,

Because I have seen the skies!

***

How much of this am I to take

To be a real man?

How many, Lord, a William Blake

Have I in me to span?

To what a height have I to rise

To see the world clear?

On what have I to feed my eyes,

And what have I to hear?

Tremendous do these questions seem,

But as I start to climb,

There reaches me a distant gleam,

There comes a distant rhyme.

And I succumb to their calls,

Though hard is my ascent.

I feel I fear no walls,

So long the calls are sent!

***

We start, we go, we forget.

We try, we seek, we bluff.

We bear, we kill, we bet.

We die, when it’s enough.

We rise, we think, we start anew,

Reform, transform, forecast.

We build, we raise, we launch a crew.

Then see, it’s been our last.

And so we start, we go, we forget…

CLOCKS

I am surrounded by clocks.

I wear socks with printed clocks.

I’ve also met some clever cocks,

Who knew a lot about clocks.

When I’m besieged with expert docs,

They take my pulse and look at clocks.

I tell them, that my darling’s locks

Are all bespangled with tiny clocks.

And when I was in ancient docks,

They showed me some shipwreck clocks.

Dali, who painted pan-cake clocks,

Deserves a couple of cigar blocks.

When on the door I hear someone knock,

I go and let in one more clock.

If you are the one, who only mocks –

You know nothing about clocks!

AUTUMN

To Vera Trokhova

…And deciduous trees,

And the sun on the wane.

No moths, no bees –

Just a lonely crane,

Stitching skies with its beak

To catch up with its flock.

And young ice in the creek.

And more time in the clock…

SUMMER

I hear life

flowing in my veins,

I am flooded with wind,

and surrounded by trees.

The blissful summer is softly

rustling by.

Русский вариант:

Я слышу, как жизнь

струится по венам моим.

Меня обтекает ветер.

Меня обступают деревья.

Тихо шумит

блаженное лето.

***

I've had my dues,

Just to improve my views,

And snatch your land

With a weaponed hand!

***

I wonder when,

In what attire ,

You'll tread my glen

And set on fire

All our dreams,

And all desires…

But I'll beg for streams

On all your fires!

PARTING WITH SUMMER

Triangular leaves

from triangular trees

parachute softly down

into rectangles of puddles.

From my rectangular windows

I bid good-bye

to ovals of summer…

HEMINGWAY

I know what he felt,

when he was drunk.

But I don't know a devil

how he wrote prose.

I now know that a tree

isn't its trunk,

but the branches are these,

and not those.

***

Sleep you well, my tiny deer.

God is far, God may be near.

May be, you will find your groom

In my little lonely room.

RUSTY CARTRIDGES OF WAR

Rusty cartridges of war,

who and when forgot your purpose?

For seventy years you've lain in earth,

as if in graves − in grass-bemoaned trenches.

Your bullets are unspent, unsent,

And their targets are long-forgotten,

Killed in the war or dead in peace at home.

Yet I still feel the warmth of those hands

which failed to charge with you

those old ineffective Russian rifles

destined to shoot against

speed-firing "Schmeissers" .

What scared or excited

your short-lived possessors?

When was it? In spring?

Or in autumn, when birch-trees

were yellow and maples red?

Or in the worst Russian season, winter,

when birds fell frozen in flight?

Your shape remains, your powder

is still ready in your shells.

And when I touch you, my soul bursts…

The shot you have withheld…

***

Traumatic memories of Russians,

lying deep or not so deep in the ground,

or floating disorderly above

our intoxicated heads −

pertain to rain and snow, and the forest,

and to the vast cauldrons of the cities;

they do not belong to a particular possessor:

they are like clouds over clouds,

with layers of grass, graves and earth between.

No eternity enters their domain −

they are just engulfed by eternity.

ON THE RUINS

… And that was life. It's no more, my dear −

the people are gone and their homes, too…

Here were the voices I don't hear.

But there was life − I know it for true!

***

When we were young, tremendous fortunes

did we master.

Then we referred to a little trot of birds,

as if to our uniting cluster,

Then to a milky smell

of bovine herds,

Then to stars washed out

of dark spaces,

As pebbles from an enormous

sea,

And under the stars −

to kisses and embraces,

To add a branch

to the family tree!

PART AND WHOLE

Some part of them have gone to war.

Some part of them are no more.

Some part of them are home back,

Seeking happiness they lack.

Some part of them are limping lame.

Some part of them have gone to game.

Part of them are on the dole. −

Many Parts, but never Whole!

***

Out of my nook

I look

Upon the sun, upon the moon,

Upon the night, upon the noon.

And what is strange:

The more I look,

The more I am inside my nook!

***

To a young girl

Through the transparent

glass of age

I am looking at you −

unapproachable…

TWO HAIKUS

1.

Summer has just come.

My heart has turned into a bird

And starts taking wing.

2.

Rain-drops drum on the window-pane

Punctuating autumn.

Departing birds don't look back.

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