ANDREY VOZNESENSKY
Collection of Poems
Translated by Alec Vagapov
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Andrey Voznesensky. Collection of Poems. Translated from the Russian by Alec Vagapov Click to go to bilingual version http://zhurnal.lib.ru/w/wagapow_a/ | ||
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ANDREY VOZNESENSKY Collection of Poems Translated by Alec Vagapov |
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MY FRIEND'S LIGHT |
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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. |
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HER STORY |
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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". |
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+++ in memory of B. and S. |
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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. |
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RUSSIAN-AMERICAN ROMANCE |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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ABUSES AND AWARDS |
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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. |
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A BALLAD (THESIS FOR A DOCTOR'S DEGREE) |
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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. |
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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. |
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WHEN PIGS FLY (W. Smith's theme) |
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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. |
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RUBBER SOULS |
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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... |
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A SHAKESPEARELIKE SONNET |
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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! |
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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. |
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1987 |
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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... |
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Washed down by sunlight, the trees quietly come into sight reminding of feathers of geese -- Take one and write! |
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TO YOU (A. Josef's Theme) |
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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. |
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PORNOGRAPHY OF THE SPIRIT |
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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! |
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* * * |
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Forgive me, Lord! Going through stages I've known many different changes: from a triangular, three-cornered pear to a quadrangular headwear. |
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YESTERDAY JUST LIKE TODAY |
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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... |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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FATE |
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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. |
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Oh Georgia, a view for the sightseers! Eternity of human minds. You're female fortitude of rivers, male chromosomes of ancient shrines. |
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THE TAVERN SONG OF ROBBERS |
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"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. |
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MICHAELANGELO'S THEME |
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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! |
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SELF-PORTRAIT |
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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! |
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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! |
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THE SCALE OF LIFE INVESTMENT |
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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? |
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THE SONG |
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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. |
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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? |
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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. |
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MODERN NATURE |
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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! |
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