''Softer now, praise!..''

Softer now, praise!
Don't slam the door,
Fame!
An elbow
      - And a table's corner.

Hubbub, stop!
Heart - get calm!
Elbow - and brow.
Elbow - and thought.

Youth - for to love,
Old age - to get warm:
No time - to be,
Nowhereto go.

If even a nook -
Away from the rest!
Surge the faucets,
Clamour the chairs.

Mouths are speaking:
With porridge crammed.
"For all the beauty"
Are giving out thanks. 

If you could just know,
The close and the distant,
How much for my own
Head I have pity - 

The steppe - the casemate -
And God in the horde!
Heaven - that's where -
Nobody talks! 

Skirt-chaser is cattle -
Shopkeeper is grainy!
My God - he's the one
Who shall give unto me

- Not time, not at all!
For days are all numbered! -
But merely four walls -
Where to keep my silence.

January 26th,
1926
Paris

''In the dawn...''
In the dawn - the slowest blood,
In the dawn - the realest silence.
Spirit from the flesh and bone asks for a divorce,
Bird unto the cage of ribs a divorce provides.

Eye it seeth - invisiblemost wides,
Heart it seeth - invisiblemost ties...
Ear it drinketh - unheardmost vows.
Over a broken Igor, Div cries and cries...

- March 22nd, 1922

“My Shape Entire...”

My shape entire carried pain -

Alike a mountain in my skirt -

But all this pain across my body -

Ways to know my love.

 

Just like a field split up inside me

Split for a thunderstorm.

I'll recognize my love by distance -

So close to each and all.

 

And like a hole that gapes in me,

Down to the sappy base.

I'll recognize my love by veins

That run from feet to face.

 

It's moaning. With a mane-like draft

The Hun swirls all around my form.

The tearing of most faithful strings –

Is how my love I'll know.

 

The throated, yes, the throated rust

Of some loud gorge's living salt,

A running rift is how I plan to recognize my love,

But NO! –

I'll know it by the trilling

Across a body whole.

 

To Boris Pasternak

 

The di-stance: oh, the versts, the miles...

We were ar-ranged and s-eated,

So that we act much softer now,

Onto the earth's two corners.

The di-stance: oh, the versts, far ways...

We were unglued, unsoldered,

And crucified, two arms were parted,

But didn't know that it's a mold

Of inspirations with the tendons...

They didn't feud us, but diffused us,

Flaked us down...

A wall and a moat, unlayered.

Resettled us, like eagles –

Conspirators: the versts, far roads...

Did not unsettle us – but scattered.

Across the slums of earthly widths

The placed us all, like orphans.

How many Marches have now passed?!

They broke us - like a deck of cards!

 

 

“A tousled star...”

A tousled star,

Hurried into nowhere,

From the strangest nothing.

A lone wanderer amidst other sheep,

Out to those flocks golden-fleeced.

Like jealousy, onto us rushing -

The hairy star of the ancients!

- 1921