Monday, May 26, 2014

B. Okudjava

Here birds don’t ever sing,
Here trees are scarce in spring
And we alone grow into earth,
Shoulder to shoulder linked.

The planet spins and smolders, heated,
Through smoke, we watch our country burn.
This means at last one victory is needed,
Just one for all of us. The price is no concern!

Not far away, the deadly shelling’s starting,
But it’s in vain at any rate.
Cast doubt aside,
Into the night
Departing
Is Paratrooper’s
Tenth and separate
Brigade.

Just as the fight dies down,
New orders now resound,
The postman will go mad,
As we cannot be found.

Up overhead a crimson rocket’s speeding,
Machineguns’ fire won’t adjourn.
This means at last one victory is needed,
Just one for all of us. The price is no concern!

From Kursk down to Orel
The war spins in a whirl
And right up to the gates of enemies
My brother, we are hurled…

We will look back once we’ve succeeded
With disbelief at every turn,
But here, today, one victory is needed,
Just one for all of us. The price is no concern!~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In Russian:
http://stalingrad65.vstu.ru/songs/no-birds-singing

Saturday, May 17, 2014

V. Nabokov

Lilith
By Vladimir Nabokov


I died. Aeolus beat upon
The trees and shutters, full of heat.
I walked on down the dusty street
with fauns beside me. In each faun,
I made out Pan. I contemplated:
“This must be heaven, I have made it...”

From sunlight hiding, shinning softly
with russet armpits, standing bare,
a girl was looking from the doorway
with water-lilies in her hair.
She stood up - slender, womanly,
her nipples - rosy, I recalled
one day in spring, still of this world,
I sat behind the alder-tree
observing closely, all perplexed,
the town miller’s younger daughter, -
as she emerged out of the water,
a beard was drying in her legs.

And now, in yesterday’s attire,
the coat I wore when I was killed,
I, with a playboy’s lustful smile,
walked to my Lilith downhill.
Over her shoulder with a distant
green eye, she cast her gaze on me,-
my clothes caught fire in an instant
and turned to ash.
And I could see
a shaggy Greek divan nearby,
and pomegranates, and the wine,
and frescoes painted on the wall.
With two cold fingers, lacking shame,
the child took me by the flame:
“Come over here,” - she softly called.
Without effort or compulsion,
but slowly to extend delight,
she spread, like wings in just one motion,
her knees right there before my sight.
With those seductive merry eyes,
her face, thrown back, appeared so ardent,
when with a frenzied bang of thighs
I broke into the unforgotten.
Snake in a snake, vessel in vessel,
inside of her, I started sliding
and in me, wondrous bliss was nestled
and it was growing and abiding -
when, suddenly she pushed away,
ran back and closed her legs in haste,
picked up some veil on the way
and put it up around her waist
and full of strength, stuck in-between,
so close to pleasure, - I, dismaying,
rushed toward her and started swaying
from strangest winds. “Oh, let me in,” -
I yelled to her and grew aware
that I was on the street once more
and nasty bleating children there
were staring at my mace in awe.
“Oh, let me in,” - and there amassed
Goat-legged crowds. “Do it fast
or I’ll go crazy!” I still yelled.
The door was silent. Pained and beaten,
before them all, I spilled my semen
and understood, I was in hell.

1928
Berlin

Saturday, May 10, 2014

Nation, by M. Tsvetaeva

Unmoved by bullets, confrontations,
Unmoved by songs of celebration!
And so I gape, with admiration:
“What people! What a nation!”

A nation – such, that with elation –
A mouthpiece of vastness stationed –
A poet, gapes with adoration,
Dumbstruck: O, what a nation!

It won’t submit to occupation,
Or to the luxury its shown, -
You try to beat it with starvation?
Try starving – granite stone!

(It’s there – it cuts a stone with care,
Its grammar won’t grow stagnant…
Engrained inside, it waits! – it flares! -
A garnet, makes - a magnet.)

… Took radium out of its chest,
And gave you - a donation!
Alive, – with Europe still abreast –
To bury such a nation?

If you yourself are – such, my Lord!
You’ll do it as I’m willing -
Don’t sanctify it with your horde, -
Breathe life into the living!

1939

***

In Russian:
http://slova.org.ru/cvetaeva/narod/

Saturday, May 3, 2014

N. Gumilev



By the fireplace

The shadows gathered… The fire dwindled,
Standing alone, he gazed through the window,

Arms folded, eyes fixed on the distance,
He spoke of his sadness with bitter persistence:

“I’ve entered the depths of the lands yet unknown,  
My caravan moved eighteen days in a row;

Menacing cliffs, woods, and, time and again,
Strange towns emerged from behind the bend,

And often, extending from them far and wide,
Incomprehensible howls would echo outside.

We cut down trees, dug ditches, and watched
How, in the evening, the lions approached.

But there were no cowards there in disguise,
We shot at the lions and aimed for their eyes.

I dug out an ancient temple from sand.
A river was named after me in this land.

In the country of lakes, five tribes, all in awe,
Submitted to me and followed my law.

But now I am weak, as if under sleep’s reign,
And my soul is afflicted with a terrible pain;

I’ve now comprehended the meaning of fright,
Four walls surround me, I’m buried inside;

The flash of the rifle and the splash of the wave
Can’t break this chain, I can never be saved…”

And a woman there listened and patronized
With a spiteful triumph concealed in her eyes.