Translated by Diana Lewis Burgin
To Nina Vedeneyeva
1.
No enigma is too subtle,
Nor a cleverness too cunning
To elude my intellect, –
Why then do I shy away from,
And deflect my thoughts and glances
From the corner on the left?
Why? Because it is the phone zone,
Zone of mental stupefaction,
Zone of sheer absurdity;
Laws of gravity and bodies
In repulsion and attraction
Function there peculiarly.
I should ask a physicist to
Give me scientific reasons
For this strange phenomenon:
What exactly is the fateful
Force that rules me in that corner,
Unremitting, troublesome?
Should I call her? Come what may, I
Really have to be more daring, –
“Give me Moscow Central, please”..
This stern physicist won’t scold me
Since I call for scientific
Knowledge, not to shoot the breeze.
January 1932
2.
I like a blind woman, find my way by touch
To your voice, your warmth, your fragrance…
In Pluto’s garden I shall not get lost:
Where you went in is East, West is where you vanished.
All right then, lead me, lead, lead
Even through all the circles of hell
To the sandstorm blowing up ahead, –
You’re the only Virgil that I need!
February 4
3.
I dream of you, I dream of pleasure…
– Baratynsky
Your eyes are wide open, you mouth clamped shut.
And I feel like shouting at you rudely:
“You senseless woman, you! The other way about, –
Shut, shut your eyes, open you lips to me!
“That’s the way, tormentress… At long last!
Let us not make haste in vain.
Leave rushing to the callow youth, –
For kissing I like the Five Year Plan!
February
4.
Breeze out of Viovocala!
Oh my gray-haired darling,
Open up your window wide –
Let your gray locks be ruffled,
Let your heart start to tremble,
Let it warm up inside!
Tropical Viovocala!
Where the natives go barefoot,
And shun straitlaced clothes.
Where the women’s lips are redder,
And who has not cherished
The most fiery hopes!
Generous Viovocala!
Where they kiss without palaver,
Where this is the women’s creed:
When you kiss, you feel happy,
When you kiss, you’re not smashing
Against a palisade of teeth.
February 24
5.
It starts right in with chapter five
(And there must be a hundred twenty) –
Their words stop short as if tongue-tied,
They have no secret nook or cranny
To hide from fate, or from themselves,
Or from the silence that’s ensued, –
And silence, and their meeting’s, well,
Five minutes to a rendezvous!
But then comes – night…And they’re apart,
And in their beds they toss from yearning,
And burned completely through their hearts
A kiss’s embryonic burning…
Oh, darling! Here’s the bookmark where,
Right here, the place that I stopped reading,
(I reached my doom with time to spare)
I can’t reread from the beginning!
Again about how they drank tea,
Sat decorously side by side,
Exchanged quite accidentally
A glance that’s sort of crazy-eyed…
Come on, together, let us read
A long, long romance slowly-paced.
You want to make a start with me?
But only straight in medias res!
February 24
6.
A head of silver gray. And youthful features.
And Dante’s profile. And a winged gaze, –
And sorrow runs its fingers over my heart strings:
Ah but the love I feel is out of place!
But be a little curious, just listen,
How aging women suddenly go mad…
Yes, I’d like to be a little stronger, drier,
Like old wine, – you know, I’m old myself!
If time could just evaporate this sweetness!
I’ve had enough. I do not want to want!..
Happy those who in their youth can manage
To have their fill of sparkle, froth and song…
I’ve come too late. The curtain has been lowered,
The hall empties. Not for intermission, – it’s the end.
Just in the gallery there one fool’s still raving,
The more despairingly, the more intense.
March 10
7.
Well you’re not good, and you’re not evil,
You’re simply dry, like standing wood, –
I bring you seven stars of poems,
And can’t imagine why I should.
Just look at whom I’m handing
My Ursa Major over to!
To sit upon God’s right or left in
Heaven’s not in store for you.
It’s not that you are cold, just cool,
It’s not that you are hot, just warm.
Why have you drenched my fantasy
Like an enormous tidal wave?..
But do not understand me wrongly!
I don’t take back my gifts without
A bit of cursing and lamenting, –
I love you! So it can’t be helped!
March 13
