"Я всегда твердил, что судьба - игра"
(Иосиф Бродский)
I have always argued that fate is a game,
that, what is a fish for us, if caviar is the same,
that the Gothic style will triumph as a thought,
as an ability to get high while avoiding a shot.
I'm sitting by the window. Outside is the aspen.
I was falling in love deeply. However, not often.
I was sure that a forest is just a part of a tree,
that, what is a whole maiden for, if there's a knee,
that, tired of a raised by centuries mire,
the Russian eye will rest on the Estonian spire.
I'm sitting by the window. I washed the plate.
I was happy here, but now it's too late.
I wrote that a lamp by the floor is disturbed,
that love, as an act, is devoid of a verb,
that Euclid didn't know this, descending on a conus,
things are acquiring not zero, but Chronos.
I'm sitting by the window, reminiscing my youth.
At times I smile, at times I twist my mouth.
I said that a leaf destroys a bud,
and that a seed that’s falling into the bad ground
will not sprout; that meadows and glades
are examples of onanism that Nature illustrates.
I'm sitting by the window hugging my knees.
My own heavy shadow with me socializes.
My song is devoid of a melody,
but it can't be sung in chorus. No oddity
that as a reward to me for such verses
nobody puts their feet on my shoulders.
I'm sitting in the gloom; like an express
the sea noise behind the curtain spreads.
The citizen of the second-rate epoch, I'm proud to
acknowledge as a second-quality product
my best thoughts, аnd I'm giving them to coming days
as an experience of fighting the stuffiness.
I'm sitting in the gloom. And it's not as tight
in the room as the gloom outside.