Αρχείο κατηγορίας Intercultural Poetry

Regina Derieva, I Don't Feel At Home Where I Am

I Don’t Feel At Home Where I Am

I don’t feel at home where I am,
or where I spend time; only where,
beyond counting, there’s freedom and calm,
that is, waves, that is, space where, when there,
you consist of pure freedom, which, seen,
turns that Gorgon, the crowd, to stone,
to pebbles and sand . . . where life’s mean-
ing lies buried, that never let one
come within cannon shot yet.
From cloud-covered wells untold
pour color and light, a fete
of cupids and Ledas in gold.
That is, silk and honey and sheen.
That is, boon and quiver and call.
That is, all that lives to be free,
needing no words at all.

Marina Tsvetaeva, You who loved me with the falseness

You who loved me with the falseness

You who loved me with the falseness
Of truth – and the truth of lies.
You who loved me-beyond
Anything!-Over the edge!
You who loved me beyond
Time-Right hand, wave!
You love me no more:
The truth in five words.

Anna Akhmatova, The sentence

The Sentence
And the stone word fell
On my still-living breast.
Never mind, I was ready.
I will manage somehow.

Today I have so much to do:
I must kill memory once and for all,
I must turn my soul to stone,
I must learn to live again–

Unless . . . Summer’s ardent rustling
Is like a festival outside my window.
For a long time I’ve foreseen this
Brilliant day, deserted house.

Lermontov, Prayer

Prayer

At life’s most testing moment, when
the grieving heart’s replete,
a prayer that is most potent then
I call up and repeat.

There is a power, suffused with grace,
when living words combine,
a breath beyond the commonplace,
that holds a joy divine.

Like dead-weight slipping from the brain
now fades my unbelief –
I trust again, shed tears again,
and such relief, relief…

Alexander Pushkin, The Wish

The Wish
I shed my tears; my tears ? my consolation;
And I am silent; my murmur is dead,
My soul, sunk in a depression?s shade,
Hides in its depths the bitter exultation.
I don?t deplore my passing dream of life —
Vanish in dark, the empty apparition!
I care only for my love?s infliction,
And let me die, but only die in love!

Anna Akhmatova, White Night

White Night
There will be thunder then. Remember me.
Say ? She asked for storms.? The entire
world will turn the colour of crimson stone,
and your heart, as then, will turn to fire.

That day, in Moscow, a true prophecy,
when for the last time I say goodbye,
soaring to the heavens that I longed to see,
leaving mI haven’t locked the door,
Nor lit the candles,
You don’t know, don’t care,
That tired I haven’t the strength
To decide to go to bed.
Seeing the fields fade in
The sunset murk of pine-needles,
And to know all is lost,

That life is a cursed hell:
I’ve got drunk
On your voice in the doorway.
I was sure you’d come back.