KHLEBNIKOV, Velimir
Wind is Song
Wind is song
Of whom and of what?
Of the sword's longing
To be the word.
People cherish the day of death
Like a favorite daisy.
Believe that the strings of the great
Are strummed by the East these days.
Perhaps we'll be given new pride
By the wizard of those shining mountains,
And I, of many souls captain,
Will wear a white snowcap of reason.
Where The Waxwings Used To Dwell
Where the waxwings used to dwell,
Where the pine trees softly swayed,
A flock of airy momentwills
Flew around and flew away.
Where the pine trees softly whooshed
Where the warblewings sang out
A flock of airy momentwills
Flew around and flew about.
In wild and shadowy disarray
Among the ghosts of bygone days,
Wheeled and tintinnabulated.
A flock of airy momentwills
A flock of airy momentwills!
You're warblewingish and beguilish,
You besot my soul like strumming,
Like a wave invade my heart!
Go on, ringing warblewings,
Long live airy momentwills!
On this day of blue bears
On this day of sky-blue bears
Running across quiet eyelashes,
I divine beyond the blue waters
In the cup of my eyes an order to wake.
The silver spoon of my extended eyes
Offers me a sea buoying a storm petrel;
And I see how the Russian bird flies
Through unknown lashes to the roaring sea.
A sea of heavenlove has capsized
Someone's sail in the round-blue water,
But the first storm is hopeless and gone
And from now on the journey is spring.
People in love
People in love, casting
long looks, long sighs.
Beasts in love, raising
dregs in their eyes,
choked on their bits of foam.
Suns in love, covering
night with a weft of earth,
dancing to meet, to mate.
Gods in love, forming
the trembling universe
into verse,
like Pushkin his passion
for Volkonskaia’s maid.
Translated by Paul Schmidt
Moscow, who are you?
Are you charming or charmed?
Are you forging freedom
Or chained?
What thought knits your brow?
With the world of conspire.
Perhaps you’re a window, giving light
Into another time,
Or an expert cat you’re:
Do sciences order to crucify,
Under sharp razors, the clever scholars
Who’re congealed amid their pupils
Near an old book
On the writing table?
Oh, daughter of the ages,
Oh, powder barrel – The break of your ties.
The night is full of constellations
The night is full of constellations.
What advent, what intelligence
of freedom or restraint
shines in your wide pages, book
above me, what fate must I make out
in the wide midnight sky?
Translated by Paul Schmidt