Perekop
To my dear and eternal volunteer
And kind will
Near – one!
Dunkle Zypressen!
Die Welt ist gar zu lustig.
Es wird doch alles vergessen.
[Dark cypresses!
Too happy is the world.
And will be forgotten all.]
Will in ten years forget!
Will in twenty recollect!
SHAFT
Like not Czech!
Like not typhus!
Someone: Eh!
Someone: Alive
Be Kolchak…
Sunshine.
Salt marsh.
Perekop –
Our. Seven-verst callus
On the enemy eyes.
Land, like salt, was dry,
Was dry, like dust.
Not to hooves, not to shovels
Knocking: crutch – on bones.
Land was dry – like a treasury,
Sensing the wick!
Oh, soon? Oh, for long?
Boring? Boring? Boring?
All is willed, all is salty:
Land, food, water.
Yawn… shoot…
To end – to end – to end…
What? Did you drink? What? Did you eat?
Anchovies! Anchovies! Anchovies!
My son will throw – to decrepit Europe
(Hero – here not in business):
Like my Dad – in Perekop
There are six weeks – hedgehogs of firs!
Mom will say: To Evshem – glory!
And consumed but was not eating.
To these hedgehogs – seasoning conscience.
And will understand – in vain, since he’s little!
The fed up azure.
(Did with her fall asleep
Homer!)
Was dry, like salt,
Was dry, like bread –
That, with the unsoaked tear
Ration: The Kremlin’s gift.
There was earth – before thunder
Like ground needed to be.
A joke! In burrows!
After villages!
That we – are moles?
Or chipmunks?
Is there gunpowder still
In powder flasks,
And salt in
Salt shakers of conscience!
Unceasing – the sweat
Did not pour: like alcohol, dried.
Ground was dry like rick,
Was dry, like stack.
Not a leaf rustled.
Flag like lash was hung.
Land was dry, like cell,
Which had to burn.
The spade. The boot.
Bone. To pour?
Digging – through – digging.
Thus – thus – through.
Glowing forehead.
Tank dried up.
Kop – pere - kop.
Thus – through – thus.
May Three Lights reward you,
The ancient shaft of the Khan!
Sculpted – after Mark’s children,
And I received - Armenian.
Wanted into eyes, sat into eyebrow,
Sat at random and sideways.
(There was dug up the newness,
There was dug in the beingness).
Soon you, the tender body:
“To everyone, to everyone, to everyone!”
In sunshine – study of the soldier:
The-aim: Seven!
Soon you (eh, not you!)
Walked it – walked she – walked they.
At the advancing enemy,
Bat-allion! Aim!
Not to walk shaft, to north with the forehead:
All Russia – face.
In temple – the last kinship:
Shemilovka village.
In shoulders – ponds of Sivasheva,
Salt, in all mud.
From him the nickname to our
Sitting has gone:
Shemilovka’s. Not to us, not to them!
In other times
Let God give to other places
Such names!
Kursk – with act, Kerch – with drinking,
Yes, but we sit in the village
Shemilovka.
Bottom – station,
And thus – Walk-Floor?!
To pans – salt, to fields – promise.
Ringing! A gold sack!
Walk – fire, walk – dust:
Like – fire – walk!
Gallipoli: tank? Filled –
With grief. Was - white.
Gallipoli: nude? Field:
Soul – nude?.
In Shemilovka – nausea,
Like not flag over that staff –
Mark’s regiment – headquarters.
Black with embroidery of white
Flag over headquarters.
Fate over the flag.
Red is sickle, white is cross.
Perekop – passage –
Anvil of Russia!
Orderly – on the shaft,
Under orderly – nests,
Over orderly – stars.
Countless stars.
Machine gun nests.
ORDERLY
Straight stature – just ribs –
God – once, Mark’s - two.
Ivan? Sergei? Fedor?
Tyumen? Kharkiv? Moscow?
No one. Nameless.
(For fighting with Trotsky
I took
The wooden cross).
Mark’s – simply.
Cossack? Student with Bronn?
Especial caste.
Not count, not baron,
Not prince. Enough - Mark’s.
What from? From all –
Russia. Tyumen – Penza –
Countryman? – Will shoot!
Countryman? – Pay with that!
***
As a wife I call my husband
From Vyatka to Taurides –
To orderly – heard,
To orderly – seen.
Not trail not pits
Of such precious one –
To orderly – known,
To orderly – we know.
Alone among Russia
With holiness and Taurides.
The wife to husband dreamt –
To orderly – seen.
All behind-forbidden. A thousand
I would cover – like on sleepers.
That on tearing to the lion –
Orderly on the rampart.
Count leaves. Stations.
And again, with brave step.
And Crimea, the Khan’s land,
And to the right and to the left.
Thus – to the left, thus – to the right.
Long is the way, kind hour!
Poet, look in the sky!
Look into both, soldier!
With che-rished combat –
Pancake with black border –
Do not defame the caps:
Cut, the night with eyes devour!
Extended in the sweat,
Shot through in the side –
Do not fix the shirts:
Cut, eat distance with eyes!
Not profit for the soldier –
Head! Would there be
Straps on the shoulder!
Cut way with eyes, eat!
One, and tomorrow two –
On the left sleeve
Are patches not dishonor!
Russia: to eat with eyes
What?
Eh, as I’m alive,
Rasp-berry filling!
Fresh cucumbers
Don’t eat with eyes – eat
Night! Night-my-rest!
Rus-sian man,
One and for hillock –
Don’t eat with eyes – I eat
Russia.
LILAC
With thistle (gray-white,
For us, blue in Russian land)
Officer – after food.
(Steppe, sagebrush – don’t forget).
For ill fed (with hay!)
And with the sinewy like oneself,
Cheerful (still
With Don!) like all of us there.
Under commissar would go – the bay.
For the Markov’s – white light:
We do not have the black shades,
There is not a stallion white.
With thistle – merrier,
Stallion! Far? Till the booth!
Of course whiter than white
Is the stallion, carrying Markov’s!
With salt marsh, where very knock
Of the hoof: Herodotus –
In eponymous shaft…
Grandson
Of the shaft: the town.
Shaft – ours, and town – no one’s,
And for this – wiser
The law – of plague, poor bag,
Schemilovka – poorer.
Thus the very one – with chalk
And deceased, like plague –
After food – riding.
Strict, I would not say – solemn.
With Andrey’s face – Ostap,
With the warrior’s soul – Andrei.
Who had said – I’d call Yegor,
Was – I will call Sergei.
Thus they will remain – on side
Argument – will grow with grass!
The stargazer chamber,
Thus will be the one who rides.
Thus they will remain – discord
In the thistle – whole!
The stargazer chamber,
And the same officer…
Around feather gras sounded and dried,
Mud rotted and was quiet.
Why did you not, thistle,
Awake all the devils?
***
Better ask bread from the bald
Steppe – won’t be embarrassed!
Better from the cape ask bread
In the sea, and butter of Sivash!
Eh, nice-dear – to us as guests
All, unlived in the hut?!
After cottage cheese – on the churchyard
More, after the eggs – on the shaft
And more frequently, and better!
The people the nobles scattered!
After the lamb? Drop it, lieutenant!
Each one is a ram to himself!
Thus the simple bread has become
Cake! To leave the place,
Just as much… Salty – maybe.
Not the salty ones if you please?
Well, what, lieutenant? The news?
Officials, lady officials…
Till the thread – not the money…
Refrain: we’ll hope for you!
Prettier than Easter, Christmas…
For you, all the hope you about –
Hell – between two flames!
You – all the hope of ours!
And life moans, and priest echoes:
“For Perekop advocate!”
Casket – for everyone,
And for mistress – vases.
Leave – trouble-ruin!
Like for sinus to Christ!
Callous soul, do not see,
How this sinus is thin,
How countless ribs –
What at the seahorse!
And still – carries the holy Rus
In the bosom…
Of Christ.
***
Knocking, not before any,
(To us in Russia – all!)
With empty bag and stomach,
Along perforated walls…
Won’t give a bit of bread –
And tomorrow you’ll come back
Life for them! Bear, bear, camel!
Sivash, be silent, be silent!
Ring, ring, thistle!
On the beans would be good –
And not salted, and oh
So salted…
Broads!
Explosion! Loose, like peas!
Like to peas – sparrows!
Commotion in the cities,
In cities kids
Play.
(Richer than us
Grow, stronger than us!)
Last yard. (For the last time,
Stallion!) – “Who’s there?” – “Now!”
After food. To eat?
No, it means, from shaft… - What?
After food: what’s there to eat?
While who eats? As if – tears
To you, mister lieutenant? I sow,
I fight, till the slave’s crust…
I do not ask alms:
Crying?
Would have – been – glad –
When he cannot take himself!
Two: day and night to tell?
With eyes of weeper – mother,
And songwriter’s – daughter.
He looks: From sky like a stallion
Migrated to you?
Himself – after pork? After millet –
Himself? And a cook!
To such one sinful in a soul?
To stand – in deadly hour of life!
Then I am asking for forgiveness.
And we (widow) and us –
Child… Wherefrom – rises
The bulge! – the cry of swan.
Last yard, space behind him.
Stand, sir
Lieutenant! (Free from feelings
Speech, like lilac blooms!)
And whole limb, and whole garden,
And whole bush, and whole honeycomb
Of lilac – in horse tans,
In white-swan canvas.
Last hit (hit feasible)…
Farewell, mister
Lieutenant!
Not till women’s eyes.
Azure – sagebrush – flintstone…
And not even turning around,
Fed lilac to the stallion.
BRUSILOV
Not the seagulls, not the falcons –
Guests started to fly to us.
Wherefrom, flock? Where, storks?
Fall straight on the head.
Catch bird! Throw spade!
“Pole crossed into our land!”
Shouting through the page whole:
“Border has been crossed by the foe!
To all, who didn’t freeze in heart,
Call: Don’t hit in the rear –
To homeland! Ones – pets –
Of fields! Own people – let’s consider!
What for yarn through wattle fence?
Pole: single target
For single aim
Volunteers! Officers
Russian! Humbled counter –
Passions – on the Polish front!”
More grasses,
On them – whirl:
Right is – right:
Dashing is Pole!
Storms in wave
On the forests:
Enemy not Pole:
Commissar!
Thanks, Brusilov, for flattery and honor!
But God forbid us! While there is there
Blood in veins – and tears of mothers! –
We will die – we won’t forget these doors
Hour by hour, after hour an hour
Of awaiting. Refusal. Goes?
All the land’s youth makes you a leader!
How we awaited you – thus you wait!
Treasury building’s rain and trembling…
How we awaited you – thus you will wait:
Won’t wait – like with foreheads lowered –
We did not await Vozhat.
Did not take command over that
Regiment! “Gangs” – here so with chaps
Nicknamed Soviet works?
Why do you call bandits into your
Rows? What do I fight for, brother?
There is not a sound – Russia!
Hush! Will explain!
Not to be and not to have been,
That Russian officer –
For RSFSR!
Russia – where we:
Now – Crimea.
Russia are we:
We – that – to them?!
Someone’s, flour
Hides with a grin,
Mouth, without sound:
So how?
Right?
DEFLECTORS
Your power, fellows – of the bar.
Our – brothers’, soldiers’.
Officers’, landlords’ –
Our – light, whose – God knows!
Farewell, strap! Farewell, honor!
Itself whatever it is
Workers’, peasants’!
With princely machine, with sickle we swagger…
My-Vasya’s-your –
Comradely power!
Your power, boys – loud:
Slaps, dents.
You in the mug, and you: I obey!
Guards, slaps.
And the head above –
The ensign’s wife.
Your power, boys – is heavy.
Ours – with jokes, with concessions.
Are you alive? Are you alive?
With visits, intermittently.
By your youth –
Compassionate – to people.
You lie – “the lines of front”!
Threw the village to the bears,
And turned with bears.
With ideas, with comedies…
Throw the pancake! Grab the hat!
Yesterday evening – batman to ensign,
Boorish brat in morn,
Yourself – nobility!
Your former power, boys.
Ours – mined, arisen!
Diaphoretic, fortress.
Free, swinging.
All your ways, think!
Only cross the field!
Our power, boys – free!
Dig the ground, or as warrior
Go – Majesty to yourself!
Bolshevik, Bolshevik.
The lethal-gun
Throw into ground, shout, “Mine!”
Our power, boys – how?
Run with troop! Run with regiment
Onto the rye contentment!
(Wolf in volunteer’s overcoat.)
Be, wool of cotton,
Into mouth taken,
Brother for brother!
Boys!
Ri-i-ight!
***
Beauti-ful is the power of friends!
Por-ridge, passion, boils!
Mit-ten with mit-ten:
Collude the country women!
Sweet-ness – theirs,
And sweat – ours.
Cross.
You understand?
Sweat – ours,
And to us – power.
Do you understand?
I understand.
Some places:
One way.
Put down the cross!
Into chest!
Hold, Paul!
Hold yourself!
You won’t sell?
I won’t sell.
See, Vasya, they will batter -
Where into the sea depart?
Here – swamp, dike – there.
Where into the sea retreat?
But not to swim across the sea!
Only to cross the field!
But not to cross the sea!
Only run across the field!
Farewell, Crimea! Hello, Russian land!
I will get there to the bread!
Hello, Russia! Farewell, Crimea!
Potatoes we will devour!
Tomorrow morning – while you miss –
Will not read two soldiers.
Beautiful is Russia! To judge – sin.
Now – two, tomorrow – each.
***
Officer’s pancake
In darkness – thorn.
I’ll walk through alone.
Eh, not – in pair!
(Go, God, with white and red,
That – for lodge, other – for running instead!)
The general’s child,
I will come across – but bald.
For this reason I’m alone,
That there is not second one –
Fanatic’s white deed –
Officer’s – in whole army!
After all “repay I will
For Russia and the Tsar!”
How with the lips
To pronounce: I give up!
(To hold: I run!)
After all “thieves”
To which foe
To shout: one of ours!
“From that world fighting I will come!”
To me the Markov’s – to give up!
Without expensive straps,
Zen of steel,
I’ll come – but shade,
I’ll run – but “he.”
Bolshevik headquarters,
Bolshevik forelock.
I’ll run – but coffin,
I’ll go – but corpse.
If there’s time – farewell, banner!
With them, with us – heart forever!
Although sick-sick,
And poor-poor –
And all of us! Like
We into “them” turn?
Stop! Without battle you’ll fall from two legs!
Am I not suddenly – a friend?
Trampled – shook off –
But three times “rot” –
How on us
Glow-worm to heat
A machine gun? Like corpse, dropping
The jaw: into the self – I aim!
The fears final.
Then – headlong.
Enemy – these Poles?
Brusilov is right.
Although bad – but hours!
Although fierce – but brother!
Minsk – ours or Polish?
Brusilov – holy.
And let sorrow in chest –
Dwin’s waters!
After Belarus
Who else but us…
After bloody deed,
I’ll take it, never mind!
Who not like white
After the Russia white!
And like before God –
You hear and see God! –
With the kind warrior
To stay I swear!
That with grandfathers’ fields
Poured Dwina!
And the good will
Everywhere – one!
Tomorrow morning – while they check –
The officer won’t read.
And well the overrun!
Which – will judge God!
VRANGEL
To the right, from space…
In blue, bluer than Trinity …
Jumping from the motor!
The soldiers assemble hastily.
Shaft with one wave
Taken – to the map whole!
Equally with a flail:
Well done, eagles-Markov’s!
From edge to edge
Breathes – grows – lasts –
We wish hello,
Your highness!
In clever black
Circassian, in a black hat.
For you sword and cross:
We won’t go to shameful world!
To fight – thus to fight!
To beat, eagles – beat thus!
Glad to attempt,
Your Highness!
With thunder in the calm
Of fields: Did not sit in vain!
(Above each one -
Not two – by head?)
Earlier than frosts
First – buzzing in Moscow…
Fairy tales and dreams
Clearly superior –
Here he, avenger
Of dungeons, sculptor of battles –
In black Chechen woman,
With hand on handles
Of-white, of-right
Deed: Hurrah!
RAID
Full shaft of soldiers,
Full shaft of heads
Screwed up, and on
Shaft – “and health
To lie! Without count, and you – seven!”
To north ten planes.
Sky full of spokes,
(Why eye didn’t cock)
To look – like birds,
Not to look – like bees.
Offensive – happened!
First bees, first swallows.
Eh, so on Moscow
Thus! – Let God!
To each ponytail
Eye! Forehead! Hand!
Flies – world to him in a nutshell!
The army is suspended in whole!
Shake, see, year’s
Load. Brest, return!
Thousand poods
Of rainbow hopes!
Hold, dragonfly’s wings!
What for you is tank of gas!
They gave a ball –
Happy-well?!
The shaft they passed by –
Into village directly:
Mistress – Red Army…
Falling down, going down…
Lowered! Crackling
Of shooting. Behind him the thunder
Of firing. Clubs behind him:
Smoke. Behind him pillars…
What bow sends to
Machine gun – the plane!
Which – beats with brow
To the plane – machine gun!
Burns the red hotel –
Village Pervokonstantinovka!
PROJECTOR
On the shaft – a new sound,
New age, new friend:
Long-sighted, long-sighted.
The enemy has – a new enemy.
There is eye, there is no eye.
On the shaft – a new century:
On the foe – eye, see! –
To induce light and fear.
Ray, not sleeping for us.
Ray: three thousand eyes
Of wolves! Whole stove!
Light – in three thousand
Marriage candles! Well, and where –
How – on the Red star?
Set up the telescope!
(Finger, sheaf of a projector).
You will sweat! Take off your shoes!
Licks the steppe – swamp – Sivash.
With eye – fast, with temple – short line:
Wink, reverification.
The white lope, the white pants –
Thought – here – and there!
The white pancake, the black edging –
The whole front of prisoner!
Aim is clear, clear is distance.
Shaft without sleep, sleepless foe.
For them not to lie, not to lie.
Night like day, ray like sword.
We – in darkness, enemy – naked.
Like at broad – the hem
We lift up in all –
Types of seen –
Distance.
Sin. Above – ghost:
Cain! – Here! – Cain, where
Is your brother? With hoarse,
Like ours, voice: not brother’s keeper.
Angel: I-rub! Sleeping: Up!
Thus, in full light,
In nature of bodies and deeds,
We’ll rise – those, all - we’ll rise:
Nameless – grandees – geniuses –
All – from Vrangel to Lenin!
(And Denikin, Anton…)
We’ll see – he will crash.
Echo of chalk stripe:
Double shot.
One expense!
It – there!
Two flights
Two pomegranates:
You till the
Red dawns –
Past the shaft –
In school mountain.
New explosion, new sheaf.
Perekop is healthy and alive –
Like child in sheets!
Overshot in hundredth time!
We pray – pray, all
Steppe, in width full
Of light cover!
See through Moscow!
Depose the crow of coffin
At the head of ringer Ivan!
BEGINNING
Day – sleep or reality?
Well, congratulate, brothers!
With what? With that, with this and you:
In hour. Secret order.
Explosion. Spark into barn!
Shhh… only two
Of you! Everywhere-there:
Shhh… only to you…
To you? Only you!
After the tanks? And you,
And I. Cavalry – to rear…
(Day: rotted – remember!)
And faces of soldiers!
In Sochelnik – fellows:
They bevel the eyes,
They do not request.
Biting the lips –
Plums-sweetness,
They don’t tell,
Tear the belongings.
How to eat bale!
Not to laugh insane
Suddenly, ammonia-alcohol –
Nostrils wide open!
***
More passionate than rendezvous,
Lighter than matins…
From shaft – and far –
From bowery to bowery –
With rye abundance,
With grain rain –
Where we drew with finger –
With our feet we’ll make way!
Despicable handful?
To vigil listen!
Over the ten-verst
Map – we’re all here!
Lennox of the colonist,
Parting of the guards,
And moustache here, and baldness here,
And simply beaver –
Of military edge,
Of military tonsure.
With garden – with melon –
From island to island –
Under the shouts: great!
Under the ringing of settlers –
All, all conquered
Ocean waters.
Of the steppe. And – with us
Space! We’ll move – and be moved!
Which names!
Kakhovka… Lyubimovka…
In the very sound
The lying down success.
Like sister’s hands
In premonition of those.
Shuffled with feet:
Zhdanka! Birch tree!
For long on the map
And in the air already –
Under the shouts: Well!
Under the stroke: great
God! – All conquered
Continent
Sixth. – Will be buried the homes!
Shadow on map, with trace – into pood –
Sigh, cough of a tact.
Mister lieutenant… thus…
Still once more… Genuine need! –
Machine guns…
(Yesterday cleaned)
LAST TEA
Fire burns.
Smokes the pot.
Last ration.
Tea last.
To tell you in melting?
That tea had been coffee.
We keep the blood:
Have burned out the oats –
That coffee. Not in this juice, brother,
That – tea, and in it: Farewell it be!
Oat, and thus hot water
Empty: Farewell – thus the tea.
He snores – we hear.
Belt pulled on tight,
We sit, knocking with boots:
The final day of the seat.
He snores – boils
The kettle – he doesn’t let his eyes down.
And angst bites at the heart:
The dugout’s final hour.
Waited for us! Had guarded us!
(Buzzes like bumblebee) young man
We leave once, won’t lie down once,
(Fire) – burn, bed!
With embraces, with knitters,
Widow – into flames,
Honored, on the couch
The dry grass flies…
Beauty in us! The heat in us!
Youth – boldness and woe –
We leave once – we don’t lie once –
Let no one lie down!
(To Turkey – sickle, to Serbia – cross:
Find churchyard where there’s none Russian) -
And in the heart drills the angst,
And in the stove the grass crunches.
And there’s no bread, and there’s no shoes –
If faith is – Army is!
And in the sip the salt scrapes,
And in the pipe twinkles ash.
He’ll blink – and no. Will he or won’t he kill?
Forgot – or not? Maybe boils?!
And anchovy growls in the gut,
And in the stove puffs the grass.
There is no soap, there is no bath –
Find whiter than Markov’s host!
And in the heart – Moscow rings,
And in the heart – Moscow boils…
(Poured together – like voices in choir,
Like hair in front:
Moscow – angst – anchovies – salt –
Spurs – roof - grass).
It will boil – thus to drink, not shave the beard!
There is no tea, no teapot.
And anchovies tear at the throat,
Cornet boils up: Boil, in the end!
To pour angst – anchovies – salt –
To pour raster – all!
And strange, brother! Or swaggering, brother?
People – wondrous people!
Like waiting for bath, like waiting for manna,
Boiled up – nobody is drinking!
One: To us and Lazar
Not to sing, while intestines
Aren’t greased! Demanded –
All?! Your kettles!
There is – the Russia calls
This the dandelion flower.
Like captain on water that boiled
From both cheeks did blow.
Blow, captain!
That the whole vat
Was pumped out!
That all the anchovies
Be eaten!
Thus last-one!
Drink till bottom!
Drink till bottom!
Drink – till – bottom!
Odes – not a string –
The turn alone.
Sooner will blink
The magnet arrow –
From north.
Gay, wife!
Gay, dear one!
Drink till bottom!
Drink till bottom!
Drink – till – bottom!
Our bread ancho – vies!
Grass our logs!
No crumbs, no chips!
Such is the omen:
Rushing into battle,
With self – and after self –
The crumbs not to take,
The crumbs not to leave.
To intelligence:
One mother –
One death!
Drink till bottom!
Drink till bottom!
Drink – till – bottom!
And hot, and pity, -
To teas – you – tea!
Tin – couch –
Dugout – goodbye!
They dug you five days,
They lived in you hundred days,
Nights in you – howled
Though! Though swore! – slept
Still…
To complain not to God, not to headquarters.
Like with coat got used, like with broad we coddled.
Carts will pass –
And to us turn-fast.
Thus into silence –
Choir, pull up!
“High-water, abundant,
Poured far and wide,
Eh, our Kuban dear,
Our great hero!”
***
Distances rush
Sappers rush
The fire fumes
The terry fumes
Which hour?
Which hour?
Which hour?
Soon, dammit!
Coming late!
Coming late!
The hour, they say,
Back, they say,
Like ones reconciled!
(Pregnant ones:
“Sooner it be!
What with the time?”)
Say, Perekop Patericon
I create – clean is my gain.
One soul to four,
Just hours to four.
(Say – listen!)
Darkness - deed.
In hour - exit.
Time – seven.
Juncker, sit!
Counted fingers.
To all five
Damn - beaten!
(Devil – though with torment
The Halleluiah
To God!)
And so –
On the side?
Our north – edge,
On north – flock
Way, north – spores’
Ringing, north – moan…
The final share
The final tea
The final choir
The final dream.
EXIT
Arise! Arise! Arise! Arise!
(Waking whom – all at once?)
Saddle! Saddle! Saddle! Saddle!
Pedestrian, yourself!
Lying in mess – above, parking – in trot,
Plowing – in assembly, stretching – in storage.
The very soul – and thus in smell
Of English shawl to the heels.
We war on foot, we die on foot!
The promised day, two-colored pancake.
Pulling intestines with a belt,
We adjust the carbine.
Tsars – tsars – tsars – tsars
All for you, Russia!
Sooner! Sooner! Sooner! Sooner!
Well – are all, sir?
Terry? There is! Cross on the neck!
In pocket letters rustle…
The final quivering sitting.
In final time last look
And Juncker sat by the side
Of master – in the house:
On the pile of treasury deeds –
In one, bags – in the other.
(Turning into the shelf the plank –
Here she was joyful!)
The empty shelf for shaving –
Shards of the life
Of soldier…
And further – night,
And further – wildness, and further – steppe.
And further – dare! And further – might!
The last bundle in the stove…
***
Pitch-black darkness. Only sowed
Are the eyes. Happier – having closed.
Carts, steps, hooves –
Shaft is alive with hearing, with sound alive.
Order not to smoke, not to shuffle,
Not to strike: with ears – see!
Not to neigh – to the horses, not to spit –
To people: not to breathe, not to be.
Shaft. Blurted out coffee maker –
Shaft! Boil through all edges.
The anthill awakened –
Shaft: the white ants!
And with step – with full unseen
Overcoat, iron in seams,
Past the unmoving cart –
Ahead – regiments in the dark.
And darkness – darkness of us! – really you do not hear,
Russia? Stomping like full flock. (Deaf - foe!)
On hearing – a hundred and fifty thousand,
(Like light – would not start two!)
And with step – like after coffin
They walk, after cart with wood –
After each cart – six ghostly
Numbers with God!
Not to smoke?
To shuffle. Thus in mystery -
Deed. In silence
Extreme – extreme – extreme.
No – no – no –
(Swam? Walked? Slept?)
In si – lence
Complete, complete, complete.
***
Sides, that did not breathe,
Pulled in, like flutist – cheeks?
How with ours! With Latvians –
Battle! Glory to Sivash Cheek!
The heart, that they didn’t go nuts,
Chased far from Kursk…
Like with a shawl, with pitch darkness
Covered… Post? Bush?
Croup? Torso? (Ilion’s shades –
In battle!) Suddenly, grass not accepting,
Trotting in overshoot… - Who? – Darkness –
To dark: “Hundred of horses. – Thee?”
And – laughed the horse!
Laughed – the skin tears!
Sell, beast! The grin of the pest –
Bone. Swearing of the mounted. Sheet
Of whip. Sucked in the hundred
The darkness. – All. – And again like in hold.
The good wind sends to us
Russia: oncoming – the noise relates.
And noisy – wheels, steps…
And languid – the rumor has passed,
That – noisily! Although we aren’t barefoot:
Two thousand pairs of boots.
We drink tea – in Kharkiv,
In Kursk – for breakfast.
Here is the mark
Of Markov’s!
Ahead, ahead, and – hello,
Kremlin! To take vengeance? To make bows!
Hands over – gives up – will give up
The night. Stop. The columns’ part.
And tea, and tea in overlay –
And you did not drink for how long?
The final looking back
For shaft – collapse – got lost.
Lead, lead, Yegor –
Light – maps across
Russia! At school mountain
While still – the flashlight
Burns. Into inky, pitch
Night – the game of dreams:
As School instead –
The leaning mountain!
But till the leaning mountain –
Eh! Suddenly, in two steps, like elephant
Swaying… Column –
Stop. We’ve arrived. Regiment.
In ray of flashlight, over the very
Hillock – like mage – like mystery –
To which unknown gods
Calls the telephonist.
Thorn – and anew…
Horse sniff – and anew…
Snoring – and anew…
Headquarters of division!
Headquarters of division!
Headquarters of division!
(Of the last Mohican –
Call!) Along telegraph own –
Faceless giants
With shadows till the very edge
Of earth.
All, all we’ll cover
With bodies – behind the shades!
With deeds! Regiment – with rest.
Onto the middle (very –
Temple!) To boots and to sweat
Familiar – of the fields –
Thus the plowing – infantry! –
The priest of the regiment.
Brothers, here is one
Extreme bid!
For the third year
Abel is fighting Cain.
Have been passed
Hundred versts? And homeland
The third awaits.
We’ll remember: “our Yelets!”
We’ll remember entry into Kroma!
But heavy
Were the misses,
And, bleeding the road,
Instead of Kremlin of gold –
Crimea. You are called
By the whole Russia of God –
As volunteers!
The good will,
Brothers! In eternal hail –
Pussy-willow entry!
Holding sword tight,
Tighter – cross,
Branch…
Not with raven
In white tunic,
With God’s warrior,
And not with avenger –
To battle! Thus rainbow chases woe.
May Russia be joyful!
White on black in darkness
Flight: forage swing.
Sigh of multiplicity.
And help you God!
Wild? Comprehend later!
Next to sleeping enemy
(Tomorrow – debt demanded it –
That there won’t be…)
It was not
Briefer than us.
Our
Father!
But – second nature,
Speech of deed and speech of world –
In speech of spiritual father –
Speech of father-commander,
Col-onel’s gray hair:
Fortune of whole homeland,
What – ours! Millions
Not-red, not-green,
What? – hours! Generations –
Suc – cess in battle!
Commanders of regiments!
Drive apart the regiments
Be ready to fulfilment
Of battle task!
And first will fight in battle –
Of heart. Till ringing of ear!
In half-voice are given
Commands, and regiments
Come apart. – Quietly – Exit,
You?! - What? - Cannot! – Is.
Brother! Fiery cracker –
Above! Once! Well and two! And carry
Them account. Your palette,
Hell! Suddenly – not in ears – in chest –
Sound: Break through the wire – and –
That! Break through the wire –
That wire! Who has not been –
He has not lived.
Till the moment, when all sky
Flickered, and we did not thus
Blink, till stars – so bright,
That – you pour tears or light?
Eh, young-commander-light-Markov-
That he did not live until - enough?!
Stop! Stop!
In fur hat,
In sim – ple
Took the bear
Coat – this!
Plow man - along land plowed,
Not Tolstoy,
General-Markov.
Young! Young!
No wrinkles, no bald spots.
Enough – happy
With the very devil!
Sol – dier:
Along plowed land – pedestrian.
Matchmaker, brother
To your Markov’s.
Ears will grow in the earless –
Hummed, sang, swelled!
Louder, than under shirt
Has amused, has worked.
Right to the left in sky in glow!
“Sparrow night” you’d say
Bam!
Drums! And horses neigh –
As all said something,
Besides: All-good Lord!
All-good Lord!
Lord!
Help! Lord
Help! Lord
Help! Lord!
Divine might – in – great!
Care – ful! Wire!
Help – yours – fast:
In the same side,
Wire. – In Russia? – In Russian land!
Crimea! You are dumfounded.
***
Through the day – rode on horseback
Those – flow-roll back!
It became visible: in that
Night twenty fifth of May
With families in thousands – alive
Is God! Looked-didn’t blink!
Beaten on their head
Is tenth army.
In brackish Sivash -
Latvians, cry of Latvians! –
Orphaned Latvian children,
Drowned –
Lotuses
See! Lead nowhere! No
Latvians – not theirs, not ours.
For eternity of eternities
Poured in: Latvian: Sivash.