Joseph A. Brodsky

The English Poetic Translation, by Anna Polibina-Polansky

Voice Without Music (Part 1)

When you recall in distant lands

Of me - this phrase will be up fancied.

It is no prophesizing, and

The tears are the arms of glances.

If you cannot imagine me,

The tale will help you up, however.

The epilogue - your eyes will meet.

The tears are ultimate endeavors

To help your pain. God's summer sweet

Will find you sighing. Stop it, lady.

Do contemplate both seas and meads.

Your zeroes, for you, will be waiting.

Your pride, my blindness, long regrets.

It sounds dear, to my ear.

I'm fair, and so I can bet.

I was your poor shield, I fear.

Don't sigh. The future's calm and dark.

We know little of the future.

At least, we are apart, it's stark.

It is impossible, to cure it.

O tempest! Cries come into words.

Interpretations will be sued, so.

Imagination aches, things hurt.

Simplistic - quoirs of the rude song.

Shakir-zade, her sparky tales,

The epitaphies made in fear...

Oh snowy pine-trees, do not fail,

So, to console her soul dear...

I lift up prayers, all for you,

In triumph of Euclidus' angle.

Of no flesh, are only angels...

You are a world away, I knew

All from the start - so blank and tangled.

Tr-ed in 2020