To be a poet — is the same

As when by truth of life

You scar your own tender flesh,

And with the blood of feelings

Caress the souls of others.

To be a poet — to sing freedom,

As you know it best

The song of night gale doesn't hurt him -

His song is always the same.

Canary mimicking someone's voice -

Pitiful and silly bauble

World needs real songs — so sing like only you can

Even if you sound like a frog.

Mohammed has overdone it in Quran

When he forbade strong drink

That is why the poet will not stop

Drinking wine before he goes to the torture

And when a poet goes to his lover,

And finds her lying with another

He, kept by life-sustaining liquid,

Won't send a knife into her heart.

But, burning up with jealous recklessness,

Will whistle on the way back home

"So what, so I will die a vagabond,

On this earth such fate is also known."

Serguei Iessenin

I do not regret, and I do not shed tears,

All, like haze off apple-trees, must pass.

Turning gold, I'm fading, it appears,

I will not be young again, alas.

Having got to know the touch of coolness

I will not feel, as before, so good.

And the land of birch trees, - oh my goodness!-

Cannot make me wander barefoot.

Vagrant's spirit! You do not so often

Stir the fire of my lips these days.

Oh my freshness, that begins to soften!

Oh my lost emotions, vehement gaze!

Presently I do not feel a yearning,

Oh, my life! Have I been sleeping fast?

Well, it feels like early in the morning

On a rosy horse I've galloped past.

We are all to perish, hoping for some favor,

Copper leaves flow slowly down and sway...

May you be redeemed and blessed for ever,

You who came to bloom and pass away...

  Serguei Iessenin

(1924-1925)

Hooligan (1919)

Rain is cleaning with wet brooms

Willows' poop in the meadows

Wind, you can spit armfuls of leaves -

I am a hooligan, just like you

I love it when the blue thickets,

Like bulls with heavy step,

Stomachs wheezing with leaves,

Soil the knees of the tree trunks

Here it is, my red flock!

Who could sing to you better than I?

I can see the twilight licking human footprints...

My Russia, wooden Russia!

I am the only one to sing to you

I have fed with berries and mint

the sadness of my beast's poems

Let the night bring the moon's pitcher

Draw up the milk of the birch grove!

Looks like the church near by

Wants to strangle someone with the hands of its crosses!

Something sinister walks the hills,

Drips thief's spite into our garden

But I myself am a bandit and a cad

And by blood — a horse thief

Who ever saw how boil in the night

Legions of the bird-cherry trees?

I was born to the night in the blue roads

To stalk the dark with my knives

Oh, The yellow bush of my head has withered

I got sucked into the poetry prison

Sentenced to turn the grindstones of the verse

In penal servitude of feelings

But don't fret, crazy wind,

Keep spitting leaves in the meadows

The label "poet" won't erase me,

Even in my songs, I am, like you, a hooligan.

 Serguei  Iessenin

(1921, translated from Russian by Alec Vagapov)

Good-bye Baku

Good-bye, Baku! So, I shall never see you…

And I’m afraid of fate, my southern land.

The heart is under hand and it’s so near.

And now I feel two simple words: my friend.

Good-bye, Baku! Oh, Turkic sky, good-bye!

The blood is very cold, I’m weak, you see…

But I can promise you, I’ll keep in mind

The tender wave of Caspian great sea.

Good-bye, Baku! Good-bye, my simple song…

For the last time I’ll hug my friend, I’ll stroke

His head. It’s like a golden rose. So long

It’ll nod to me in choking lilac smoke…

Serguei Iessenin

1925

(Translated from the Russian by Alexei Artemov)

The Stars

Stars little stars, you're so high and so clear!

What have you got in you, so fascinating?

Stars, deep in thought, so discreet you appear,

What is the power that makes you so tempting?

Stars, little stars, you're so dense and so solid!

What is it that makes you so great and alluring?

How can you, heavenly bodies, afford it?

Stirring a thirst and desire for learning?

Why, as you shine, are you nice and inviting?

Into your wide open arms, on the instant?

Pleasing the heart, so benign and enticing,

Heavenly stars, so remote and so distant!

Serguei Iessenin

1911-1912

(Translated from the Russian by Alec Vagapov)

Tempos sombrios

Bertolt Brecht

Realmente, vivemos tempos sombrios!

A inocência é loucura. Uma fronte sem rugas

denota insensibilidade. Aquele que ri

ainda não recebeu a terrível notícia

que está para chegar.

Que tempos são estes, em que

é quase um delito

falar de coisas inocentes,

pois implica em silenciar

sobre tantos horrores.