Dollar is a root of all evil

* * *

I have only one amusement left:
Fingers in my mouth and a merry whistle.
Bad fame has rolled out,
That I am a lecher and a troublemaker.

Ah! what a funny loss!
There are many funny losses in life.
I am ashamed that I believed in God.
It is bitter to me that I do not believe now.

Golden, distant distances!
Everything is burned by the death of life.
And I was obscene and scandalous
In order to burn brighter.

The poet's gift is to caress and scratch,
A fatal seal on it.
A white rose with a black toad
I wanted to marry on earth.

Let them not work out, let them not come true
These thoughts of rosy days.
But if devils nested in the soul -
It means angels lived in it.

For this joy of turbidity,
Going with her to another land,
I want at the last minute
To ask those who will be with me, —

That for all my grave sins,
For disbelief in grace
They would lay me in a Russian shirt
To die under the icons.


1923