A poem by Alexander Block – Alexandre Block – Alexandr Blok – Александр Блок
(1880-1921)
The restaurants on hot spring evenings
Lie under a dense and savage air.
Foul drafts and hoots from dunken revelers
Contaminate the thoroughfare.
Above the dusty lanes of suburbia
Above the tedium of bungalows
A pretzel sign begilds a bakery
And children screech fortissimo.
And every evening beyond the barriers
Gentlemen of practiced wit and charm
Go strolling beside the drainage ditches —
A tilted derby and a lady at the arm.
The squeak of oarlocks comes over the lake water
A woman’s shriek assaults the ear
While above, in the sky, inured to everything,
The moon looks on with a mindless leer.
And every evening my one companion
Sits here, reflected in my glass.
Like me, he has drunk of bitter mysteries.
Like me, he is broken, dulled, downcast.
The sleepy lackeys stand beside tables
Waiting for the night to pass
And tipplers with the eyes of rabbits
Cry out: “In vino veritas!”
And every evening (or am I imagining?)
Exactly at the appointed time
A girl’s slim figure, silk raimented,
Glides past the window’s mist and grime.
And slowly passing throught the revelers,
Unaccompanied, always alone,
Exuding mists and secret fragrances,
She sits at the table that is her own.
Something ancient, something legendary
Surrounds her presence in the room,
Her narrow hand, her silk, her bracelets,
Her hat, the rings, the ostrich plume.
Entranced by her presence, near and enigmatic,
I gaze through the dark of her lowered veil
And I behold an enchanted shoreline
And enchanted distances, far and pale.
I am made a guardian of the higher mysteries,
Someone’s sun is entrusted to my control.
Tart wine has pierced the last convolution
of my labyrinthine soul.
And now the drooping plumes of ostriches
Asway in my brain droop slowly lower
And two eyes, limpid, blue, and fathomless
Are blooming on a distant shore.
Inside my soul a treasure is buried.
The key is mine and only mine.
How right you are, you drunken monster!
I know: the truth is in the wine.
A few random poems:
- Goals – How to Get Everything You Want by Brian Tracy – Review
- Lord, what a Beloved is mine! by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Николай Гумилев – Какою музыкой мой слух взволнован
- Sonnet 22: My glass shall not persuade me I am old by William Shakespeare
- Back-View by William Ernest Henley
- From The Long Sad Party by Mark Strand
- A PASTORAL SUNG TO THE KING by Robert Herrick
- Far Within Us #6 by Vasko Popa
- Ode On The Pleasure Arising From Vicissitude by Thomas Gray
- Nothing is Real by Rixa White
- Robert Burns: Complimentary Versicles To Jessie Lewars: The Menagerie
- Владимир Корнилов – Сорок лет спустя
- Closed Path by Rabindranath Tagore
- Frog Autumn by Sylvia Plath
- Шекспир – Прекрасный облик в зеркале ты видишь – Сонет 3
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- Some Clouds by Steve Kowit
- Resolute by Stephenie Tucker
- Purple Heart Liz (My Girl At Woodstock) by Steve Sant
- Numb by Stephenie Tucker
- Notice by Steve Kowit
- Must Work by Steve Downes
- Lifetime Of Death by Steve Sant
- In The Chapel Of Rest by Steve Sant
- A Warrior’s Truth by Stephenie Tucker
- A Soldier’s Song by Stephenie Tucker
- YOU ARE CHRISTMAS EVERYDAY by Steve Troyanovich
- tomorrow is already past… by Steve Troyanovich
- still the leaves fall… and dream by Steve Troyanovich
- softly… in wingless dream by Steve Troyanovich
- Snowfall by Steve Troyanovich
- shivering wind by Steve Troyanovich
- NOCTURNAL EMBERS AND LOST LIPS by Steve Troyanovich
- MY BEST PAL by Steve Troyanovich
- forever blue by Steve Troyanovich
- dreams the wind by Steve Troyanovich
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works
Alexander Blok (1880-1921), also Block, was a Russian poet, writer, publicist, playwright, translator and literary critic. A classic of Russian literature.