Валерий Слуцкий
(born 1954)
Звонкам, объятьям, планам (были ярки)
Всему, что, как ребенок надарив,
Затребует назад свои подарки.
В котором пережитая утрата
С тобой в неотменяемом былом.
Не то – «разрыв». Им бывшее изъято,
От коего душа отщеплена,
Стираются черты, недавно близки,
И оборотень светлого – вина,
Как приговор: «без права переписки».
Literary
Translation/Adaptation by U.R. Bowie
One step into a chasm: to say to
love, “We’re done,”
To phone calls done, to hugs and plans (once shining),
As if to give to child gifts, and then the next day come:
“I need to take the stuff all back, so give it here, no whining.”
Departure for calamity: a fissure
incommutable,
In which the loss you’ve lived through’s fated
To stay with you in some past time immutable,
Not so much “done” as just seized, confiscated
From one whose soul is gutted and
must wilt;
The features once so near steeped in despondence,
While the lycanthrope of bright hopes known as guilt
#To phone calls done, to hugs and plans (once shining),
As if to give to child gifts, and then the next day come:
“I need to take the stuff all back, so give it here, no whining.”
In which the loss you’ve lived through’s fated
To stay with you in some past time immutable,
Not so much “done” as just seized, confiscated
The features once so near steeped in despondence,
While the lycanthrope of bright hopes known as guilt
Valery Slutsky: Very Brief Biography
Born in 1954. Native of Leningrad/St. Petersburg, where he published his early poetry. Since 1990 he has lived in Israel.
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