The Gypsy Woman
THE GYPSY WOMAN
The sun burned our helmets,
under our feet row on row of dusty streets.
A gypsy woman narrows her little eyes
and her necklace jingles.
I don’t believe in any god.
I don’t expect to be saved in this country,
but for just a moment please hold
my clumsy hand in your palms.
Tell me a future of happiness and success,
promise me riches and love,
perhaps it won’t work out like that,
but tear the anguish from my heart.
Distant roads await me,
perhaps this time I’ll survive,
perhaps I’ll collapse under my mates’ feet
with belief in life and a bullet between the eyes.
I’ll return – a little crane with artificial limbs.
Impotent, greying and angry
I’ll boast to the generations
that come after how I slaughtered the enemy.
Or, as a decorated hero
I’ll harass the girls.
For years in my dreams those
whom I shot will parade before me.
I need to shed much blood
to become not a boy but a man.
Well, I’ll survive, but who needs
this man who survived the alien war.
Cont’d
The landladies will bake cakes,
I’ll get hooked on vodka…
Can a survivor of the war
be called a man?
A rain of bullets will strike me.
I’ll be a clot on the sand
and the hundreds of lines on my palm
will not make me any happier.
The sun burns our helmets,
boots mirror the soldiers’ faces.
I’ll go far away and see no brighter colours
than your colourful gypsy outfit.
Two Poetry Collections published, working on a dissertation on Nikolay Klyuev
Translation: Richard McKane
