Last Wish of Mine

     – Твое желание, – шепнула она, приложив губы к самому его уху. – Не знаю, может ли вообще исполниться твое желание. Не знаю, существует ли в Природе Сила, способная исполнить такое желание. Но если может, то ты приговорил себя. Приговорил себя... ко мне.
     Он прервал ее поцелуем, объятием, прикосновением, лаской, ласками, а потом уже всем, всем собою, каждою своей мыслью, единственной мыслью, всем, всем, всем.
               
                – Анджей Сапковский, "Последнее желание" (сага о ведьмаке)

***

Once a night a demon crept into my room:
"I have heard you cry, oh lonely poet.
Everything you lost I have seen in you, –
Scents of fading dreams in every moment.
Now you have a right to make a wish, –
Three, at least, as old stories say, –
Everything you want I know, I see,
Ask me, poet, I'm here to obey!"

Cursed or blessed I stood in depth of silence:
"I don't know, I lived a life of fool,
King of madmen, doomed, my life was blindness;
Though I have a dream to be come true:
I have walked this way to be a poet,
Wished to have my fifteen minutes fame, –
As betrayed by friend or just a foe, –
My will is the vengeance for my pain!

All my life's a victim of my poems!
Locked inside this wicked, evil game!
I have lost my rhyme, my heart's been sold
While I know for sure I am to blame.
Still I see this truth, the way of freedom,
I'm in chains no more, I am the God!
For the second wish I have my reasons, –
Power of the fate is my demand!"

Demon turned his face, I saw him grinning,
Raised his hand, the pendulum struck twelfth:
"Do not cry, my poet, I am willing!
But reflect upon what to be said!
Words are real, as real as our lives, –
I shall grant your wish but you'd be wary!
Your last dream, your will, the one desire, –
Everything you've craved for and been praying."

I have closed my eyes, my lips were trembling;
"My last wish," I whispered in the night,
"I have got one though I am not begging, –
She's the only one to make me blind.
She's not real, she's something unrequited...
I despise her being in my verse!
Oceans of her love I longed to die for,
Eyes of blue, this sea, and my heart's caught!

I have dreamt to find her smile, its magic,
Meadows straw of hair, the scent of rose,
When I hear her voice I am pathetic,
She's a myth, her love is just a ghost...
She's my sin, my guilt, the lips of poison, –
I have drunk this wine of scorn and lie.
I would give my all though I'm avoided,
Love of hers – the last thing I desire!"

First light of the dawn revealed the darkness,
Demon smiled again and said to me:
"Be afraid, oh fool, of what you're asking
As I have a price to claim from thee!
Look into my eyes, behold what's coming,
I am who you are inside this flame.
Wake up, poet, as the night is dying,
As your life's the best and only prey!"

4-10, May
2015