The tune of the tunnel

The tune of tunnel where I sit
And wait while sleeps my drowsy wit.
The tunnel? No! The passage? No!
The vault! The bogles go to and fro:
They teem before me in the den
And call themselves till now “men”.
The men! But I prefer to see
The flowers in my doleful glee.
And I conjure my visions till
The lily and the daffodil
Appear before me in the shine
Of moody moon; the eglantine,
The jasmine with the jazz of bees,
And in their blossom apple-trees
Convolvulus, the creeping net,
The daisy and the mignonette,
And with their splendour me enthrall
The roses, roses after all.
Somebody strew them, and they fall,
As if they try to bury my
Corpse with their frail, but fragrant fly.

No flowers are for me in view.
The people today the money strew,
The poisonous and contagious shower,
The petals of the bloody flower;
So fly among our modern troubles
Infuriated Russian roubles.
They rob, they capture and devour
My life, my bowels and my bower,
My garden that I had before,
The Russian story, my old store.
They have enough, but they want more.
And in their speculative speed
Them, parasites, I badly need.
I pay for my infamous place
In this rapacious nasty space;
Militiamen extort the bribe
From each of our crawling tribe.
I pay tribute to our chief,
Who is the beggar and the thief;
And then spasmodic I can laugh:
For loaf and bottle I have enough.

The trees in autumn are my torches.
Where for the ancient Moscow churches
Was taken limestone, there is
My hole, where gratefully I kiss
The earth, my mother and my bride,
With whom I dwell here side by side.
My corpse as foetus would be small.
And after all remains the fall
Of rain, of leaves, then of the snow,
Fall of the flowers, but I know:
I am alive and blest and save
With Holy Russia in my grave.

31.08.1997.