Pavel Antokolsky

Without hands, a stump of truth, so bare,
Spilled by white foam, an idol to pray to,
The people craved you as a hunger there,
And did not proved like fateful ‘two times two’. 

All in salt bruises and in spills of foam,
The youthful frame knocked up by even tides.  
Millenniums of columns, priced in poems,
Of neck and shoulders, arms, hip, shins and thighs. 

You’ll bear that all – miasmas of bordellos’
And millions of the newspapers’ prints – 
To have their looks of stupefied fellows,
To make delayed only for seconds’ bits
                    
The humane stream, to stay in foam splashes,  
To look at nothing their heads above,
Moving your hip in bruises of your patience, 
In dully sweat, in ecstasy your, handless,  
Out of time! 
And that is real love! 


Translated by Yevgeny Bonver, December, 2000