Sergey Esenin: A dream: black road...
A dream: black road.
White horse. Stubborn foot.
And on the horse
rides someone dear,
rides someone dear
I do not love.
Ah, Russian birch,
narrow pathway,
only that one
dear as sleep, her
hold with your boughs
like expert hands.
Moonlight. Blue, sleep.
The horse clops well.
Such music light
for that unique
one, she who holds such light,
but not exists.
A hooligan,
maudling with rhymes.
At a mad career
to keep the heart hot,
through birchy Russia
to meet with her,
my non-beloved.
Translated by Geoffrey Thurley
With Finnegans Wake my memory is also jogged. Why did i start reading it [in high school]? I was investigating the quark model, in subatomic physics, & heard that they got the name from "three quarks for Muster Mark" in FW. So i wanted to see for myself. This particular edition, with a gray & maroon dust jacket, also means something. There were, for whatever reason, several copies of it at Half Price Books at a decent price; one i bought for myself (my first reading of it was as a library book if you can believe it-- i kept renewing my checkout all summer), one i donated to the free library at Chumley's, my favorite coffeehouse, & a third copy i gave the poet Robert Trammell for his 50th birthday.
Air-breathing Millipedes from Scotland is the name of my new band.
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