In Rome at the New Year it is the custom to throw old things into the street.

Rome rattles and shakes
like a runaway breakdown truck.
All over Rome and round about
the New Year’s coming in!

Like Mills bombs, bottles
dropped from windowsills.
crash all over the place,
and what price that tough
shoving a bathtub onto a balcony?

Up on the Piazza di Spagna,
spinning like a flying saucer,
a husband is flung from his nuptial bed:
he’s obsolete and all but dead!

They’ve cornered a naked man in a bar,
‘Damn you squares!’, he bawls,
‘I need a change of suit:
last year’s is out of date’.

Dear town, we shall flounder and drown
In your cast-offs and metamorphoses;
your ancient asphalted roadways
gleam like the sloughed skins of pythons.
All the times you have shuffled them off,
but the speedometers show they’re still too slow
for Roman girls on Vespas!
So what next do you have in store for us?

The human race with roars and guffaws
is ridding itself of its rubbish,
do we all need overhauls?
Like Time itself we approach our hour

and stand, forgetting petty chores,
fully absorbed now by the future.
Do we regret what we’re discarding?
A reindeer’s dam, just after fawning,
looks loving and a little overcome.

Maybe the New Year will be rough,
with a few good days for flying in it?
Don’t worry: it won’t be the end of the world
– and the more fun we’ll have saying goodbye to it.

We fly through the air like apples off branches.
This fuss is already rather a bore,
though later, at least, I have something to live for:
– towards the middle of the windy day,
in her lopsided winter villa she’ll say
(once she’s gallopped through that thriller)
that she’s cold when I’m not with her,
she’s cold without me is what she’ll say…

And past other worlds
into darkness, deadpan as a croupier,
our pale planet whirls –
cooped in its shell like an embryo bird.
It’s hatching out now, look!
What to become? A warbler?
Or a black thing, a baby rook
blasted off the wing by atomic warheads?

I only hope the weather keeps fine
for all these darling creatures…
Over Rome – and all the world what’s more –
the New Year’s coming in…
…with tangerines and amorous passes,
and right till dawn the women’s bodies
– like electric bulbs in lampshades –
glowing through their dresses.

In honor of the Russian holiday, Victory Day, we present this work by Russia’s most legendary poet.

 

I loved you once: perhaps that love has yet
To die down thoroughly within my soul;
But let it not dismay you any longer;
I have no wish to cause you any sorrow.
I loved you wordlessly, without a hope,
By shyness tortured, or by jealousy.
I loved you with such tenderness and candor
And pray God grants you to be loved that way again.

In honor of the Russian holiday, Defense of the Fatherland Day, we present this work by the foremost Russian literary figure of the early 19th century.

 

Driven by misfortune’s whirlwind,
Having neither oar nor rudder,
By a storm my bark was driven
Out upon the boundless sea.
“midst black clouds a small star sparkled;
“Don’t conceal yourself!” I cried;
But it disappeared, unheeding;
And my anchor was lost, too.

All was clothed in gloomy darkness;
Great swells heaved all round;
In the darkness yawned the depths
I was hemmed in by cliffs.
“There’s no hope for my salvation!”
I bemoaned, with heavy spirit…
Madman! Providence
Was your secret helmsman.

With a hand invisible,
‘midst the roaring waves,
Through the gloomy, veiled depths
Past the terrifying cliffs,
My all-powerful savior guided me.
Then-all’s quiet ! gloom has vanished;
I behold a paradisical realm…
Three celestial angels.

Providence – O, my protector!
My dejected groaning ceases;
On my knees, in exaltation,
On their image I did gaze.
Who could sing their charm?
Or their power o’er the soul?
All around them holy innocence
And an aura divine.

A delight as yet untasted –
Live and breathe for them;
Take into my soul and heart
All their words and glances sweet.
O fate! I’ve but one desire:
Let them sample every blessing;
Vouchsafe them delight – me suffering;
Only let me die before they do.