Saturday 4 June 2011

A Sad Joke

This is my translation of the poem "A Sad Joke" by Vladimir Lifshitz, russian writer who I admire. It was written in 1973. I don't know the correct literature term, but I tried to keep all the accents and the number of syllables.


Time will come and I will die
There’ll be me no longer
In the morn the sun will rise
There’ll be me no longer

There’ll be dark and there’ll be light
Summertime, wintertime
Cats and houses will survive
There’ll be me no longer

But I know the run of things
Is forever endless
And one day, I do believe
I return to this place

The same set of primal cells
In the same straight order
And the tender look would tell
Of things it told before then

Still in Moscow I would live
Meet the usual fellows
And the same ideas you see
In my head would bellow

And habitual sins I might
Be again committing
My verse for the second time
Might again be written

Nothing would my fate forget
Which it has recorded
I would be an I again…
There’ll be me no longer

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