this title has begrudgingly waited for some loving kindness, fulfillment-needy, since October of Two Thousand and Seventeen

which is not quite as long as the decades I have been waiting to
accumulate the words to provide us both, an inspired solution

my days are numbered
in decades, decals, varying lengths of hair,
belts with notches that ain’t reachable,
suits various, both too big and too small to fit,
the who who used to own them,
begrudgingly, writes this

city born and bred, with the pale skin needed to prove my urbanity, each day came unto me begrudgingly,
even, especially, the good ones

when I was ten and rode my bike from freedom to mystery,
and back again in a city that was ok, if you stayed out of its way
and knew the city’s vocabulary and its erogenous zones

when nothing come easy, when even the easy, when it comes, comes begrudgingly

when you think of love, and the next immediate thought is:
how great the cost - recalling too well,
the pain of childbirth and child rearing
and the staining, paining fluid is in perm-attendence,
that doesn’t ever fully departs and
is not never entirely stain-stick-removable,
and the children come ‘n go according to their schedule,
someone else’s vast eternal plan

life in the same apartment  
where my parents died,
listening to the stories of joined lives,
listen to the sisters telling them
over and over to a stream of visitors
earned from and of a 98 year life,
given up willing but, begrudgingly as well.

the story-telling skill because of them,
my mist-matched parents who did ok
and their very best,
gifted us hyperbole innate genetic
and all of us now registered
tall tale tellers;

some write for a living,
some live to write,
some write to make themselves clearer,
after honestly confronting their subway reflection  

words acquired bot ‘n sold,
they too are stains unerasable,
very always handy,
the one thing we shared, word skill,
was never at loss, words never held a grudge
no matter how long they waited to serve

this fact, begrudgingly confess;
all my-word skill was freely inherited...
and I hope it satisfied the title
and you, those that waited patiently but,
begrudgingly

The great puts itself last not first,
For it carries the weak, that all succeed.
And if strong falls where weak walks,
Surely the strong is less than weak.
It's no greatness to put yourself first,
For even the worm cares for itself.
The brave may die for one it loves,
But only Love dies for its enemies.

at the first encounter, i thought, that he stole my mother’s tablecloth,
and called it Great while she turned the flour into bread,

after, i thought, what if they were lovers, and shared the same tablecloth
while my father was sweating in his fields, and she was sipping wine from her grapes
when he wrote songs of despair, as they could not have each other,

i shake away my childish thoughts and doubt even more:
- what if they were traders,

trading the tigers, the bread,
the tyrants, the grim teeth,
the wine fields and hard eyes,
the lamb, the onions,
the hunger and the thirst,
the hours of eating the strawberries
and the blossoms on the great tablecloth.

oh, i am childish,
jealous,
curious, and can not stop the thought of stolen tablecloths:
- what if when sad and lonely he put a spell on my mother?
and used her as a tablecloth for those who never loved, or cried,
and those who never turned the flour into bread.

I know Simon’s a court poet. To dedicate
Odes to monarchs’s survival. Raymond as
A philosopher valued life’s democratic state,
I honour monarchy as any man, at last,

In whose heart the Empire’s spirit beating,
Long live the Commonwealth for time all!
By Nika for all time became blessed Britain,
The country army scare foes all!

And the Queen is the brand for all the world,
All ministers’ll retire but not the Queen!
I have not seen a monarch nobler from of  old,
Who honours just so traditions’, honour’s being.

Thank you for giving inspiration to the poet
For his poems, by your own greatness.
Thus, rule for the population’s good great,
Setting an example for other rulers.
{2019}

КОРОЛЕВЕ ЕЛИЗАВЕТЕ II

Я знаю, что сейчас поэт придворный Саймон,
И оды посвящать монархам – прошлый век!
И как демократизм ценил философ Раймон,
Монархию я чту, как каждый человек,

В чьём сердце бьётся дух Империи Великой –
Содружества Союз да здравствует в веках!
Британия всегда благословенна Никой,
И армия страны врагам вселяет страх!

И Королева есть как Бренд международный:
Министры все уйдут, но Королева есть!
Не видел в жизни я монарха благородней!
Кто точно также чтит традиции и честь!

Спасибо Вам за то, что дали вдохновенье
Поэту на стихи величием своим!
Так правьте же ещё во благо населенья,
Давая так пример правителям другим!
{11.11.2019}

Translator - I. Toporov

Shy singer man say of his songunsung

for thy pleasure, we are, and were created
tools to muse with
as crayons to a child in my youth,
as smartphones to a child in my future

so these discrimming skimmings of flies on my screen,
bring to mind
a wish
to be worth a dam. I had Boulder Dam in mind, at the time.

Joy to the world! was a carole - common knowledge joy having song,
we sang

oh, such songs, we sang and we danced and we praised the summer sun
for each year granting more land and more rivers and fish.

this is the world where words returned to earth and taught us all we lost,
this is my future

but we are are mortal, you say, nay, I say
we all have mortal mother samesame

so say science'n'conshitness of a rational man,

in a delicately -pre-cisely balanced spiral of birdsongs and windsongs.

Right is all that works. We won. Individually.

But I always forget to tell her

and I tell her that too

and she asks why I forget

reply comes easy

it just a wayfaring, stepping stone

on the way to my

kissing your neck,

and thus overlooked,

but always the first thing I see...