Extravagant parties and luscious life...
Everybody's in disguise
of a simple man and kind,
Who runs away to find
Himself; in a very small village.

He will reform, redirect and redesign,
Only to see his neighbors sigh;
Who is this new man who thinks
That suddenly he won't pour drinks?

Onegin was bored, both here, and back home,
But it seems he doesn't want to be alone,
He fools around with a lovely young girl,
Who cares for Lensky, for whom she's a pearl.

There was an enthusiast, a calm yet wild soul,
She read and she wrote, played a different role
Than Onegin would've expected; a letter she signed,
And with her pen, she painted what she had in mind.

Yet those, who are nonchalant and fairly useless,
Will not count the hours that were spent being thought about them.
That's how Onegin lived his life and after 8 long years,
He finally loved, but then, he went by.

“But even friendship like our heroes'
Exist no more; for we've outgrown
All sentiments and deem men zeroes-
Except of course ourselves alone.
We all take on Napoleon's features,
And millions of our fellow creatures
Are nothing more to us than tools...
Since feelings are for freaks and fools.
Eugene, of course, had keen perceptions
And on the whole despised mankind,
Yet wasn't, like so many, blind;
And since each rule permits exceptions,
He did respect a noble few,
And, cold himself, gave warmth its due.”

― Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin

Brightness, darkness, falling both
softly from the spring-time air
teasing dormant life to growth
turning green the golden hair
of grasses dried and brittle now
to the Pleiades they bow
in thanks for rain, which brings new life
to pools and ditches, dark and rife
with strange concoctions, shadowed roots,
tendrils fine exploring through
the muddy depths to find a new
embankment where they push up shoots.
Brightness falls, the rains of spring
Closing now the season's ring.

Я вас любил ("I Loved You")
by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch

I loved you ... perhaps I love you still ...
perhaps for a while such emotions may remain.
But please don’t let my feelings trouble you;
I do not wish to cause you further pain.

I loved you ... thus the hopelessness I knew ...
The jealousy, the diffidence, the pain
resulted in two hearts so wholly true
the gods might grant us leave to love again.

Keywords/Tags: Russia, Russian, Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, modern English translation, regret, remorse

The tangled under-story dwells
above dark earth, the ground's foundation:
listen to the tale it tells
while the wind's damp susurration
passes by on raven's wings.
All around us voices sing
of elder days, when on this ground
no human footprint could be found.
The under-story still remembers
life alone beneath the tress
where forest gods might bend their knees
and coax new shoots from winter's embers.
Ready always with the flame
of spring they leap to life again.

Behold the ponies in the field
who neither sow, nor do they reap:
they run with unabated zeal
from dawn until they pause to sleep.
They do not worry, fuss, nor fret
that with a hand or two they'd yet
become a horse, majestic steed,
a noble beast of strength and speed
that all admire. A pony's satisfied
with sun for warmth and grass to eat,
a stable's shelter when the sleet
of winter falls, and one to ride
them round the ring, through woods,
to dappled meadows, fine and good.

Oh ... you like Onegin in that book
Who cold and pride to pretty woman
But in the end he fall in love
I know it’s gonna take the time
Don’t worry I can wait
You were rejecting me too much
I think you really love me
But probably don’t know it yet
Forgive me for that strangest way
To show how really I can love
I really want you and afraid
So please stop making me to hesitate
And tell me what really feeling towards me?
Do I make your heart beat faster
Do you really want me as I want
And better stop it if you’r not

Dostoevsky dreams
And Pushkin lines
And rhymes...
Like Bolshevik bullets
Tear into me
Seething
Hot sleep!

Dead Tsars and Anastasia
Mean nothing to me
But I miss them
Sometimes...

Aristocratic nonsense
But tiaras are pretty
With diamonds shining
In a Russian night

As kulaks die
The diamonds glitter
A worthy reminder
Of a beautiful time

When debutantes danced
And the little Tsarina

Could dream in peace

If I listen quietly
past the creaking of this cave
I hear a monster, violently,
digging its own grave.

If I wait a minute more
Its tears will fade away
And all that's left is stupid lore
A monster steeped in gray