FATE by Andrei Voznesensky
Fate is above me. Why should I browse? Sleeping in dosses, an outcast, I rove. Grief is a cellar, that opens in every old house. A ditch is below me and fate is above. What did I want? Well, a life of contentment. What did I get? Just a coffin and wreath... Under the cradle a grave has been latent. Fate is above me, a ditch is beneath. Up in the sky my soul, like a hound, howls, despaired, the trigger to pull it was keen. Fate has come over my family background, and on the earth where fate is my kin. What have I done, apart from the simple poems I've written in passing to date? I've been a lightening conductor for people. Now I have broken my back. Such is fate.
© Copyright Alec Vagapov's translation
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