Poet and Crowd
- Poet and Crowd
1.Water wears away stone, but it doesn’t even know it: it wears the stone away and is quiet . . .
2.We don’t know who we are. We don’t know where we are. And if someone knows, they hurry to forget it . . .
3.You can’t pick it up or throw it away. Enter or exit. All around, immobility . . .
4.And we search for something, ruminate on something, have conversations—and nothing gets to the point . . .
5.So what if we are pinned to the ground. We can see the sky, the stars, the clouds . . .
6.So it’s long been time to accept a simple thought—that everything is good . . .
7.Why are you yelling as if something has changed? Everything is as it has been. But you are not the same . . .
8.If it will happen, we won’t be around to see it. We’d be lucky to live until our own death . . .
9.Dmitry Alexandrovich, I couldn’t agree more: there is still friendship and love in the world . . .
10.Then why is happiness searching for us, but still can’t find us? We are somewhere around the corner . . . [End Page 259]
11.Everything is new in the world. Yet nothing is new. Everything depends only on who you are . . .
12.This is how life is: the rivers drain away, and the seas dry up, and we still live . . .
13.Everyone dies. And this one too . . . And he’ll be buried . . . And forgotten, like all the rest.
14.This is how life is: you just can’t make plans. You’d better let everything take its own course from the start.
15.O mocking demon, he who has been tempted by you is gone without a trace. There’s no saving him.
16.This is how life is: when we want to ascend, we won’t be able to—the years will have caught up . . .
17.A second ago everything was different, and in a second, nothing is quite the same . . .
18.This is how life is: just when you begin to understand what is going on, it is time to leave . . .
19.Even if a storm cloud with torn edges keeps reminding you of something, keep quiet nonetheless . . .
20.This is how life is: the birds fly off, and they fly back, just like that, without end . . .
21.Various thoughts are chasing behind us, all kinds of ideas are dashing about . . .
22.Don’t rush, reader, to express your opinion. Wait a little bit, just hold your horses . . . [End Page 260]
23.The day will pass, and after it, another . . . How many days remain for us to live? Everything drains to somewhere. Everyone is leaving—who knows where . . .
24.We remain alone in the Gehenna, not leaving, in order to bear witness further until the end, if we have to . . .
25.“Everything justifies the pathos of witnessing, devotion to culture, belief in the spoken word . . .”
26.“Everything lights up in a mystical glow from just one touch of a creative genius.”
27.“It may be misunderstood just once, and will stay this way forever . . .”
28.“Until my eyes got accustomed to the dark, some monstrous scrawls were produced. Then it became better. The handwriting evened out. Even some playful flourishes appeared. However, the concept of some paradoxical pattern began to blur, and the last phrases . . .”
29.“Hello honey,From the day of our first meeting, enough time has passed. And I often ask myself: what would it be like if we’d never met? What if we’d not noticed each other in the bustling capital crowd?But to hell with this banality! I want to talk about something else entirely.It’s not right that we’re not together. And that some foolish discord is stronger than our mutual gravitation. Forgive me that I say ‘mutual.’ It’s probably too much self-confidence. I should speak only about myself and for myself. But I feel, I know, I believe, that you also . . . That my name for you is also no empty sound.Forgive me . . . What I...
