David Burliuk

 

                                                                                                1908

Homage to Khlebnikov

I was aging, on my face formed furrow-like wrinkles–
Lines, the rails of trepidations and worries,
Where the woes of plosive ideas raced past –
Trains rattling into abandoned junctions.
You were aging and your face came to resemble a map
Scratched all over by a network of trestles
Where an unsaddled mare can no longer gallop,
And there’s nowhere for an unrestrained feeling to flee!
And these transparent eyes and eye sockets
Penetrated all the time deeper, and less often than fire
Impulses fluttered by, like startled birds,
Suddenly remembering the tenderness of an autumn day….
And consciousness flickered under the glutinous network
Of wrinkles, like a sky-blue moth in a sack,
And time flogged me with its vicious whip
But my steed was wooden.

 1912