| A dilettante’s remark |
[Sep. 10th, 2006|12:13 pm] |
Having read a number of definitions of the term and notion of information I found out that any aspect of it contains or rather should contain one common characteristic – essentiality for the receiver. The idea was not mine – I borrowed it from a Russian Encyclopaedia of Cybernetics while writing a diploma paper on linguistics many years ago. Same sign of any kind or even its absence bears different essential meanings for different receivers. For some it means nothing. That is same informational unit may be regarded as a positive, negative, mixed (if incomplete), or estranged (e.g. curiosity) stimulus. It may as well just be disregarded if no attention is paid to it. Then it bears no information irrespective of its form and contents. Same receiver at different times reacts differently to same information piece since it loses the aspect of novelty. So any piece of information may be characterized as a fuzzy set (-1…0…+1) with noise correction. With this regard the quantitative measurement of information acquires quality of chaos and is dependent on field of usage and on receivers. That is what is lacking in classic quantitative formulae inapplicable (though often applied) to semantic information. Unfortunately I am no mathematician to present this correction adequately. I’d be glad if anybody would care to investigate this fundamental (to my mind) problem. It may help to understand e.g. how a lost dog finds his master’s new home, a typical case when noise prevails over information representation but still can be traced due to essentiality or even vitality to the receiver that should serve as a catalyst zooming previously negligible traces.
The other question worth investigation is a benchmark for delimiting functional styles of speech and additional information carried by intonation. It’s common knowledge that prosodic arrangement may change or even reverse the meaning of an utterance. The proper delimitation of functional styles of speech, intuitively understood as intonation patterns allowing recognition of the intention of a speaker without semantic comprehension, based on computer analyses may result in objective classification of human behavior (not mentioning functional styles proper and languages teaching). The benchmark for neutral functional style of speech is a set of intonation patterns characteristic to unpremeditated reading of study texts intended for foreign learners of English by common people not engaged in teaching English or dramatic art. Alternatively, it may be dictating. Such texts bear no personal meaning to readers and are devoid of communicational charge. Their intonation patterns are to serve as a neutral style to be compared with unpremeditated speech of same speakers in different situations, the more varied, the better. The other patterns are to be established and grouped exclusively on the basis of similarity of intonation patterns and not situations. I bet the resulting patterns grouped in descending similarity to neutral style will not coincide with any existing classification and will require semantic and psychological analyses. This will allow experimenting with different levels of approximation.
Communication and understanding occurs when no less than two intentions taken as spheres of vital or at least essential interests have common intersection. The more the intersected area the closer is the understanding though it cannot coincide completely. Predictable or simultaneous actions or other reactions (like utterances) remain within this intersection. The intention can never be reduced to any delimited pattern. It comprises a set of fuzzy sets pertaining to different spheres (including but not limited to conscious, rational, subconscious, emotional, etc spheres). This accounts for common case when a man cannot adequately explain what he really wants or intends to say (like me now) but nevertheless is understood by others. The very same thing accounts for polysemy of words, which is in practice reduced by functional styles.
What I propose is the objective quantitative and qualitative semantic interpretation of information via application of several filters to same message and syntheses of results. The new filter to be applied on all levels is that of fuzziness understood not in its strict meaning but as a determiner of whether dichotomy (or finite polysemy reducible to it) is applicable. Whenever the object under analyses shows the presence of fuzziness it means that choice criteria are inadequate and should be reviewed.
In other words it is an establishing of an approximated contextual meaning or a test for the validity of any classification criteria. It is applicable not only to linguistics.
To illustrate it, let’s try to analyze English grammar forms with regard to tense assuming that there are three tenses in English (present, past and future).
1. We determine that these forms are all contained in a verb-group. Thus the object (sentence) is reduced to a verb-group which is to be filtered further.
2. Each element is compared with other elements in order to find its unique recurrent formal characteristics: the unique characteristic of tense in general is that it is contained in the first element of the verb-group. The formal sign of the past is a second form of the verb, the formal sign of future is “ll” (shall or will).
3. The absence of these signs means that it is present tense. On this stage fuzziness occurs only when the three forms of a verb coincide, like in “cut” or “put”, and when the first element is “should/would”.
3.1 “Cut” and “put” can be ignored since macrocontext including further sentences or word determiners of time within same sentence allows to eliminate ambiguity.
3.2 “Should/would” creates dilemma: either to regard it as a separate additional tense covering irreality, or to introduce traditional additional category of mood within which tense distinctions are irrelevant. This element behaves like a usual tense form (i.e. same aspects and voices may be derived) so it may be reasonably assumed that there are four tenses in modern English.
1. Tenses (vertical) and aspects (horizontal) [not depicted as a table]
2. Voices
am, are, is, was, were, be, been + 3-rd form verb == Passive voice
Ø = Active voice
In our illustration the goal was to check up whether the accepted tense-aspect-voice classification is valid and to find out the algorithm of establishing of any of its elements.
The resulting distribution of elements allows to apply three matrixes (1-rst column, upper row and #2 final touch to the same verb group to identify any form. This set of several matrixes filtering same combination of elements each time with regard to different properties is the core of the idea (if any).
The funny thing is that this idea may work as a model checkup of any classification and serve a number of other practical purposes.
Hoping to trigger useful ideas and questions,
Victor. |
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| Poetry |
[Jul. 5th, 2006|01:15 am] |
The English language was my love since school. I was fascinated by the diversity of meanings that may be implied in one phrase. I discovered it reading Translator’s Notebooks – a brilliant periodical with poetry and prose translations criticism. School was quite a chore to me and instead of making lessons I read books only slightly related to subjects studied: Dostoyevskiy, Shakespeare (in Russian translation – it was next to impossible to find his works in English at that time), books on theory of relativity, history, etc. And, of course, I wrote poems in Russian. Later I burnt them all. Once I rhymed my composition. It was then that I made my first translation – Hamlet’s soliloquy. The text was published in Translator’s Notebooks alongside with several translations and comments. It was extremely instructive practice and motivating too. There I also read the article entitled “Shakespeare’s untranslated sonnet” with at least three variants of translation, all commented as inadequate (“My mistress eyes…”). Then I entered Krasnodar University. There were no boring subjects there. Even CPSU history was interesting. The lecturers urged us to read initial documents and not the textbook. And those though incomplete and sometimes corrected document revealed party history as ceaseless chain of treacheries. Marxist philosophy was just negative polemics with opponents and I concentrated on the latter. Here in province it was possible to discuss anything, to express any doubts even at seminars and exams. All forbidden literature circulated easily. Books published abroad started to appear in second hand bookstores somewhere in mid ’70. And a great number of pre-revolution editions appeared. I could afford buying new books almost every day on my student’s maintenance allowance. Frankly speaking we couldn’t understand dissidents – why shout what everybody knows? Every year we were sent to the collective farm to gather grapes for about a month. This inevitable gavel work annoyed me most of all in our socialism. Same as senseless meetings. But these were happy days. I read books on theory of information and principles of self-organization, experimented in yoga and telepathy. It was then that I understood why most experiments in telepathy failed. They bear no information. And information is that what is essential for the receiver. This is a condition precedent. If it is not essential – it is not percepted. Same is true with poetry and prose perception. There must be not a unison, but enhancing. If you enjoy a poem you wish to share it with other people and you start to translate. Here lies the problem: you must preserve same rhythm, same number of syllables, not to loose any of ideas and images, and, above all to preserve natural language. In English<>Russian translations the worst enemy is the length of words. They are much shorter in English. You either have to change the number of syllables but the melody would differ then or omit or add some images but this changes the impact. The secret of the poem’s perception lies in integrity of rhythm, melody, images and that what may by called subdrive (feeling enhancer). This is heatening of feeling and then – a kind of stepping aside. Then the thing that resonates inside is released and enhanced by some outer harmony.
I have loved you. Perhaps the love’s still hiding
Within the corners of my heart and soul
But do not think it would be disobliging,
Afflicting on my side you’ll never know.
I have loved you, so silently, despairly
Timidity and jealousy perused
I have loved you so tenderly, sincerely
As God bless you be loved by man you choose.
I translated these Pushkin’s lines only recently when suddenly remembered Byron’s line that was an epigraph to one of Puskin’s verses (And I have loved thee ocean..). At that time I thought it was impossible to translate adequately from Russian.
After I graduated and escaped from schoolteacher work in Kalmykia (where pupils asked why I didn’t beat them for their behavior) I learned what joblessness is. My work record card showed higher education and I was unable to become a worker – nobody wished to hire me, and I was unable to become a specialist – I did not have permission from the Ministry of education. I moved to Novorossiysk and half year after managed to become the customs officer. Every three years I changed jobs circulating between customs and higher marine school. My best 3 years were spent in a small self-supporting group headed by my father in law (ex-commercial director of the shipping company, now dead). We were preparing weeklies and monthly reports for Russian major oil steamship companies. Often the material was at our own choice. I made digests of Admiralty law cases, translated charter-parties, etc. We were granted permission to read foreign newspapers and magazines Lloyd’s List, Fairplay, Lloyd’d Law Reports. That was the time when Brezhnev died. Then I made several translations: My mistress eyes…, Kipling’s Pict Song, some small poems of Ogden Nash. There were no computers, no internet, we could only dream about Encyclopaedia Britannica and free access to foreign books (though I had pretty big library), but these were the only things we were missing. I got acquainted with the beauty of the English law, its irresistible logics and fairness. Those who leave in its jurisdiction are unable to notice it. Grand things are visible at distance. Our work was needful but financing was cut-off. Then the third Russian revolution occurred. Communist leaders divided national property between themselves, some remained communists, some proclaimed themselves anticommunists, few became presidents, but each had a share of property. The mimicry was called democracy. But can the leopard change his spots? Those who, like me, were not party members or did not belong to party hierarchy gained nothing.
Democracy is too far-fetched notion
I just have negative emotion
Recalling slaves of Greece
That lived in peace
With their masters. Cheers!
Oh, sorry, it appears
I haven’t finished yet.
Do not forget
The human rights
That are delights
To the slavocracy
And the bureaucracy.
Down with democracy
That’s just autocracy
Of the chrysocracy
Of self-chosen peers…
Cheers!
The time for swindlers came to Russia. My knowledge and experience was required, but I didn’t profit from it. I created several maritime and forwarding agencies ab ovo for those with initial capital together with my wife, then we divorced retaining good relations. My wife now has her own shipping agency where she works with my daughter. I secluded myself from society doing any work that people brought to me at my home. I wrote test papers, projects and diploma papers in a number of disciplines, made translations for private persons and for companies. About a year ago I had telephone installed and obtained Internet connection. I have Britannica and Encarta now …
Soleness is what we seek when we are young.
Loneliness is what we get when we're old.
Most dreams when implemented seem like dung
That's what Ecclesiast for us foretold.
In moments of despair I started to make new translations and even sent them to Jeff Humphrey
Founder, Contest Director, Executive Editor of The Voices Network and he advised me to start writing my own poems in English.
We are not destined to embrace
The way our word percepted is
And understanding, like God’s Grace,
Depends on Heaven we’re beneath
(F.Tyutchev)
Back in my youth I made a wonderful discovery: if you have some sincere non-profit wish it will implement the moment you completely forget it having realized its unenforceability. It doesn’t depend on your actions – only wish and disinterestedness are counted. I used it several times. I’m sure the above is just one of the cases. D’you hear lawyer and researcher sounding now? I have many usually incompatible manifestations. This phenomenon was many times described by Dostoyevskiy and analyzed by Mikhail Bakhtin. Black-and-white linear perception is out of Bakhtin’s approach and analysis. Bakhtin, to my mind, is the antecessor of the theory of chaos (and anti-chaos) approaches in terms of philosophy. Tracing the infinite bifurcation of inner dialogue he shows the fragile unity of opposite tendencies within one personage still having his own vector and the interaction of this personage with otherwise vector-oriented personages creating conflicts of immense depth. Moreover, Bakhtin traces the way Menippean satire structure and other ancient forms become embedded in contemporary novels. Such multidimensional viewing produces objective veritable picture. Please, read his works. I urge and plead you. They are available in English now. He is long dead. But that’s a man who seems to ignore politics as if it were non-existent. I am unable to rise at that height.
I am bound to 19-th century. I’m unable to accept and adopt further events.
I am in haste. My time’s expiring.
So much to say I am desiring
In vain - no questions’ firing
But for the begging help
I cannot help admiring
Of those who are attiring
As judges over wiring
Of concentration camp.
From watchtower security
Preserving their purity
Ignoring the obscurity
Of those beneath who yelp
They pose as the deputies
Appointed by the prisoners,
The inexactest reasoners,
The country’s ever felt
The following is hardly my own voice I intended to write something different. And in Russian. But it happened so that I heard an irresistible melody and vowels symphony. This must be the spirit of time.
Voco vivi
In the vast desert I am calling for alive
Not to instruct, to preach, or to oblige
But just to talk, to see I’m not the last
Of living souls of the past;
To see the reasons those derive
The nation’s dumbness. But, alas!
I see just zombies. I can’t grasp
Why this is happening. The die is cast.
The current won’t turn awry,
Ressentiment won’t either. Should I strive
For something vague, or should I die?
My time has ended century ago, but why
I’m sill alive stuck in the loop of Time?
But having given it another thought I realized that it is not the spirit – it’s the Muse. That Muse so many poets spoke about. And she is definitely female. She has no age – she lives out of Time. But what nobody has ever said, fantastic though it may sound, my Muse has nationality! She is definitely English though I am Russian. I cannot write even two lines in Russian. I do not mean translation or a parody or imitation. But here is different Amidst urgent translation of the purely commercial text I suddenly recollected Hamlet’s words I knew by heart since school (what an expression – to know by heart!). Then some images emerged and I felt some strange snake-like rhythm. For some unknown reason I disliked blank verse. But I was compelled to use it despite my attempts to squeeze at least some rhymes. The image of crucified Russia merged with hopelessness of my own future.
Russified Hamlet
I overlived my time, but was it really mine,
Time stolen from the country less than an age ago?
Oh, brave new world! Big Brother’s watching us
Writhing in slime, in hunger and in pains.
We’re robbed again and spat in our face.
The cycle’s over. End has come to time.
Pigs just like men, Swift’s yahooes, Bosch’s visions –
All in one place. Their name is Legion.
They torture us. The pressure’s reached the crest
I’m wasteable. But what about the rest?
The rest is silence… I’m afraid eternal.
People in my country have long been regarded as a waste material. Before Peter the Great personal pronoun “I” had been identified with the first letter of Russian alphabet. After his reforms (including but not limited to linguistics) it became the last letter. Any outer reform of the language threatens nation’s security. And we had two reforms. The first alienated us from Greek culture and that of predecessors. The second infringed links with Eastern Europe and predecessors. Now some are proposing the third. I can only regret that the so-called political correctness is destroying English.
Why I mention death so often? I had or seamed to have such experience. I have always had hemicrania. But once, when I was alone, my heart stopped to beat, breathing ceased, the panic seized each cell of my body, but mind was clear. I raised in the air above my body and flew to the door in order to unlock it. But hands went through the door and key. Unlocking the door seemed most essential task for me then. I was already dead but I wanted to facilitate entry for my daughter or ex-wife who might come. And I managed to concentrate and unlocked it. I returned to my body and waited what would happen next. Suddenly the heart resumed beating violently and capability to breath returned. After I came to myself (what a wonderful expression! Same exists in Russian) I checked the door. It was unlocked. Soon my girls came and arranged the brain scanning. Suspected arachnoidite (destruction of brain). A doctor said I’d live one year at most if go on smoking, drinking coffee and beer. That was some five years ago. I am still chain-smoker, drink much coffee and 1,5 liters of beer every evening. Them, doctors!
However, eyesight is reducing and sclerosis is progressing.
Sklyarov’s sclerosis is queer process.
I do not remember names, dates, figures, new faces to the extent that I often answer people without understanding who they are until they mention some specific problem. And it turns out that I saw them many times.
The above was written some three years ago. Some things have changed since then. I practically stopped drinking beer, reduced smoking; I’m going to quit freelance translations and to find some permanent job; and I translated some more Russian poets. And, what’s most important, I stopped thinking of death and am impatiently awaiting the girlfriend to move to my home. Poetry practically saved my life and by all means has changed it. I’m still in utter poverty yet, but I’m making long-term plans. I write more poems in Russian now. I hope some of my poems will help to better understand Russian mentality and may even help somebody to overcome despair.
So here follow most my poems in the order they were written.
Word
I really do believe
In immortality of Word.
Once said it starts to live
When ceases to be heard,
It only may be observed,
Becomes the personage of endless play
Staged at the theatre named World,
Some for the centuries, some for a day.
Thus Oedipus is no longer king
And Hamlet’s not involved in killing
They are the notions we bring
Expressing feeling.
I start to contemplate
About my fate
So drastically changed
Just by few lines exchanged.
Of all the accidents
I know not precedent.
Rules
People invent the rules for others to abide
They set restraints and sometimes very wide
Restrict the sequences of actions and decide
What’s wrong or right. Our freedom’s tied.
I speak of grammar. D’you think otherwise?
Voco vivi
In the vast desert I am calling for alive
Not to instruct, to preach, or to oblige
But just to talk, to see I’m not the last
Of living souls of the past;
To see the reasons those derive
The nation’s dumbness. But, alas!
I see just zombies. I can’t grasp
Why this is happening. The die is cast.
The current won’t turn awry,
Ressentiment won’t either. Should I strive
For something vague, or should I die?
My time has ended century ago, but why
I’m sill alive stuck in the loop of Time?
Russia
I mourn the non-existing country I was born in
Though ‘t was a phantom of Empire I belong to
The alien land where I reside at dawning
Of the millennium is wrongful.
This can’t be Russia. It’s some aggregation
Of perverts, thieves, whores and con men in power
Sitting on branches of the wizened tree on ration
Of the dead souls that emerged last hour.
They are insatiable, their name is Legion
They are the law and profit’s their religion.
They buy and sell and cheat -
That’s their only treat.
This can’t last long,
Or am I wrong?
***
I may be tender, ruthless, or naïve
Sophisticated or a simpleton
Cold-blooded warrior or a cissy
Depending on the errand I am on.
I’m strong and trenchant
Fighting for the others
Not for myself. It should be mentioned
Myself is rather
Ambiguous thing to be so valued
To worth an effort
And - I tell you,
I surmise
Only the honor can’t be sacrificed.
***
Each man has own fate.
It’s no use to argue it
And to abuse the Lord we pray.
At any rate, each has received
What he deserves, we can’t conceive
God’s plans and God’s reserves
Of helping us. We must observe
The principles set forth by Christ
And to surmise our sins be sized
Not only by deeds. We have to realize
Our thoughts have tendency to materialize.
***
Peculiar Russian mentality
We have only future or past
We often ignore the mortality
And risk our life at die cast.
We hate any limits or borders
Despise the conventions and laws
We have affection to robbers
And sympathy to the whores.
In pubs we are greatest of thinkers
In parliament – stupid as ass,
The only thing that still link us
Is that that we drink to excess.
Cassandra
My mind’s my burden.
I am a laughing stock
For people here,
They all mock my fears
When I warn them
About murders
They can evade.
But they allow any sham
Persuade the mob of sheer folly.
When mob is robbed, by golly,
Their malice is less intensive
Than the contempt for me.
It’s so offensive,
How could it be?
The tally is incentive.
Could all be blind?
Or am I out of my mind?
Loneliness
Have you heard the people howl
When they are not mad or drunk?
Human words do not allow
To express the state of funk
When you have no one to share
Not the bed but just a word
When you shout in despair
And meet no wishes to be heard.
When your letters are ignored
All aspirations are deferred-
And you are flawless now:
Nobody cares for you … Wow!
Taoist
Unmoving, floating
In the stream of life
Being carried by the slowing current
I grounded on bottom.
Life is passing by
Without moving me.
It is late autumn.
The winter’s coming
Soon everything’ll get frozen…
Charming.
Russified Hamlet
I overlived my time, but was it really mine,
Time stolen from the country less than an age ago?
Oh, brave new world! Big Brother’s watching us
Writhing in slime, in hunger and in pains.
We’re robbed again and spat in our face.
The cycle’s over. End has come to time.
Pigs just like men, Swift’s yahooes, Bosch’s visions –
All in one place. Their name is Legion.
They torture us. The pressure’s reached the crest
I’m wasteable. But what about the rest?
The rest is silence… I’m afraid eternal.
Don Quixote
I’m looking forward to the greatest of all loves
I do not see it yet, but I feel its approach
Despite my age, my health and previous vows,
A knight without fear and reproach.
I am not new – were many men before
Worthy the title “knight” by deeds and not by birth
My deeds are only words or statements or
Just position in the situations worth
Career only, or money, few times – life
But that’s what counts is a readiness to loose
All that you have and risk a dive
Into a stream and not peruse
The chances to survive just as you see the threat
To the insulted and humiliated people.
Injustice stream is turbulent and dread.
It’s difficult to swim crosscurrent ripple.
I am exhausted and the scores aren’t even
Eternal battle can’t be won but I don’t care
I don’ expect reward I could be given
I have got used to snobbery and sneer.
But what I hope without any reason
Before I’m hanged for some invented treason
The Lady of my dreams despite all lies
Would glance at me with loving eyes.
Advice
Soleness is what we seek when we are young.
Loneliness is what we get when we're old.
Most dreams when implemented seem like dung
That's what Ecclesiast for us foretold.
I have a piece of wisdom for the youth
Anticipate you won't follow it though
When someone says he has another truth
Beware cajolery - it's Goddamn zone.
Don't ever you dare to dream about sin,
But when involved, please recollect illusions,
Remember who has put you in that bin
And don't further jump to the conclusions.
You have a chance - we always have a chance -
To look in past to see survived through years
And scrutinize the values you enhance.
Then make compares.
Intersection of worlds
There’s hiding place between three intersecting worlds:
One is the Dreamland and we call Reality the other,
The third, the biggest, is Eternity. My sisters, brothers,
There’s no death in this time swirl,
While balancing between their gravities
You won’t find life about which to rave.
Inside the Time there is a cavity
Where “is” and “was” and “seems” are just the same,
There’s no opposition as “the existing” and “the non-existing”.
You’ll find just wisdom, sadness, and the solitude,
You’ll understand again earth’s sighs, trees’ whisper and wolf’s bristling.
You’ll realize that Evil is only inaptitude
Inherent to people incapable of love
And sharing world with others.
You’ll see Eternity, Reality and Dreamland
From outside and the inside at the same time.
They will be both alien and yours.
But you’ll be able to share with other people
Only vague memories when back to the Reality.
Hence – solitude and sadness.
***
What is the Truth? Who needs it now?
Eternal questions and eternal doubt.
My home
I have a shabby castle of my own.
It is my home.
I must admit it’s only a flat
And, frankly speaking, it’s not mine at that.
My flat’s a ruin – no repairs
Were made in twenty five odd years
The only things bought by me here
Are books and the computer gear.
I’m not fastidious
It would be tedious,
The superstition
In my position.
Poetry
The poetry’s the living creature
That’s nourished by response
She’s timid when you reach her
And ripens when you haunt
Her hiding place. If you besiege her
She’ll leave seclusion and acquire features
Of splendid fairy they vaunt
Of taste and delicacy with admixture
Of fear of the unknown.
But if it happens that the contact breaches
She’ll starve to death in wildwood ditches.
Stars
When people are born – new stars appear,
When people die – they flicker out at sky
And disappear to gather forces for new shine
But when their sins make people proud,
It is disaster we shouldn’t fear,
Their stars fall down into wishing wells
To serve the kinder masters,
To break the spells
Imposed by Evil.
Christmas
We celebrate the Christmas day
The day our Lord attained
The mortal coil to show us the way
We can be saved.
I cannot understand the trend I’ve noticed of late
People tend to make the promises they violate
Ignoring hopes they induce and then frustrate
And not aware of the changes they produce in their own fate.
This most commemorative date
With Anno Domini we relate
Makes us and neighbors estimate
The wishes that we contemplate.
New Year
New year of new age,
Another page of human history.
The end of western type civilization is near
You shouldn’t fear destruction
Of the construction that overlived its time.
Folks, we are all brokes!
Elections
They want to play same trick again
To make me choose without choice
I shall not play this dirty game
I won’t give my own voice
In favor of the liars
And choose the lesser harm
From pigs that just despise us
And our Animal Farm.
The way out of hopelessness
The absence of the choice and hope
Means only one thing – your vision
Is aberrated by the blinders you grope
In collision with own destiny and wrong decision
Has led you to the dead end.
The burden of the grieves
That make you bend
Are jogs that you receive
To change the trend
Of the events mislead
By blindness you can end
By changing sled
Direction from down to the up.
Of course you’ll need the effort which
Overcomes disrupt
Of reference system switch.
***
New year’s coming
Charming day
When you’re family way.
But if the fate is cunning
And you are sole
You should console
Your poor self by way things are:
You are alive and life’s ajar
To any wishes
But it may be vicious
To the ill-wishers.
***
My brain’s destructing
And my mind is weakened
Blood vessels’ ducting
Is clogged, blood’s thickened,
But willpower’s still strong
Though won’t last long…
I would have hated all this evil world
But for one thing, or better say a girl
***
Dark night has choked daylight. Day is dead.
It won’t come back to senses any more.
You killed the time again. You must be mad
To waste the only treasure you afford.
Time is for living not for false alarm
About future and the outcome
Of the events that are not bringing harm
Just now. So my old chum
There’s twink anon, so value twink
The future hell is not existing now
And it depends on what you feel and think
Will it take shape or just drop out.
Internet love
I’ve never seen her face
I don’t know her place
She hides under the veil
Of internet e-mail.
But she’s the only soul
Who’s able to console
Delirium of my mind.
And thought of suicide
Has vanished into air
And utmost despair
Gave way to supreme love
That was a mighty shove
And lonely asteroid
Has found his destined orbit.
Perverted world
We live in a perverted world
The perverts dictate majority
The way we should behave
They say it’s freedom way.
But, hey1 What’s going on?
Are they so strong,
Or something’s wrong?
***
We’ve got to pay for everything we own
We pay in cash by barter or by loan
For children family and home.
We estimate and calculate
The friendship, love, our work mate,
But soul has its own rate
When immaterial we weight
It shrinks each time we loose or gain
And never will restore again
Being substituted by the brain
It means that soul
Has been sold.
***
I am a human being living in the inhuman world
Or, better say, existing, still persisting
To grasp the sense of it and still resisting
To believe my own eyes
***
From euphoria to depression
Such is the pitch of poet’s passion
To embrace life and to express
The corners hidden from the rest.
The depth of fall and height of rise
Will jointly manifest
The keenness of insights.
My own lines are just intended
To be amended and utilized
By better poets at East or West.
***
My idea is that one shouldn’t fear
The misery and the despair
That might lead nowhere
Provided you don’t hear
Soft voice of your own Muse.
Do not abuse the Lord above and use
The chance you have to view
The world outside from new point of view.
Actor
I am an actor in the game called life
Playing in play played thousand times
Repeating words that are already trite
Unable to change the course set by playwright
Destined to kill and to be cursed in rhymes
And wishing after effect to strive,
And sometimes causing applausing.
***
Cheers to Jameson, an American soldier!
He came to Iraq not to earn a few bucks
True soldier will never discuss what he’s ordered
But he’ll do the best not to loose human husk.
The oath to him is a matter of honour.
Compassion for the others is not a command
Having disarmed the kid with a gun,
He gave him a hug. Have you heard
The whisper of universe that will come?
Heroic people build impeccable world.
It cannot be ordered. It’s way of mind.
Girl and world
If you met a girl in imperfect world,
You can't any more live without her,
Then you must be stern, stubborn and concerned
To change the whole world just by the three words:
I love you - world's changing,
I love you - time's hanging,
I love you - words banging
The world's rearranging.
Love's the force that bursts stars and universe,
They are all dispersed to give new life birth.
We must be disturbed, way our word is heard
May change the whole world, these only tree words:
I love you - world's changing,
I love you - time's hanging,
I love you - words banging
The world's rearranging.
***
Love needs no blessings
When it happens.
Whatever dressings
It wraps in.
***
We extend feeling,
Not the love itself,
In life game’s bidding
We’re loosing wealth.
Love’s not a bargain,
Or you are arguing?
***
I‘ve found the Saint Grail.
There’s wine in it, not blood.
It is divine: it clears mind and heart
And vision, and eases pain
Of heartache in our life collisions
And gives force to implement provisions
Set forth in Holy Scripture.
***
It’s hard to feel like alien
In one’s own world
That chained you
To the Word
They hear you, but never listen
They look through shape of yours,
But word is heard by Universe,
Response will shatter Earth.
***
Poetry is the blood of nation
When nation’s hurt it bleeds,
When nation’s dying it then seeds
The contemplation
That will breed
The New civilization
To succeed.
***
The expectations come and go,
But life remains unchanged.
It weighs up our silly hope
And leaves the claim unpaid.
Life doesn’t stop and that’s what matters
Beware he to whom it flatters!
Mature Love
To hear, to see,
To smell, to feel,
To taste, vibrating
With all sense organs rating
Love, most unreal,
It is ideal.
***
The beaten army that did not disperse
Has double value of the new one’s worth.
***
But why the dialogue has died?
No answer. Just “Access denied”.
TRANSLATIONS
From A. Pushkin
I have loved you. Perhaps the love’s still hiding
Within the corners of my heart and soul
But do not think it would be disobliging,
Afflicting on my side you’ll never know.
I have loved you, so silently, despairly
Timidity and jealousy perused
I have loved you so tenderly, sincerely
As God bless you be loved by man you choose.
From F. Tyutchev
We are not destined to embrace
The way our word percepted is
And understanding, like God’s Grace,
Depends on Heaven we’re beneath
Songs by Igor Talkov
Oh Russia
I’m ruffling leaves of old notes,
The general was executed,
I failed to reckon what behold
How the country had been sold
And let them all to have you looted
And from Dark Ages you emerged
Like giant to his feet arising
Your Petersburg prevented wars
By the superb effective force
In Catherine-age self-realizing.
Oh Russia
The sacred music of church bells
Lingering over Moscow air
To some it sounded like knell
And even slightest sounds spelled
The radicals to their despair
And golden domes of the Church
Were blinding their failing eye-sight
And irritated Evil’s serfs
To the extent that they decided
To tear your eyes out and to blind you.
Oh, Russia
The skies burst open with a crush
The mob of Judases appeared
Cutting away the churches’ heads
Proclaiming newest leader’s rush
New crucifiers of believers
They tied you down with red flags
They knelt you down to meet death
The carnifex then raised his cleaver
And your death-warrant had been read
By bloodiest king and greatest leader.
Oh, Russia
I’m ruffling leaves of old notes,
The general was executed,
The old hand-written texts, they oath
And resurrect the shot-down truths
They are so hard to be revoked
By generation that was looted.
Oh, Russia
(my continuation)
Again skies opened with a crush,
Again same Judases appeared
They now disguised as democrats
To shreds they Russia’s body tear,
To global aims they onwards rush
Sparing churches that they fear
They think that their aim is near,
But very soon they’ll disappear
Just owing to their tear and wear.
The ponds called Clear Springs
Yet each in Universe has hiding place to nurse
His heart-ache for a while, to stay in a seclusion
Where memories of past will cure all the worst,
Will calm down injured heart from previous intrusion.
The ponds called Clear Springs, and so shy bowing willows
Like the girls agape at the lake-side
Clear Springs, meadows green, my childish dream playground,
So far away in space-time,
Distanced rich accordion sound.
I hurry to return to their benignant light
And boats on the water light-beam flashes
We left this place one day to plunge into the life
And I am here again, and you are sure to dash in!
The ponds called Clear Springs, and so shy bowing willows
Like the girls agape at the lake-side
Clear Springs, meadows green, my childish dream playground,
So far away in space-time,
Distanced rich accordion sound.
And once you’ll cross the town to stop before a lake
And waters will reflect familiar other image
They will cure your heart and maybe will relate
Forgotten memories to ripen them in vintage.
The ponds called Clear Springs, and so shy bowing willows
Like the girls agape at the lake-side
Clear Springs, meadows green, my childish dream playground,
So far away in space-time,
Distanced rich accordion sound.
Yet each in Universe has hiding place to nurse
His heart-ache and with time we cherish them still stronger
There you can breathe with ease, there’s purity of earth
They make us happy, young and we’re gloomy no longer
The ponds called Clear Springs, and so shy bowing willows
Like the girls agape at the lake-side
Clear Springs, meadows green, my childish dream playground,
So far away in space-time,
Distanced rich accordion sound.
FORMER COSSACK ELITE
Former Cossack elite
Had been leaving for war
With the curses of dad
And the silence of brother
He responded: “I’d rather…
But you won’t admit…”
Hugged his wife just a bit
And then added: “I’d rather…”
And he mounted the horse
Galloped half of a mile
But hold back at the side
Of the river backwater
And he threw his awards
And his last shoulder boards
Like the ties with past
And they sank to the bottom
Wind appeared from nowhere
Wrinkled face of the water,
And the leaves whispered: no
Nature grew circumspected
And the Cossack heard flow
Saying: ”How can you go
To fight men of your own
For the people’s state goal!”
Cossack jolted his head
And the prayer he read
And he put spurs to horse
To pore out his annoyance
And the horse jerked ahead
Like a devil it ran
To escape the cursed place,
Where awards sank to bottom.
He was carried about
With a wind through his land
Where the woods and the fields
Became champ of the battle
Former Cossack elite
Had succeeded in riot
And at very war end
He was leading an army
But nature is so quaint
And the eye of the Lord
Sees mistakes we afford
Treading our thorny road
And last hour comes
On our own accord
At the end of our rope
We recall the God’s code!
Former Cossack elite
Now having no army
He recalled curse of dad
And the Voice he cut dead
And the breechblock had clicked
And by the nine grams of lead
Sinful soul was released
To be met at Last Judgment
And the river has kept
The awards in its depth
And his last shoulder boards
They shall forever remain
Till the end of the time,
Till we hear last trump,
The most inseparable domain
Of the river called Don
Till the end of the time,
Till we hear last trump,
The most inseparable domain
Of the river called Don
Summer rain
Memory has seized stinging
Thoughts do not beat on the hands
You’re going and I’m seeing
You off to the alien lands
You are the constant migrant
Looking for good luck
You came just to say that you went
And you fly again.
So scud.
Summer rain, summer rain
It today has pored so early
Summer rain, summer rain
Will clear my heartache curlie-wurlie
We shall share our grieves with it
By the water-blind pane
Summer rain, summer rain
Whispers it to me his wisdom:
You will come, come again
Come again, to return freedom
Missing one’s time is most frequent of life plays
With two actors at stage.
Night dreams of you will soon vanish
Soon they will perish and, oh!
New dream will lighten and get warmth in my old cold home
When you have love, don’t seek more loving
You’ll realize with time
Now you don’t want to hear my cry and you’re lost for a while.
Summer rain, summer rain
It today has pored so early
Summer rain, summer rain
Will clear my heartache curlie-wurlie
We shall share our grieves with it
By the water-blind pane
Summer rain, summer rain
Whispers it to me his wisdom:
You will come, come again
Come again, to return freedom
Missing one’s time is most frequent of life plays
With two actors at stage.
TO MEMORY OF VICTOR TSOY
The poets are born not by odd chances
They must fly down to Earth from distant heights
Enigma of their fate only enhances
Accessible and common poets’ lives
The eyes of such above-sky living envoys
Are always sad, they see another way
In our tangled world their souls shine forever
And light the way to worlds that ran astray
They walk away completing their mission
Being withdrawn by Super Worlds above
They are outside affection and volition
As per the cosmic gaming rule of thumb.
They are leaving making no commitments
The moment that the trumpets sound most
The poets, the actors, and musicians -
Physicians they are for tired souls.
The birds in woods have learned the songs of theirs
The field flowers for them entwine the wreaths
They walk away from us but they will never disappear
In their songs and poems they still breathe
Perhaps today or probably tomorrow
I shall become mysterious envoy
To Super Worlds where went and left us to our sorrow
The poet and composer Victor Tsoy.
I’LL RETURN
I am dreaming to return from war
During which I was born and brought up
At impoverished ruined soil
Under rain of tears drop-out
But the tyrant’s not buried yet
That declared war on this soil
And there seems to be no plug or end
To this war.
I am not going to presage
I am aware I’ll return to stage
Maybe in some another age
Not at fool’s cage but land of genius
Being a battle casualty
I’ll rise from grave and will sing
At very first day that we’ll celebrate
Returning from the war.
But when battle sometimes slackens off
At clock-hour halt, but not in line
About peace and about love
I compose, sing and write
The opponents heave sigh of relief
And my friends just say “It’ a jolt…”
All of them misjudge me by their own belief
It’s clock-hour halt
Just halt.
Tomorrow I’ll show my rampage
I am aware I’ll return to stage
Maybe in some another age
Not at fool’s cage but land of genius
Being a battle casualty
I’ll rise from grave and will sing
At very first day that we’ll celebrate
Returning from the war.
I’ll return from the war
I’ll return
The very best day
The memories day belted by blue band
Darkness of the summer evening
All of our feelings you are free to have
And to keep until first meeting.
And to you dare I to say: very best of days,
Very best of days that one we had today
And it is quite OK that it had passed away
And it at last released the things I had to say.
Do not feel offended that your own words
I do not accept in earnest
Memory is often like coloured chocolate-box
It varnishes even the worst
So I say to you again: very best of days,
Very best of days that one we had today
And it is quite OK that it had passed away
And it at last released the things I had to say.
And a spoon of bliss in the ocean of tears
Has solved and cannot be retrieved
We are not entitled to revive the first swears
To revive what we have perceived
So I say to you again: very best of days,
Very best of days that one we had today
And it is quite OK that it had passed away
And it at last released the things I had to say.
Very best of days that one we had today
It’s the best
So thank you, dear fortune
So thank you for exertion,
So quickly you have met my expectation
So thank you, so thank you, so thank you
For attention
So quickly you have met my expectation
So thank you, so thank you, so thank you
For your exertion,
So quickly you have met my expectation
So thank you!
GENTLEMEN-DEMOCRATS
Gentlemen-democrats of the nineteenth century
We would very much like to have all you revived
So that you see our present successes
And we would be able to give you rewards.
Each of us all would express his own gratitude:
The farmer – by sickle, the worker – by pick,
The imprisoned – by shackles, by prosthesis- ex-soldier
But as to myself – oh, I would have used brick.
High class! High class!
The USA and Europe prosper
High class! High class!
And we are left with bare…
Gentlemen-democrats of the nineteenth century
Why were you striving and threatening the Crown,
The nature’s not stupid and God isn’t a venture
And you have ignored them and didn’t account
Perhaps you have been planning arrangement of borders,
Restructuring everything – fool's haste is no speed
But the nature can’t follow your stupid orders
And God never reads leaflets with any decrees
High class! High class! The USA and Europe prosper
High class! High class! And we are left with bare…
Gentlemen-democrats, you know the example
When your own good colleagues had inspired the bloodshed
Killed the aristocrats – the enlightment was ample,
Paris won’t wash from this, though it’s so well-bred .
The truth-seeker Radischev having learned of this carnage
Had almost chewed up his rebellious novel
He took leave of his senses and he stared at garbage
And cursing freemasons sat blankly in hovel.
High class! High class! The USA and Europe prosper
High class! High class! And we are left with bare…
Gentlemen-democrats, hurry up to arise, flirts,
Take a seat at the court, and be judged by fooled mass:
Time to answer for words, Chernyshevskiy and Hertson,
And the dreamer Belinsky, and the wizard Karl Max;
You will answer as well, those who came after them
To deprive our people of land and of justice.
You have turned free-born Russians into bondmen
Into prison you turned the very Great Russia!
High class! High class! The USA and Europe prosper
High class! High class! And we are left with bare…
Ad astra per aspera!
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