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Letters

Mykhail Semenko

Concerning with the letter:

Mykhail Semenko

  • From the cycle Pierrot Dead-dodging

     

    The Streets

    Crowded streets, dainty trams,

    silken thread stretch from secret eyes

    and into the soul, where dreaming spots are,

    where oncoming thoughts are warm.

     

    A loud propeller is ticking the chest,

    in the heart, there’s high-day, like a treasure

    flew on lonely and familiar, duskless,

    blooming around in countless colors.

     

    I shall not break the transparent chain,

    I shall not detach the fatal thoughts —

    for, in the morning and in the sun,

    there are so many gold-secret threads.

     

    1918

  • An Appeal

    Don’t, don’t worry so much –

    Khreshchatyk has no clouds in the night.

    Don’t, don’t make oh-so-concentrated faces,

    throw away your pocket dictionary.

     

    Enlighten the night with griefless electricity,

    imagine there is a church around you.

    Fall, fall in love with the mural ruin —

    There is no drama, no drama any more.

     

    Carefully cast away the towering lour,

    raise your head to the aeroplane obstacles.

    Do not acknowledge wisdom, and for an endless sadness

    start the gramophone.

     

    I dislike to see you oh-so-concentrated,

    You are chained to the dictionary.

    Try and feel a soul with your soul unperturbed,

    Khreshchatyk has no clouds in the night.

     

    1918

    (Mykhail Semenko. The Complete Works, vol. 3. [Kyiv:] DVOU. Literatura i Mystetstvo, 1931, p. 9, 20.)

    The first poem comes from Pierrot Prancing (1918), the second from Pierrot Dead-dodging (1919). They were merged into a single cycle in the Complete Works in 1931.

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