Letters
Mykhail Semenko
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.