Ishikawa Takuboku - Sad Toys

For five blocks after I left home,
I walked like a man
With something to do, someplace to go -

***

When I breath,
This sound in my chest
Lonelier than the winter wind

***

Like some train across the wild waste
This agony
Now and then through my mind!

***

Thought about the things I really wanted
And yet it all boiled down to none -
I polish my long-stemmed Japanese pipe!

***

All these people
Going in the same direction -
And me, watching them from the side

***

In the morning about four days ago -
O that dream
In which I argued with a god and cried!

***

Somehow
Thought myself important -
O childish me!

***

No reply from the next bed...
I looked,
Found him in tears.

***

"Now I see through you completely!"
Oh those words of my mother
In that dream!

***

At my words "Christ was a man",
The sorrow I felt
Seeing my sister's eyes pitying me.

Vladimir Mayakovsky - Lilichka! (Instead of a letter)

Tobacco smoke eats the air away.
The room,--
a chapter from Kruchenykh's Inferno.
Recall,--
by the window,
that day,
I caressed you ecstatically, with fervor.
Here you sit now,
with your heart in iron armor.
In a day,
you'll scold me perhaps
and tell me to leave.
Frenzied, the trembling arm in the gloomy parlor
will hardly be able to fit the sleeve.
I'll rush out
and hurl my body into the street,--
distraught,
lashed by despair
and sadness.
There's no need for this,
my darling,
my sweet.
Let's part tonight and end this madness.
Either way,
my love is
an arduous weight,
hanging on you
wherever you flee.
Let me bellow out in the final complaint
all of my heartbroken misery.
A laboring bull, if he had enough,
will leave
and find cool water to lie in.
But for me,
there's no sea
except for your love,--
from which even tears won't earn me some quiet.
If an elephant wants to relax, he'll lie,
pompous, outside in the sun-baked dune,
Except for your love,
there's no sun
in the sky
and I don't even know where you are and with whom.
If you thus tormented another poet,
he
would trade in his love for money and fame.
But
nothing sounds as precious to me
as the ringing sound of your darling name.
I won't drink poison,
or jump to demise,
or pull the trigger to take my own life.
Except for your eyes,
no blade can control me,
no sharpened knife.
Tomorrow you'll forget
that it was I who crowned you,
who burned out the blossoming soul with love
and the days will form a whirling carnival
that will ruffle my manuscripts and lift them above...
Will the dry autumn leaves of my sentences
cause you to pause,
breathing hard?

Let me
pave a path with the final tenderness
for your footsteps as you depart.

1916

Translated by Andrey Kneller

Գուլո (Հայկական ժողովրդական երգ)

Ելա տանից թափ քելացի,
Լանգով զարգի երթըս բացի,
Գուլոն տուն չէր, նստա լացի,
Վայ լե Գուլո, յաման Գուլո։

Գուլոն ելե, կերթա մարագ,
Ուր ուտելիք, մեղր ու կարագ,
Ուր խմելիք, ջուր սառնորակ,
Վայ լե Գուլո, յաման Գուլո։

Գուլոն ելե, կերթա աղբյուր,
Ոչ դու եղնիր, ոչ քու պաղ ջուր,
Ինձի վառեց քո սրտի հուր,
Վայ լե Գուլո, յաման Գուլո։

Գուլոն ելե կայնե քարիս,
Ձեռով կանե, կկանչե զիս,
Մոտիկ կերթամ, չճանչնա զիս,
Վայ լե Գուլո, յաման Գուլո։