ONE ESCAPED IN LOVE...
One escaped in love, another in mysticism,
a third to the mountains where eagles fly...
And then they gave away the Ukrainian muse
to some schoolboy.
And now they churn out copies
of saccharine Russian women poets.
They go from utopia to utopia –
and call it “Sagesse.”
But the genuine muse is demusified
at the front somewhere, in the dry night
she lies spit upon and husked
on the Ukrainian highway.
Why do we scream then, the blind, the deceived:
“Only those with makeup on are poets”
why do we smoke cigarette butts
and tighten ourselves in a corset?
Has our nation grown weary,
or is it close to the end –
because we have splendid profanation
yet almost not a single bard?
And almost no poem
that would move us! – None.
Only the harbingers of anesthesia
and bewilderment alone...
1919