Translated material
OPPOSITE LANE
LIBRARY
The time of their joint performances at the stadiums and at the Polytechnic has long passed. Yevtushenko remained loyal to the Polytechnic. Voznesensky prefers the Tchaikovsky Hall. It already seems impossible to see them together... Youth loves to find something in common....
The time of their joint performances at the stadiums and at the Polytechnic has long passed. Yevtushenko remained loyal to the Polytechnic. Voznesensky prefers the Tchaikovsky Hall. Seeing them together already seems impossible ...
Youth likes to find common ground. Maturity insists on the individual. Paths that once started at one point, the farther, the more they diverge. Moreover, poetry is a lonely affair.
And yet she needs an echo, like air. She even insists on it with rhymes.
And, of course, you want to be heard first of all by those who can hear poetry. So, first of all - fellow poets. Well, if they also answer, this is already an event.
Today we are present at such an event. And we are glad that it took place on the pages of Novaya.
In No. 14 of February 24, we published a new poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, dedicated to Andrei Voznesensky and general youth. Andrey Andreyevich read it, heard the message, and, as it turned out later, wrote a reply the same day. Which he handed over to our newspaper.
We are happy to publish it. And - we reprint Yevtushenko's poem, which marked the beginning of the dialogue between the two poets. Now they met in our lane.
... As you know, poets predict changes in the social climate better than any regular barometers. Maybe now the time is really coming, if not for the unification of all those who are not “vertical power”, then at least for active interaction?
Dialogue of poets
Evgeniy YEVTUSHENKO
On the "tail"
Andrei Voznesensky
I would like to ask Andryusha,
does he remember today
how we lived soul to soul with him
to the sounds of their own names.
They are in the divine beginning,
no end in sight,
sounded so delightful
in the subway, in hostels, by the fire.
We were greeted with such enthusiasm.
in Moscow windbreakers, tunics,
and ripped jeans in New York
where they also expected changes
freckles like the eyes of the knees.
In the verses there was a fresh aftertaste of the morning,
and the names thundered so
inseparable, as if
freedom double password.
But that freedom of two boys
was, so that there was no excess in it, -
under the eyes of not removed from the towers
Gulag searchlights.
They knocked with their fist from above.
They ripped off posters from billboards.
Rustled in the ears, like mice:
"Don't break the extra firewood!".
We broke them all the time
and no matter how you fight with us,
were fearless and naive,
and so uninhibited impetuous,
like risky rhymes
from lips where a kiss has not dried.
Do you remember, we left Gia
Danelia is completely different,
than sometimes now when...
Let's forget. The main thing is then.
So we left. At night. From Gia.
The night was too young
and she, like us, wanted with might and main
into some kind of confusion
and without any shame.
Yes, and all shame is impure,
when Chistye Prudy is here.
Both of us, to merge with the people.
leafed through all of you, capital,
legs first, face after
looking for girlfriends "at random",
but find not too strict,
intelligent long-legged,
soul mate failed.
We were leaving. Walked wearily.
But the adventure didn't come.
And "Annushka" walked by tirelessly,
not the one with that insidious oil, -
and busy with shock work,
lost on the boulevard ring
night tram under the letter "A",
with shabby red sides
and rattling calls
native female soul,
the only one that night
wanted to help us both.
And someone looked out the window
sipping shaky wine
and, shaking the tram with a bass,
we croaked: "Guys, come on!".
“Well, we’ll catch up and - on the tail!” —
I exclaimed, easy as toast,
especially since we Bulgakov
paternal made no signs.
And we rushed through the sleepers
in everything waiting for us, opals,
and, as if a fire burned us,
a jump was made on the buffer.
And suddenly - the Urals could already hear,
the hymn loudspeaker played!!!
What a pity that Gia did not see us,
when fully dressed
we are like two naked boys
on a red lathered horse,
shook in the morning along with the anthem
on that hospitable tail
in a half-awakened country.
Then, as usual in Russia,
people invited us to the tram
and "Three sevens" from the throat
our homeland gave us.
Buses. After the change.
With Maryina Roshcha. Gentlemen.
Said, "We're not driving.
There is a vobla. Maybe we'll go?"
One, looking all cheerful,
I suddenly said: “After all, you are Andrey?”.
A sidekick in a few moments
Andrei saw: “Eugene?”.
We said goodbye and laughed
how we became each other.
And what happened after us -
maybe it's not us.
We ourselves are only those
at "Annushka", on that tail ...
February 18, 2005
Andrey Voznesensky
Cry for brother
Reply to Evgeny Yevtushenko
And Mezhirov had a schmaler.
Do you remember? Woman. Bartok. Snowball.
Smiling in death gauze,
you're a little pale, bro.
We poets are always guilty
poetic brothers...
The sky sang half of us
without hitting the key line!..
And the snow, like the smell of wine,
does not erode from the head.
Punished by the highest measure
aggressively preserving success,
We, poets, are like agasspheres,
we see horrors the longest.
Do you remember Zhenya? You remember, you remember!
The light of lyrical snowy faces.
And your kepar coloring poncho
called for help from all the paramedics!
We are different, the paths are separate,
different compromising evidence is sewn on us:
"This one walks lame like a demon,
he limped a bit with his head."
Weary of the pastoral
people rejoice again:
"If God's gift is lost,
so there was something to lose!”
But there will be no screens
and not going beyond the flags.
Only a tear over the head of a brother,
there is no such head.
February 24, 2005
PS Read in the next issue Bella Akhmadulina's poems and Yevgeny Yevtushenko's poem about her - in his heading "Anthology of Russian Poetry".