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A BALLAD




A BALLAD (THESIS FOR A DOCTOR'S DEGREE) - Andrei Voznesensky

 My doc announced yesterday : 
   "You may have talent, though it's hidden, 
   your beak, however, is frost-bitten, 
   so stick at home on a cold day". 
     
   The nose, eh? 
     
   As irretrievable as time, 
   conforming to the laws of medicine, 
   your nose, like that of any person, 
   keep growing 
   steadily, 
   with triumph! 
     
   The noses of celebrities, 
   of guards 
   and ministers of ours 
   grow, snoring restlessly like owls 
   at night, along with plants and trees. 
     
   They're cool and crooked, resembling bills, 
   they're squeezed in doors, 
   get hurt by boxers, 
   however, our neighbour's noses 
   screw into keyholes, just like drills! 
     
   (Great Gogol felt by intuition 
   the role they play in man's ambition.) 
   My friend Bukashkin who was boozy 
   dreamed of a nose 
   that grew like crazy: 
   above him, coming like a bore, 
   upsetting pans and chandeliers, 
   a nose 
   was piercing 
   the ceilings 
   and threading 
   floor upon the floor! 
     
   "What's that? -- he thought, when out of bed. 
   "A sign of Judgement Day -- I said -- 
   And the inspection of the debtors!" 
     
   He was imprisoned on the 30th. 
     
   Perpetual motion of the nose! 
   It's long, while life is getting shorter. 
   At night on faces, pale as blotter, 
   like a black hawk, or pumping hose, 
   the nose absorbs us, I suppose. 
     
   They say, the Northern Eskimos 
   kiss one another with the nose 
     
   It hasn't caught on here, of course.


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