Oleg Pikhurko: Poems
Contents
- Cambridge without proofs
- Take my Heart Away
- My Favorite Tale
- Waiting for You...
- Rain Apology
- Moving out of Blue Boar Court
- My First Few Days in Cambridge
- Home of Church
- Contrasts
- Girl
- Prayer
- Wind-Tale
Dedicated to H.F.
I cannot tell how nice is Cambridge;
I have a heart, but not a language.
Such is my fate, my destination -
To have vocabulary of bounded variation.
Why is here the birth of every new day
When sleepy beams against the Darkness strife,
Like kissing a fairy princess in the night of May,
Like taking the first integral of your life?
Unlimited are fantasies of naughty Cam
When it displays with heavenly perfection
The shapes of meadows, clouds, men,
Oddly changed by some non-linear reflection.
Two banks: the sister and the brother,
Two loving hearts by water split,
For said the God: "Not cross each other" -
Proving the second axiom of great Euclid.
Spring Flowers, the first drops of star-dust
With perception appeal to every your sense.
They have grown from the seeds of lust
Topologically open and everywhere dense.
What use of Mathematics, tell me please
When it cannot make a single step near
To formally proving anything of these:
Theorems, too self-evident and clear.
Cambridge, 27 April 1996
Take my heart away
It brings me only pain
I hear its beating every day
Like drops of Autumn rain.
Like drops of Autumn rain
My tears, my thoughts, my eyes
My hands, my head, my brain:
Too heavy to fly in the skies.
Too heavy to fly in the skies -
My only chance to meet
The only love that never lies
The only lips like roses sweet.
The only lips like roses sweet
Await for me in distant May,
Meters, miles, inches, feet -
Take my heart away.
Cambridge, 14 April 1996
Dedicated to T.M.
I?m posessed by a wonderful fairy tale
No one ever knew;
With a real Princess, like snow pale:
The Princess was you.
Your haunting beauty was a bliss;
Fragnance of dew.
No great master could paint a piece
Deserving you.
Glamorous Palace, where the Highnesses
Grew and grew,
Was made so severely famous
Only because of you.
I was a pauper (his poor fashion!)
But happy and free:
Your love was the only possession
Belonging to me.
One night, from the palace, riches, delight
The Princess did flee.
Great sorrow in Kingdom, nobody can find
Neither you, nor me...
* * *
Legend and reality: face and veil,
Which is more true?
What favorite fairy tale
Have you?
Is there me?
Tampere, 4 September 1996
Dedicated to U.L.
I am waiting for You...
Day or Night, Sunlight or Dusk
Even in rain,
Waiting for my sweetheart, my joy,
And my pain.
I am waiting for You...
Like the Star is waiting the Sun
In the Sky;
To see it, to touch it, to love it
And to die.
I am waiting for You...
Never so I wanted, Riches, Might
Nor Fame.
Wherever I go, whispers me the Wind
Your Name.
I am waiting for You...
I?m bound to Time (my endless mate),
Together we go.
Tell me recipes how to make it quicker -
It?s too slow.
I am waiting for You...
I myself do not understand
To be true;
Why the Spring is a Winter for me
Without You.
Cambridge, 22 April 1996
Of climates, Rain?s a ragamuffin,
Causing all passers at once retreat.
Even cold Snow produces laughing,
Crystal Sunshine nobody can beat.
This convention needs some fusion,
Admit a fancy into the ordinary fate
And hear the melody of ablution
By millions of droplets played.
Rain?s wonder equals in the beauty
The Creation of Darkness and Light.
To repeat a miracle is a hopeless duty,
But it rains nearly every fortnight.
In the Silent Night lies its root
And all heavenly globules of dews
Cede the elysium and down scoot
To tell the dusty Earth good news.
Yet once, the Holy thrown into mud
When the Eternal his life for us laid,
That evening rain was not a rain but
The grievous tears of the Purest Maid.
So with a prayer, I beseech the Lord,
"Let me heed delight in waterfall rustle.
Be in key of major every drizzling cord,
Clearly audible through everyday bustle.
"Let me be awaken one coy morning
By peaceful tapping from the streets,
With water from the heavens pouring
Be christened all the human deeds.
Cambridge, 26 April 1997
My heart's in Blue Boar, My heart is not here,
My heart's in Blue Boar, it wanna be near
To friends, who ever are dear. It's so
My heart's in Blue Boar, whenever I go.
Cambridge, June 1996
My first few days
Have lovely gone
I've got much friends
We all have fun.
My first few days
Are like a wine:
They make you drunk -
You are just fine.
My first few days
A flow of joy,
Whatever they bring
I do enjoy.
My first few days
They go along
Being so short -
Remembered long.
Cambridge, October 1995
Once, as a group of students from Trinity we visited Camberwell,
London and the Church of St.George was our home for 3 days (and
nights).
Have you ever slept in church?
Stayed there for a whole night?
Has ever sung to you St.George
A lullaby made of starlight?
There is no much comfort, hither
And simply speaking it's very cold.
But imagine, if you only whisper
All the Saints will hear your call.
An angel, or Joseph, or Mary
In the sleep you must have seen,
But such a pity! I want to cry
I do not remember my dream!
Cambridge 5 May 1997
In bad days, in heavy rain,
Keep above you some umbrella
In the days, like days in May
Praise the moment, dear fellow.
Life is never simple thing
One cannot escape a sorrow.
During rain please always think
About sun to shine tomorrow.
Who knows, it may be so
Without such constrast;
Perpetual day would be bore
Perpetual night---disgust.
Cambridge 5 May 1997
Incidentally I bumped into you
On a street,
All of sudden I perceived your beauty
And your sweet.
Your words were streaming through the air
Like strings,
I were dreaming that your hands had brought
The early spring.
I didn't know that I was searching for you
All that time,
Until I had found you, and myself very deeply
In your eyes.
Cambridge, April 1997
In the old Winter of my soul
Let a little bird. Her sound
Let awake the frozen lands,
Let not let remain as stands.
Let not quiteness of coldness
Calm, uneventful and sharpless
Take away the cute dilemma.
Bring to life a painful gemma!
Let me bear woe, be strong,
Take Thou not away my cross.
Should I later change my mind
Keep Thy ways, eternal light.
Cambridge, April 1997
The huge family of heavenly Winds
Is really heterogeneous,
There are lof of different functions and bits
For its members to possess.
Some Winds help vessels to sail the Seas,
The others carry the Rain,
Yet few do nothing that can us please,
Hurricans bringing in rage.
Yet there was a funny little Wind so mild,
In our flock of hard labours,
He only loitered and dreamed until one time
His kin had driven him away.
They ordered him to find a daily occupation
Respectful and honoured
They told him to reduce all his imagination
And earn his daily bread.
He was wondering in the world and singing,
And a picturesque bird
Could make him, dreamy and linging
Forgetting his daily bread.
At one persian market, just for amusement,
He stole a tiny seed
From a slopy merchant and quickly went
Into the meadows of Egypt.
With mother's tender, with lover's care
He planted tiny surprise,
He brought water to this country so rare
To perfuse his prize.
Nobody can imagine how great was Wind's joy
With the first signs from mud
Of a so slowly awaking his green toy
A stem, some leaves and a bud.
And miracle happened, in the form of the Rose
With fragrance of perfume
With crimson of fire, of a Beauty, close
To everyone's view.
The Wind's exulting mirth was as crystal fragile:
Autumn in yellow cover
Withered the Rose and brought mourn to the life
Of her pasionate lover.
He took the petals, weightless like the Star beams
Too dead to utter a word.
The Wind took little rose last time to light's streams
To show her dying the world.
And the little seed were dropping all his way
To cover the earth,
Beauty's ambassadors to appear next May,
To give them birth.
And the Roses are blossoming but no Wind doth praise
The useless dreamer-brother,
Nobody wants to comprehend that a fantasy maze
Is a labour, hundred times harder!
Cambridge, March 1997
Translations:
A Polish translation by Daniel Gruber