No matter what kindnesses I bestowed upon cruelty,

I could not build a bridge to God*

No matter how much money I gave to beggars for burial**

Death will only raise a toast in my memory.

The cat will regret the tears of dead mice,

All witnessed by walls that have ears.

How many unscathed clever souls are up in the clouds?
Refrain:

In the nailed-up rooms where sounds suffocate in freedom

-so sweetly

In the old icons, forgotten torments cry, remembering

-and Power.

The infinity has limits, after all - from one (o'clock) at night

- the Grave

Who is out there in the Cosmos, who is just hanging around,

- no matter,

There is no Choice! - II

How many old rags in the trunk?

How many uncried tears in our eyes?

How much junk there is the shops?

Too late to harvest in the fall,

Too late to love in spring

Too late to die in spring!

Refrain

*Highway to Heaven?

**in the original, literally "for the cross"

FAITH & LOVE (Vera i Lubov')

I

I will sacrifice myself to Fate,

I will find my purpose through dreams,

I will not give up,

I will not give up

To the blind intoxication of feverish spring,

I know:

Refrain:

Faith and love - all through pain, pain!

Faith and love - all through pain, pain!

To be a tame bird with fiery wings* -

But you're in my embrace, in the nakedness of sky!

The passion in my heart will melt my coldness,

Tears will melt my wrath,

The fest** is like a spiritual hunger,

The meaning of life is an omnipotent bluff

You know that...

Refrain

III

The Sun will join the Moon,

The Sky will make peace with Earth

The sea will take over the land,

You and I will be with them!

Hey, Do you hear?

*This line is in reference to the "Firebird" of Russian folklore

**this word can be variously translated as "holiday", "celebration", or "feast", which is related to "fest" in English, so "feast during the plague" is a thinly-veiled reference here

What is not plowed (under), is not sown

Who is going to the scaffold, who is headed North,

Who is for Tibet, who has sold his soul?

Me? I am out to lunch, I have played my fill -

with living toys,

with clockwork souls*

with magical secrets,

I have disturbed the status quo,

Have broken all their little houses,

Have stomped through their courtyards.

What is not touched, is not discovered,

Who is aiming for the throne, who is on the road not taken,

Year after year, only one turn is left to go,

I have ruined it all, I have "overplayed" my hand.

What is not (played) in time, what is not proper,

Who is headed for the grave, who is going to Venus,

Who is for Truth, who is for the Lies,

If you're done playing, put it back....

Joy (shyly) entered the soul,

Became saddened and left.

What an outrage, what audacity - true disgust-

The soul is in discontent!

Did not forgive, did not forget,

Savoured nothing,

Just gave you a longing for happiness

Have broken the chains of death

Refrain:

Stork, stork, stork - over the incubator,

Stork, stork, stork, it would be better to clone

Love,

Love,

Love

All is gone, that which used to ripen

in the belly of passion-fire

That which shone is now tarnished,

Spontaneously, forever.

Refrain

THE FLOOD OF TEARS [LIVEN' SLEZ]

The wind won't blow away the clouds of despair,

Will not melt the heart's hoary frost,

Where I am, it is always winter,

(at whose) cold glance, the spring so sweetly dies.

With no sadness, and no regrets,

Without the suffering of all generations past,

Where I dwell, it is always freezing,

In the moonlight are the echoes of dreams.

Refrain:

Not wine, not blame*

Not holy water,

But only the flood of tears

From faint memories,

From everyday declarations of love,

Where they are dreams, there are always fantasies (musings),**

The faceless world will remain

*There is a play on words here which does not come across in English: "vino" means "wine", "vina" means "fault" "blame"

**In English , the same word "dream" stands for different concepts, while in Russian, the distinction between the dream one experiences while asleep and the kind one muses of, are conveyed by different words.

ETCHINGS UPON THE SOUL [RISUNKI NA DUSHE]

I

Heat, rains, blizzards,

The tears flowing back into the eyes,

The bed erased.

Etchings upon the soul,

Scribbled by the wise Noah,

Rubbing out with acid

Old insults and slights.

Refrain:

He scanned the brain,

He encoded the world,

He evacuated thoughts

To faraway lands,

Playful but cruel.

II

Etchings upon the soul,

From life, and nature-morte,

He painted it all, forgetting time,

Noah was proud

Etchings upon mine (soul)

Did not come out well, did not take,

My soul was already blistered by love

Refrain

III

Noah draws with both hands,

And with his head and with his tongue,

Noah draws eyes full of woe.

Let spirits rise up to the ceiling

Refrain

THE ANGEL OF DEATH [ANGEL SMERTI]

I

Through the veins of thunderclouds,

Reckless moonlight seeps in.

As you fly away, take me with you,

The victim of this earthly flesh.

Refrain:

Ahead - are the endless realms,

Fly on, fly on,

You, who aspired to be the God of Love,

Yet became the Angel of Death.

II

To the moans issuing from nameless graves*,

In the fires of breathless passions,

I remember the mortal world of your games,

Return to me soon!

Refrain (x2)
* it is "crosses" in the original, but refers to "graves'

LOVE'S FUNERAL [POKHORONY LUBVI]

I

Here I am, left all alone in the world,

My spectre encompassed by sadness,

Pain chased away my peace,

Dotted lines replaced my path.

But I cannot be with you,

Even if I am to burn...

Refrain:

There is no room left in me for

A grand, grand passion,

My name is "Universal Darkness"

Your embrace has extinguished my moonlight,

and it will never return to you.

II

Time to come back to the living,

Though it frightens me to tears,

My spirit is spent

driving alone in the frigid air of nighttime Moscow,

to the loss of all my strength.

Refrain

GUILLOTINE IN FLOWERS [GUILLOTINA V ZVETAKH]

I

There once lived an executioner,

He served the state faithfully,

Yet, he was ever enchanted by the beauty of Nature.

He roamed the forests at night,

For fear of dreaming his recurring dream:

Refrain:

Guillotine, guillotine, guillotine,

Guillotine (covered) in flowers

II

A romantic at heart,

A poet in his soul,

After each beheading,

He could be found clutching a flower.

They (flowers) surrounded him, and

Again and again, they invaded his recurring dream:

Refrain:

III

One day, the executioner failed to return

From the dreamlands,

His romance among the flowers

Having proved deadly.

Refrain

TO SHREDS [V KLOCHYA]

The most terrifying minute of life

Lasts and lasts without end....

One is moved to believe that all will turn out (well),

But only bears the weight of the sacred crown*

Since one who loves is forever holy,

One who is loyal is sanctified for all time,

But eternity only lasts a moment,

Endless is the cruel minute when the hearts are ripped

To shreds!

Memories scratch away at you,

Longing sets it,

If you created it, you suffer for it,

Love is mutual destruction,

Loneliness is strength,

Indifference - heaven.

The most terrifying privation of life-

the grand meaning of it all, of the last hopes and dreams,

Emptiness and renunciation,

Yellowed happiness is felt when the bridges are torn

To shreds!!!

But the most crucial is concealed in the quiet spaces,

All that is precious is contained within silences,

All is as it is meant to be....

What pity that I cannot love.

To shreds....

*

THE PAINTER [KHUDOZHNIK] [*

I

Cutting through the grizzled silence of quietude,

Flaming in the frigid air,

The cracked church-bells carried the sound,

And there noisily rose in time with beat-strokes

Cowing flocks of crows

Refrain:

The cold spring swirls and foams,

Raising a storm of passion and obsession,

And in the depths of soul, ennui is drowned,

Since all is reborn in the theatre of March.

The Painter, creating

on the deathly purity of his canvas,

The Painter is Satan Himself,

Satan, Satan....

II

Out of the rusty puddles, the Sun smiles once again,

The smoke of spring-fires is like the holy censer,

The Queen patiently plays out her part,

Awakened from wintry hibernation,

A celebratory Mass is conducted by Satan.

Refrain: (with some alterations)

The Painter, he flies over the morbid purity of the canvas,

The Painter, creating...

The Painter is Satan Himself,

Satan, Satan...

*This song seems to have been inspired by the novel "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov, it definitely relates to the spirit of the book in great many ways. (Although "The Master" of the title is a writer.) But I have yet to confirm my suspicion.

GOODNESS [BLAGODAT']*

Life is work, fate is like birdsong

I have a hundred of experimental faces

The faces search for the meaning of it all so loyally,

Forcing me to return again and again**

Refrain:

Savour the edge of love

goodness

God's grace descends

Goodness

II

Panting with greed and hurting with (repressed) potential,

Is my shade (spectre),

It will never forgive me,

It will form bones and flesh relentlessly

So that tears of the sky will pound it with rain.

Refrain

III

Tomorrow morning, bright sun in my eyes

Life is work, not a game of blind man's bluff

Black light will dissolve the feelings, and again,

Blood will flow back into the opened veins.

Refrain

*the word can also mean "happiness", "grace of God", the second meaning is used here somewhat sarcastically

** as in reincarnation?