Bulat Okudzhava Poems

When I am besieged with despair and reprove,
Because can't stop fatal disaster,
I enter a blue trolley bus at his move -
That's here by chance and the last one.
...

The nightingales fill earth with notes
And the May rain - with sense of charms,
But a tin soldier, little and honest,
Is doomed to endless feats of arms.
...

There's no more a sound of our battle song,
Nor a ring of hoofs of our horses,
Bullets made the holes the mess-kit along,
The young sulteress's, too, midst our losses.
...

When, like a beast, the snow storm roars,
when, in a rage, it howls,
You do not have to lock the doors,
of your residing house.
...

They killed my father. He was killed
with no good reason - just in vain.
That was a little drop of lead,
but how's deep the wound and pain.
...

Why are you so sad, my good artist -
my good painter, musician or bard?
To which one of the tempests, the wildest,
had you spent all your talent and heart?
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Consciousness, magnificence and dignity -
Our spiritual nobility.
Stretch your palm to it, ‘cause for the sake
Such a thing, one can raise to the stake.
...

Oh, you, fancies on the subject
Of defeating bad by good!
In our Solar System, abject,
You're for demolition put.
...

Now falling, now growing, endless,
like does a little boat on a wave,
a street-organ was sending me thick sadness
from our yard as gloomy as a grave.
...

The gates of the commemoration
were opened for instant again,
and sets out my generation
for last, for concluding campaign.
...