This man on the bridge, he's always there.
Busy trying to swindle us out of our money
as we swindled it out of various funds,
unintentionally giving it away. It's April
all the time, every day the first. Usually
the city makes its appearance with some emergency.
An ambulance on urgent drive,
tyranny of savings in the hands of thieves,
a shot breaks the red thread,
and back to the beginning.

If this is a joke, it's a bad one.
Plenty of empty bottles and stuffed trash cans,
meridians pierced with needles,
all loves are eternal in the zenith, painless on the negative,
mistaken. Then everyone weeps by himself,
with icy wind sweeping across his resting place,
he rolls on the bed made out of leftovers,
grabs everything the dogs haven't taken,
drinks the water out of the admired fountain.

Half here half somewhere else in thoughts,
that's how I live on the street, in this damned rain,
in this slush and mud, eavesdropping on the canals.
I stink, I don't remember much, there's black behind my nails,
I give it my all.

Translated by A. Pepelnik and M. Zapruder