Killing

Sometimes I see the old dream
That I’m in the chopper again.
Sometimes I hear the scream:
“There are too many of them!”

Sometimes: the gunner is killed,
The chopper’s engine is off,
Sometimes I really feel
That my heart has nearly stopped.

Sometimes I’m to Baghdad again –
From “Griffin” I fly to “Green Zone”,
Sometimes rocket fire & then…
I wake up in my bedroom alone…

Ivano-Frankivsk
12/09/09

Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn
We should have set us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!

But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face
I shot at him as he at me,
And killed in his place.

I shot him dead because –
Because he was my foe,
Just so: my foe of course he was;
That's clear enough; although

He thought he'd 'list, perhaps,
Off-hand-like - just as I –
Was out of work – had sold his traps -
No other reason why.

Yes; quaint and curious...

Your love is a subtle knife,
Like a double-edged sword,
Or like a thorn of a Dutch rose…
The magic power of yours
Brings a delightful mental anguish…
Your manners are flirtatious and vampish.
Your eyes… The morning stars, they shine on your visage,
Their light passes through life and death -
Through our existence.
Your lips… Like a forked tongue of a snake
They pierce my soul
And make it shed sweet tears, which you drink
With ecstasy.
Your hair is a golden net,
In which I was...

The sunset blazes ‘pon the vault,
This afternoon dies slowly forever,
The world is overfilled with weariness and fatigue,
Another episode of this life’s masquerade
Comes to an end…
The curtain falls…
And beauteous Agnes Adoma,
The prima donna of the opera house,
A-shining in the luster of her fame,
Leaves her beloved stage to the ovation
Of the spectators.
Her eyes! Her gorgeous green eyes!
They shine, like emeralds in the midday fire of heaven!
Her skin is white, like a snow of the...