Limes with Orange

Okay, this post is for all those people who land on my blog looking for poems about limes. (There's even one blog out there that says my blog title is guilty of false advertising since there's neither a lime nor orange in sight.) But tonight, while I was looking for a different poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko—one of my favourite poets—I discovered that he actually wrote a poem about limes! So here it is (though I could still be accused of false advertising with my post title, since nothing in the English version of this poem actually rhymes...):

Fresh smell of limes,
A stream of bitterness,
And so for some reason
I have not succumbed.
Fresh smell of limes
All around me, hovering,
A new leaf full of resin
Stuck to my tongue,
Now a child's moan—
A ball bounced into the water.
Fresh smell of limes
Says: "Don't cry!"
And oldish chap weeps
By the beer-stall.
Take pity on him,
Fresh smell of limes!
The leaves have grown large.
With them you have saved
Me from disaster,
Chistiye Prudy.
And I'll pluck up the nerve
To be wiser than disaster
And I'll paint myself
In the benches' fresh colour.
A chess tournament
Between baldies and beards
Will make the world new:
"Your move, comrade!"
What to move, where to?
Hardly any pieces.
Read the right move
On the pond's surface.
The wind sails through
With the heat of pasties.
The wide-angle camera
Seduces one to be snapped.
Green, gold, blue,
Brightly clamorous,
The pet shop
Offers fish in jars.
Perhaps Moscow
As a Baba Yaga
Can be cuddly
Like nobody else.
God protect me,
If I have grown weak,
From not fighting back
The feeling that I'm finished.
Better to bite,
banishing melancholy,
The taxi's bright light
Like an Anonovka apple!
Kiss in the shadow
The white arc of elbow
And draw into yourself
The fresh smell of limes.
How grudging is May—
It gives pleasure shamefully;
Don't leave it to destiny
Rather than thirst after life!
However sweet the seduction
Of living any old way may appear,
The fresh smell of limes
Can deceive!

Labels: poetry