Riga Pr:

I can't help but speak up,

To put in my two cents—

Though, really, none of it matters...

And one ought to think of renunciation,

Of the world, and of oneself...

But what holds the firmest grip here?..

Vodka, at forty proof,

Will deal you a couple of scars

Through the drinking—

It batters the liver, unseen at first,

Then cirrhosis strikes, awkward and cruel...

I knew life had likely slipped away,

But the bender was a success...

They’ll bury me soon enough

Beneath a post, right by the edge of a gray puddle.

And a sparrow will sing like a choir—

Not for lunch, nor in vain—

Of how the drunkard and circus performer died,

The very one who cursed the city

At daybreak;

And I know the mayor won't come,

Won't reach out a hand

With an answer...

Well, the sunset plays out its scenes,

But life itself has all slipped away...

From a conversation with the director...

Against a backdrop of hopes and false nothingness...

I’ll take small figures, rearrange them,

And create a relief...

A slightly comical one...

And it’s reflected in the frames...

She wept, she sobbed...

Making a film is likely an overflow of emotion, though I wouldn't know...

And I fall asleep on a blanket

Made of snow-drops,

Right where life shattered...

When he rides in a taxi,

He sees the heat

Of combustion...

Moving forward by induction...

The wheels grow weary on the asphalt

And crash into a wall...

Without holding on. Kindling a small world

Upon a fiery table,

From that world to a peaceful sky...

For a week’s vacation...

I’ll edit this life together...

Anew, and fresh once more...

Complex direction...

For a film made of dreams...

A brush with profanity...

Lacking the power to place it

Upon the sun...

And I swear off men...

The whole world has succumbed to cirrhosis

Of the liver...

And it’s all a magnet, the end

Of the flow, the absurdity of the world... at the intersection...

As if life had stalled in three lines—scrawls, fragments...

Withdrawn, dismantled, and it seems even...

Like drops and tears slipping down unawares...

And there, behind the glass, a lattice of a thousand shards...

So as not to take you away...

Not to leave you without remains...

Of yourself, of last summer...

You were there long ago, somewhere...