Your Letters Always Smell of Faded Roses by Lesya Ukrainka

Your letters always smell of faded roses, my poor withered flower! Fine, delicate fragrances are like the memory of a treasured dream long gone. And now nothing can streak my heart like these fragrances that subtly, gently, yet persistently and irrevocably remind me of what my heart portends, and why I don’t want to, and can’t believe. My friend, my sweetheart, you were made for me; how is it possible for me to live alone now that I’ve known another life? Oh, I knew another life, full of a harsh happiness stabbed with regret and anguish that burned and tortured me, making me wring my hands and batter the ground in a feral desire to die, to disappear, to leave this world of happiness and woe that are so insanely interwoven… And then my happiness and woe were cut off suddenly, like a child crying, and I saw you. I had seen you before, but not as transparent, and now I came to you with all my soul, like a tearful child goes to embracing arms, seeking tenderness. It’s fine that you have never held me; it’s fine that there is no memory of kissing me, for I am coming to you from the captivity of tightest embraces and sweetest kisses! Only with you I am not alone; only with you do I feel like home. Only you can save me from myself. Everything that wearies me, everything that tortures me, I know you can take it away with your slender, trembling-like-a-string hand; everything that darkens my soul, I know you can chase it away with the fire in your gleaming eyes; no, people who are hardened to life don’t have such eyes! Those eyes are from other lands…

My friend, my sweetheart, why do your letters smell of faded roses?

My friend, my sweetheart, why can’t I wash your hands, your hands that are trembling like strings, with my desperate tears?

My friend, my sweetheart, will I die alone? Oh, please, take me with you, and let those white roses wither above us!

Take me with you.

Have you another dream where I don’t exist? Oh, my sweetheart! I will create a world for you, a whole new world of new dreams. I have begun a new dream of life for you, I have died and been reborn for you. Take me with you. I am so afraid to live! Even if I would be young again, I don’t want to live. Please take me with you, and we will walk quietly amidst a forest full of dreams, and we will vanish together, somewhere far away. And in the place that we lived life, let all roses fade and smell like your lovely letters, my sweetheart…

I reach my hands within the darkness to you, please, take me with you, save me. Oh, save me, my sweetheart!

And let the white and pink, the red and blue roses fade away.

7/11/1900
(Written four months before the addressee’s death.)

Твої листи завжди пахнуть зов’ялими трояндами, ти, мій бідний, зів’ялий квіте! Легкі, тонкі пахощі, мов спогад про якусь любу, минулу мрію. І ніщо так не вражає тепер мого серця, як сії пахощі, тонко, легко, але невідмінно, невідборонно нагадують вони мені про те, що моє серце віщує і чому я вірити не хочу, не можу. Мій друже, любий мій друже, створений для мене, як можна, щоб я жила сама, тепер, коли я знаю інше життя? О, я знала ще інше життя, повне якогось різкого, пройнятого жалем і тугою щастя, що палило мене, і мучило, і заставляло заламувати руки і битись, битись об землю, в дикому бажанні згинути, зникнути з сього світу, де щастя і горе так божевільно сплелись… А потім і щастя, і горе обірвались так раптом, як дитяче ридання, і я побачила тебе. Я бачила тебе і раніше, але не так прозоро, а тепер я пішла до тебе всею душею, як сплакана дитина іде в обійми того, хто її жалує. Се нічого, що ти не обіймав мене ніколи, се нічого, що між нами не було і спогаду про поцілунки, о, я піду до тебе з найщільніших обіймів, від найсолодших поцілунків! Тільки з тобою я не сама, тільки з тобою я не на чужині. Тільки ти вмієш рятувати мене від самої себе. Все, що мене томить, все, що мене мучить, я знаю, ти здіймеш своєю тонкою тремтячою рукою, – вона тремтить, як струна, – все, що тьмарить мені душу, ти проженеш променем твоїх блискучих очей, – ох, у тривких до життя людей таких очей не буває! Се очі з іншої країни…

Мій друже, мій друже, нащо твої листи так пахнуть, як зів’ялі троянди?

Мій друже, мій друже, чому ж я не можу, коли так, облити рук твоїх, рук твоїх, що, мов струни, тремтять, своїми гарячими слізьми?

Мій друже, мій друже, невже я одинока згину? О візьми мене з собою, і нехай над нами в’януть білі троянди!

Візьми мене з собою.

Ти, може, маєш яку іншу мрію, де мене немає? О дорогий мій! Я створю тобі світ, новий світ нової мрії. Я ж для тебе почала нову мрію життя, я для тебе вмерла і воскресла. Візьми мене з собою. Я так боюся жити! Ціною нових молодощів і то я не хочу життя. Візьми, візьми мене з собою, ми підемо тихо посеред цілого лісу мрій і згубимось обоє помалу, вдалині. А на тім місці, де ми були в житті, нехай троянди в’януть, в’януть і пахнуть, як твої любі листи, мій друже…

Крізь темряву у простір я простягаю руки до тебе: візьми, візьми мене з собою, се буде мій рятунок. О, рятуй мене, любий!

І нехай в’януть білі й рожеві, червоні й блакитні троянди.

7.11.1900
(Написано за чотири місяці до смерті адресата.)

Original text by LESYA UKRAINKA
Translation & Art by TETIANA ALEKSINA
© All rights reserved 2022

i choose life

i walked through death’s door
and i kicked the reaper in the nuts
he was quite surprised
and even dropped his scythe
with a pained sigh

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2022

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // Some Little Bug by John Leroy Atwell aka Roy Atwell

In these days of indigestion
It is oftentimes a question
As to what to eat and what to leave alone;
For each microbe and bacillus
Has a different way to kill us,
And in time they always claim us for their own.
There are germs of every kind
In any food that you can find
In the market or upon the bill of fare.
Drinking water’s just as risky
As the so-called deadly whiskey,
And it’s often a mistake to breathe the air.

Some little bug is going to find you some day,
Some little bug will creep behind you some day,
Then he’ll send for his bug friends
And all your earthly trouble ends;
Some little bug is going to find you some day.

The inviting green cucumber
Gets most everybody’s number,
While the green corn has a system of its own;
Though a radish seems nutritious
Its behaviour is quite vicious,
And a doctor will be coming to your home.
Eating lobster cooked or plain
Is only flirting with ptomaine,
While an oyster sometimes has a lot to say,
But the clams we cat in chowder
Make the angels chant the louder,
For they know that we’ll be with them right away.

Take a slice of nice fried onion
And you’re fit for Dr. Munyon,
Apple dumplings kill you quicker than a train.
Chew a cheesy midnight “rabbit”
And a grave you’ll soon inhabit
Ah, to eat at all is such a foolish game.
Eating huckleberry pie
Is a pleasing way to die,
While sauerkraut brings on softening of the brain.
When you eat banana fritters
Every undertaker titters,
And the casket makers nearly go insane.

Some little bug is going to find you some day,
Some little bug will creep behind you some day,
With a nervous little quiver
He’ll give cirrhosis of the liver;
Some little bug is going to find you some day.

When cold storage vaults I visit
I can only say what is it
Makes poor mortals fill their systems with such stuff?
Now, for breakfast, prunes are dandy
If a stomach pump is handy
And your doctor can be found quite soon enough.
Eat a plate of fine pigs’ knuckles
And the headstone cutter chuckles,
While the grave digger makes a note upon his cuff.
Eat that lovely red bologna
And you’ll wear a wooden kimona,
As your relatives start scrappin ’bout your stuff.

Some little bug is going to find you some day,
Some little bug will creep behind you some day,
Eating juicy sliced pineapple
Makes the sexton dust the chapel;
Some little bug is going to find you some day.

All those crazy foods they mix
Will float us ‘cross the River Styx,
Or they’ll start us climbing up the milky way.
And the meals we eat in courses
Mean a hearse and two black horses
So before a meal some people always pray.
Luscious grapes breed ‘pendicitis,
And the juice leads to gastritis,
So there’s only death to greet us either way;
And fried liver’s nice, but, mind you,
Friends will soon ride slow behind you
And the papers then will have nice things to say.

Some little bug is going to find you some day,
Some little bug will creep behind you some day
Eat some sauce, they call it chili,
On your breast they’ll place a lily;
Some little bug is going to find you some day.

by JOHN LEROY ATWELL (1878-1962)
Public Domain Poetry

eidolon (we)

and so do we all decant
all along our silent roads
incant in silent refrain:

‘when the book of breathing is closed
when the clocks are covered in the town of lazarus
when the faience of minds has declined to the last’

in that final silence that befalls us all
will the ghost of you remember me
and gather up the ghost in me
will you lovingly take the ashes and bone
and carry me home

by TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // The Gods Are Dead? by William Ernest Henley

The gods are dead? Perhaps they are! Who knows?
Living at least in Lempriere undeleted,
The wise, the fair, the awful, the jocose,
Are one and all, I like to think, retreated
In some still land of lilacs and the rose.

Once high they sat, and high o’er earthly shows
With sacrificial dance and song were greeted.
Once . . . long ago. But now, the story goes,
The gods are dead.

It must be true. The world, a world of prose,
Full-crammed with facts, in science swathed and sheeted,
Nods in a stertorous after-dinner doze!
Plangent and sad, in every wind that blows
Who will may hear the sorry words repeated:-
‘The Gods are Dead!’

by WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY (1849-1903)
Public Domain Poetry