My Gypsy Song.

When I sleep, a yellow light

Blinds me and I’m groaning,

“Get away, dark painful night!

Come, clear sunny morning!”

But the morning is an ill,

Wrong and boring comer:

I just smoke or drink some swill

On an empty stomach.

Jerks and bums in cheap saloons

Feast for no reason —

It’s a paradise for goons,

But for me — a prison.

In the church I hear sweet songs,

There even gold looks shabby...

Well, the church is also wrong,

It’s not such as must be!

Wheezing, up the hill I lurch,

Being tired and harried —

On the top I see a birch,

And below — a cherry.

Wish the hill were ivy-twined,

Then I’d be in clover;

Wish another joy I’d find —

But it’s wrong all over!

I keep running on and on

Through the field with daisies —

There’s a light while God is gone,

And the road that mazes.

It goes forward through the wood

Full of witches lurking

To the end where’s nothing good

But a hangman smirking.

Somewhere steeds in a slow mode

Dance without desire.

All is wrong along the road,

And the end is dire.

Nor the church nor the saloon —

None of things is holy!

All is wrong beneath the moon,

Wrong and quite appalling!
Wrong and quite appalling!

1967.