Poems and Songs of Vladimir Vysotsky. My Gypsy Song.

The fords are deep, the bridges have burnt down...Adapted from Alec Vagapov’s translation by Akbar Muhammad.

The fords are deep, the bridges have burnt down,
The ins and outs are reliably close.
There only skulls are visible around,
The only way is where the crowd goes.

Just like a horse revolving the millstone,
Distinctly proving that the world is small —
Not in a spiral — in a circle moves the crowd,
Without any bearing at all.

Caught in the rain, a palette spreads about,
And gallops muffle up a polonaise;
Smells, flowers, tones and rhythms have faded out,
And oxygen has vanished in the haze.

There nobody gets an inspiration
To make a turn to any other way.
But is this everlasting circulation
The thing that’s called perpetual headway?

1972.

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