А вы могли бы? (What about You?) by Vladimir Mayakovsky

I splintered the landscape of midday

by splashing colours from a tumbler.

I charted on a tray of aspic

the slanting cheekbones of Atlantis.

Upon the scales of an iron turbot,

I found ladies’ lips, aloof.

And you, could you have played a nocturne

using a drainpipe for a flute?

.

by Владимир Владимирович Маяковский
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky
(1913)
translation by Maria Enzensberger

Mayakovsky’s poem recited by Veniamin Borisovich Smekhov

Beneath is the original Russian version of the poem in Cyrillic.

А вы могли бы?

Я сразу смазал карту будня,
плеснувши краску из стакана;
я показал на блюде студня
косые скулы океана.
На чешуе жестяной рыбы
прочел я зовы новых губ.
А вы
ноктюрн сыграть
могли бы
на флейте водосточных труб?

‘Как бронзовой золой жаровень’ (‘The sleepy garden scatters beetles’) by Boris Pasternak

The sleepy garden scatters beetles
Like bronze cinders from braziers.
Level with me and with my candle
There hangs a flowering universe.

As if into a new religion
I cross the threshold of this night,
Where the grey decaying poplar
Has veiled the moon's bright edge from sight,

Where the orchard surf whispers of apples,
Where the pond is an opened secret,
Where the garden hangs, as if on piles,
And holds the sky in front of it.
 
 
by  Бори́с Леони́дович Пастерна́к
(Boris Leonidovich Pasternak)
(1912 or 1913 depending on which source is cited)
translated by Jon Stallworthy and Peter France 

Below is a recital of the poem in it’s original Russian:

Recital of the poem in Russian

Below is the poem in it’s original Russian cyrillic form:

Как бронзовой золой жаровень,
Жуками сыплет сонный сад.
Со мной, с моей свечою вровень
Миры расцветшие висят.

И, как в неслыханную веру,
Я в эту ночь перехожу,
Где тополь обветшало-серый
Завесил лунную межу.

Где пруд - как явленная тайна,
Где шепчет яблони прибой,
Где сад висит постройкой свайной
И держит небо пред собой. 

‘We’re All Boozers And Floozies Here’ by Anna Akhmatova

We’re all boozers and floozies here,

altogether a joyless crowd!

On the walls, the flowers and birds

yearn for clouds.

 

You sit puffing your black pipe;

smoke is rising; strange and dim.

This tight skirt makes me look

slimmer than slim.

 

The windows boarded up for good –

what’s out there? Lightning? Snow?

Like those of a cautious cat

your eyes glow.

 

What is my heart longing for?

Am I waiting for Death’s knell?

And the woman dancing now

is bound for Hell.

 

by Анна Ахматова (Anna Akhmatova)

a.k.a. Anna Gorenko

(1913)

translated by  Margo Shohl Rosen

‘I Hear The Oriole’s Always Grieving Voice…’ by Anna Akhmatova

I hear the oriole’s always grieving voice,

And the rich summer’s welcome loss I hear

In the sickle’s serpentine hiss

Cutting the corn’s ear tightly pressed to ear.

 

And the short skirts on the slim reapers

Fly in the wind like holiday pennants,

The clash of joyful cymbals, and creeping

From under dusty lashes, the long glance.

 

I don’t expect love’s tender flatteries,

In premonition of some dark event,

But come, come and see this paradise

Where together we were blessed and innocent.

 

– by Анна Ахматова (Anna Akhmatova) (Summer, 1917)

– from Подорожник (Plantain/Wayside Grass, 1921) translation by D. M. Thomas