Speaking In Tongues
Guided by Voices
Osip Mandelstam
Translated by Boris Leyvi
Insomnia, Homer, Sails to winds tight jibs release.
The list of boats I quit, half to remain unread
That elongated brood, the craning train that fled
Sometime ago above the Ancient Greece.
Alike the wedge of cranes, into the foreign land
Upon the royal heads the crowns of god-sent foam
For Helen were it not, where do you head from home,
What would Troy mean alone to you, Achaean men?
The sea and Homer, all by love moves and endears.
Whom shall I listen to? Old Homer wouldnt say
Apprising, the Black Sea is humming on its way,
With horrid crash at my headrest appears