Mind Over Matter. 72 assorted poems in English by a Russian - Leonid Sboyko

Of all time measure units
Day is one true:
The rest are merely conventions
To human counting due.
The morning, noon, then evening, night,
Then dawn again  thats always right:
Theres never other cycle 
A change unchangeable like a 
Like what, indeed? Like what?

Futures horizon
We never reach
Stuck in the Present
And our memories
Futures the cradle
Of our dreams
Were freer there
Than we can be
By Past, in the Present, for Future we live:
What due to, what in and what for;
Past is the one which
We so quickly enrich,
Presents a fiction,
Future, we miss and put off

Believe the Time Inside about its speed
For its the other one that cheats:
The one we check by glancing at a clock,
The one whose pace we take in as a shock.

The river flows,
The sunset glows,
The wind, forsaken, freely blows,
My timer quicker and quicker slows
And soon comes to a stand;
The heat still beats,
My pulse still reads,
I peacefully wonder where it leads

A rainy, rainy, rainy day
A good old chess game left to play
I wish the day would stay
And I would play
Lifetimes away

Time wears not
But it makes one wear
Some find it cruel
Some find it fair

Civilization of sleepwalkers,
Civilization of small talkers 
Thats who we are,
Thats todays broad karma!
Thats where we would end up webbed
But few first years having kept
At curb, in sweet deceit,
In which I would have rather leapt
Once and for all, again,
To never wake up to the realm
Of those who sleep when walking,
Of those nothingtalking.

Everybody knows what its all about,
Nobody knows what for:
Hi-smi-ling and signing
And politely dining
Then feeling incredibly bored
Nobody relates
To my diving today
In a cold mountain lake.

Too many people close about
Make a crowd.
Moscows endowed with it, no doubt:
We abound,
We are all around
Whom have we found?
No one to be the One,
No sooth to be the Truth,
No win worth having won,
No fighting nail and tooth.

Too many people, not too many friends 
A common big places notable trend,
To lonely homes the way to wend,
Away from small places, from which we were rent.

Too many things that are currently on 
The shows  why not  might indeed go on
So all our talks are of shows weve seen
And just city places, to which we have been.
You write to your province friends of this waterspout
But theres nothing you feel worth writing about 
To them, that all is city talk,
Which we ill-strenuously balk.

Too many people close about
No place to stay out
You are alone
But not quite your own
You are quite single
But you have to mingle
Time gets by 
Hard to ask it why 
And you are just a slice
Of one big apple-pie.

Too many people for so few places
Homes to mad and futile races
For better and better stuff and gadgets to have
But everyone needs somebody to love.

Too many people close about
Make a crowd
But no-ones as close to thee
As you would want him to be.
We abound,
We are all around 
Whom have we found?

Lots of people, little space:
One hot dirty endless race,
One for pleasure, leisure, place,
One immeasurable craze.

Lots of people, little space:
All big cities are a race
One must really be small
To fit in it with us all

ComPunication

We are some of the first of those
Who have had their first nice dose
Of computerized communication:
A dose of comPunication.
        Why meet
        If you can have your seat
        In your place
        While I can in mine
        And still communicate?
Theres the web, the phone, the personal page,
The social network, theres all the rage
So lets comPuniCage!
        Its neat
        For you can have your seat
        In your nameless city
        And I can in mine
        Grab the keyboard, hit it!
Sorry, my e-friend, I didnt know
That you by this time have grown so old
I havent logged out for twenty-five years
Ive always been near, e-near.
        But then again
        Why meet
        If you can get old in your place
        And I can in mine
        And still get old, get old, get old
Non-e-old
Undo! Undo! Undo the changes!

If in a place of many
You dont have a penny
The many around you wont probably help:
Life aint so sunny
Where everyones running
For nothing but money.
It cannot be helped.

Deep, very deep in the taiga forest
Where the beautiful fir-tree grows
A squat plain log-built loners cottage
Stands in the thick of the grove.
The ski-path meandering endlessly through
The realm of the evergreen muffled with snow
Brings me to the hut not really soon 
Ive come here to spend time alone.
Cold and tired but happy and hopeful
I stoke up the oven and unpack the victuals.
The sky is starry, the flame is joyful,
Life seems so suddenly simple.

Dont talk to me
The way the talk should be,
Talk to me free,
Dont sing to me,
For all I want from thee
Is just sincerity.
So dont talk to me
Like they talk on TV,
Dont quarrel with me
Like they do in the movies,
But do it sincerely,
Do it upfront,
Do it so thoroughly
I am right away stunned;
Dont do it right,
But do it your way,
Do it at night
And during the day.
Dont talk to me
The way the talk should be,
Talk to me free.

Hometown-bound

A long steel rail
That we all have seen
With its maddening steadiness
And its lamp-side sheen
Carries on carrying us
To the places weve been
Helping to go back
To the pasts long gone
Some nice, some lived irreversibly wrong.
People who live there
Live on in our past
Which seems to be bound
To always last.

The subject can be narrow or broad:
It ranges from lapel to Lord,
It may be quite a panorama
But heres todays communication drama:
Its never deep however broad:
We listen but we soon get bored.
Recurring to computers, TV, books,
Indulging in embellishing our looks,
We shallower soon become,
To coreless, flashy life succumbed.

When Russia was said to have been sold
I wasnt sold on that:
The heart of this country is inert to gold,
The song is infinitely sad.

One hundred yards they sleep underneath
The stormy chest of the Barents Sea
In an iron, iron black submarine
Day after day into eternity
Penned captain-lieutenant, Were twenty-three
well be twenty-three and here well be

I will see a whole world
But everywhere I go
I will see the sky above
Now high and now low
I will breathe the air
Everywhere I go
I will be myself
Whatever I may know.

Thats Russia

You will never translate it into your own language
So let me talk to you in your own tongue.

Ive been living here for many a year
Couldnt help looking here at many a thing
Seen many a foreigner in and to this country
Foreigners by passport and foreigners convinced
Strangers changing attitudes by seconds
Strangers largely to themselves
Many a madman have I seen too
Many who died to know what to do
Many a bright head locked in a madhouse
Many a sage man, many obtuse
Many a small man saying Russia is great
Many in love with it, many in hate
Many who added they cant understand it
Many explaining: Russias just vast
Some say that Russia has always been still
Others remark it has always been ill;
Many believe its a land of confusion
Many assert it is all an illusion
Historians say that Russia is old
Weather men say that Russia is cold
East and West say that Russians are hot