Akhmatova, Anna Andréevna,
As a kid had a cat whose behavior
Was not to be pitied:
Its fur had been knitted
Into a shawl someone gave her.

*

У Анны Андревны Ахматовой
был в детстве котенок лохматовый.
Котенка не жаль,
пошел он на шаль
на плечи великой Ахматовой.

* * *

Pasternak, like us all, was born nude.
He pewked and he puled and he mewed
Till he swapped in his nappy
For something more snappy
And a sex life especially crude.

*

Родившись, Борис Пастернак
был косноязычен и наг.
Подрос, огляделся,
слегка приоделся
и стал сексуальны маньяк.

* * *

He followed her just like a lamb,
But she told him, “I don’t give a damn,”
She said when he bleated,
And again she repeated,
“Give it up, you’re a pest, Mandelstam.”

*

За ней он ходил по пятам.
Она говорила: не дам.
Она говорила,
она повторила:
«Настырный же Вы, Мандельштам».

* * *

A face that could turn dogs away
‘s what I see, thought the idle Sergéy.
He was looking at Lenin,
This Sérgey Yesenin,
And not in a mirror that day.

*

Какая противная рожа, –
со скукой подумал Сережа.
Той рожей был Ленин.
Сережей – Есенин,
и были они непохожи.

* * *

One day at Shakhmatovo Blok
And his mother sat down for a talk:
“A lawyer I’ll be
Or a trouper, you’ll see!”
“Give it up, you’re no genius, my chuck.”

*

Однажды в Шахматово Блок
Вел с мамой такой диалог:
Хочу быть юристом,
Хочу быть артистом!
– Да ты ж не отличник, милок.

Translated from Russian by J.Kates,  a minor poet and a literary translator who lives in Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire. His translations of Ttiana Shcherbina (The Score of the Game: Zephyr Press and An Offshoot of Sense: Cold Hub Press) remain in print.