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


If you prefer a brief or very brief reading to skim through all those topics that relate to every reflecting person, do tap into this remarkably concise and versatile poetry. The book offers six dozens of easy verses that focus on human relationships, time, urban solitude and love or lack thereof. Russia as the author’s native country is another lyrical subject matter touched upon. To top it off, enjoy witty puns, limericks and other fun rhymes at the end of this nice travel-companion volume.





Mind Over Matter

72 assorted poems in English by a Russian

Leonid Sboyko



© Leonid Sboyko, 2017



ISBN 978-5-4483-5210-2

Created with intellectual publishing system Ridero




On Time and Timeproof Matters


		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 – that’s always right:
		There’s never other cycle —
		A change unchangeable like a …
		Like what, indeed? Like what?

    2003
		Future’s horizon
		We never reach
		Stuck in the Present
		And our memories
		Future’s the cradle
		Of our dreams
		We’re 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,
		Present’s a fiction,
		Future, we miss and put off

    1997
		Believe the Time Inside about its speed
		For it’s the other one that cheats:
		The one we check by glancing at a clock,
		The one whose pace we take in as a shock.

    2004
		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

    2002
		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…

    2002
		Time wears not
		But it makes one wear
		Some find it cruel
		Some find it fair

    2002



Citified and City-free


		Civilization of sleepwalkers,
		Civilization of small talkers —
		That’s who we are,
		That’s today’s broad karma!
		That’s 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.

    2003
		Everybody knows what it’s 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.

    2000
		Too many people close about
		Make a crowd.
		Moscow’s 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 we’ve seen
		And just city places, to which we have been.
		You write to your province friends of this waterspout
		But there’s 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-one’s as close to thee
		As you would want him to be.
		We abound,
		We are all around —
		Whom have we found?

    2005
		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

    2007
		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?
		There’s the web, the phone, the personal page,
		The social network, there’s all the rage
		So let’s comPuniCage!
		It’s 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 didn’t know
		That you by this time have grown so old
		I haven’t logged out for twenty-five years
		I’ve 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!

    2008
		If in a place of many
		You don’t have a penny
		The many around you won’t probably help:
		Life ain’t so sunny
		Where everyone’s running
		For nothing but money.
		It cannot be helped.

    2007
		Deep, very deep in the taiga forest
		Where the beautiful fir-tree grows
		A squat plain log-built loner’s 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 —
		I’ve 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.

    2001
		Don’t talk to me
		The way the talk should be,
		Talk to me free,
		Don’t sing to me,
		For all I want from thee
		Is just sincerity.
		So don’t talk to me
		Like they talk on TV,
		Don’t 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;
		Don’t do it right,
		But do it your way,
		Do it at night
		And during the day.
		Don’t talk to me
		The way the talk should be,
		Talk to me free.

    2002
		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 we’ve 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.

    2012
		The subject can be narrow or broad:
		It ranges from ‘lapel’ to ‘Lord’,
		It may be quite a panorama
		But here’s today’s communication drama:
		It’s 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.

    2004



Russia-Bound


		When Russia was said to have been sold
		I wasn’t sold on that:
		The heart of this country is inert to gold,
		The song is infinitely sad.

    1999
		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, ‘We’re twenty-three’…
		…‘we’ll be twenty-three and here we’ll be’…

    2000
		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.

    1995
		That’s Russia

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

		I’ve been living here for many a year
		Couldn’t 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 can’t understand it
		Many explaining: ‘Russia’s just vast’
		Some say that Russia has always been still
		Others remark it has always been ill;
		Many believe it’s 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




Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.


Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию (https://www.litres.ru/leonid-sboyko-10679033/mind-over-matter-72-assorted-poems-in-english-by-a-russian/) на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.


