The Saturnine Birthday by Danil Rudoy

1

I had thought she’d come. She believed the same, but
There was also doubt deep behind her eyes.
I’d invited guests: Gogol, Mozart, Rembrandt,
But they were not let out of paradise.
Well, I guess our world is a constant danger
Where, unless you’re taking a lucid nap,
Every passerby is becoming stranger
As you try to bridge the perception gap.

2

I have walked for years but returned to ashes,
I have changed my mind but remained the same.
All my friends were drunkards and haberdashers,
And to call them friends is too much too lame.
Still, I ended up on another level
Where a day of truth felt, as never, brief;
Now that day is gone, and the midnight devil
Educates me how to suppress my grief.

3

I can bake from smoke something cockamamie,
Play the Hanging Fool or the Highest Priest,
I can sell my soul, but it won’t repay me
For the time and love I have simply missed.
Due to this, I drown in unfinished chapters
None of which resolve like I thought they would.
Venus kicks my butt, and I never slap hers
When she turns away, so she thinks I’m rude.

4

In the past, I used to appear fresher,
But some thirty years is a lengthy wait.
It’s enough to shrink from internal pressure,
Lose your marbles, die and disintegrate.
Yet to quit the game just before it ended
Is the kind of shame I cannot embrace,
So, I’m hanging on, steadily suspended
In a perfect trap also known as space.

5

I’d been sick with some inhumane infection,
Carried daggers, wanted revenge the most.
But if one can laugh at his own reflection,
Then no hope is wasted, abused, or lost.
In the night, a spark may become a candle
That will light the dark of the saddest soul.
Disappointment is nothing we can’t handle:
Life’s a package meant for us as a whole.

6

Let it be. Our youth is a fleeting treasure.
Mine had nothing serious to atone,
Not to mention that it allowed to measure
The amount of fun I can have alone.
But the clock persists, and the arrows near
My revival, revealing like truths untold.
Now I know. Eternity! Do you hear?
I am finally one Saturnine year old!