https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0g_SBpGNHQ

To the chatterboxes the joy,
Of my darkness I’m not ashamed,
I cannot be Ptolemy
And to Engels I cannot fit.
But from eternal flight in the soap,
With one’s device languishing,
I see – something’s wrong with the world,
I’d like to be busy with it,
Only century tenaciously holds me,
In progress quenches any fit,
And there’s no prescription from sorrow,
Given in archive – all that has been.
And still, I risk to pass for
A fool, a buffoon, a jester,
And at night, I insist on one thing –
We don’t need, people, to fear!
Don’t fear the jail, don’t fear the sums,
Don’t fear the sea and the sight,
But fear only just the one,
Who’ll say: “I know how it must!”
Who’ll say: “People, after me come,
I’ll teach you, how it must!”

And, crumbling with petty demon,
And vowing to all in love,
He’ll pass on the earth as iron
And will drown it in blood.
And he will lie such lies,
And will weave such a tale,
That not one story in barracks
In bitter hour you’ll recall.
The tears of blood aren’t more salty,
Free expensive product!
History rushes – Salome
With the John’s head.
Land – ash and water – resin,
And, it appears, to succumb nowhere,
Inscrutable are roads of evil,
But we don’t need, people, to fear!
Don’t fear ash, don’t fear blasphemy,
Don’t fear hell and roast,
But fear only the one
Who will say: “I know, what must!”
Who’ll say: “To all, who will after me come,
Heaven on earth is reward.”
Pushing in department of wine,
I will come to drunken friends,
In partaking of half
We will talk by the souls,
Alcoholics strictly observe,
That would not pour a drop.
“They laugh – we did not meet God?”
“Here’s to God, did not lead.”
May in best happenings the pub
Talk about evil and good,
But his “best one” we have seen
On the table in white slippers.
To some “knot,” cognac to some,
To authority – for whom to smolder?

And I repeat to them, like a fool:
We don’t, brothers, need to fear!
It is madness that there’s not travel,
And we can’t without account enter,
And to fear only the one
Who will say: “I know how it must!”
Chase him! Don’t believe him!
He lies! He doesn’t know – how it must!

By Alexander Galich
Translated from Russian by Ilya Shambat