Flies Like Thoughts
Flies, like black thoughts, have not quit me all day … – A N Apukhtin
I’ve grown weary of sleeplessness, dreams.
Locks of hair hang over my eyes:
I would like, with the poison of rhymes,
to drug thoughts I cannot abide.
I would like to unravel these knots ..
Or is the whole thing a mistake?
In late autumn, the flies are such pests –
their cold wings are horribly sticky.
Fly-thoughts crawl about, as in dreams,
they cover the paper in black …
Oh, how dead, and how dreadful they seem …
Tear them up, burn them up – quick!
- translated by Boris Drayluk
Séamus Sweeney 