Mal'chik-slepoj (translation)

Blind Boy

Blind boy
in a pink overcoat,
blue trousers, honey-haired
In the white car of a colorful electric train.
Blind boy
motions helplessly before himself
with eyes, nailed to his fingers
Asking the usual questions of childhood
his grandmother, crammed into a beige raincoat,
grandmother, slumbering in a shard of warmth -
"Grandmother, grandmother, grandmother, grandmother…
How are we riding?"

(train sounds)

Blind boy,
what awaits you in this
pounding, screeching space?
Begging for change in dirty train stations?
Gluing cartons? Wailing on an accordion?
Getting drunk by feel with a sick prostitute?
Or hear and
give the world music?
Give the world music…

O blind boy,
born out of the worlds wedged in obscurity -
You my light, you my century, you my little fountain of blood
O blind boy
Asking the usual questions of childhood
his grandmother, crammed into a khaki raincoat,
grandmother, slumbering in a shard of warmth -
"Grandmother, grandmother, grandmother, grandmother…
How are we riding?
What are we seeing?
How do we love?"

O blind boy
Blind boy…