Footprints of Angels

My poetry looks like a heavensickness. The paradise from which I was exiled is locked up tight. Nor luck, nor mental quickness, nor tractable iambuses, nor wild, limped on their right leg trochees, nor bad English (oh, those “which” and “that” I can’t distinguish, or, say, the tenses. What a hellish tongue! Sometimes I wish I died when I was young), nor Russian, my insane experimenter and faithful servant (though, some dura'ki* find it's not true) – that’s not enough to enter, and all I really need is just a key. Alas, I haven’t. But through the keyhole I see footprints of angels on my soul. * (rus.) fools