Original
Нет судьи
Чего те надо, мальчик, чего?Денег просишь, мелочь собираешь?А зачем тебе, на что?Говоришь, что погибаешь.
Купишь хлебушки для брата?Что лежит где-то в подвале,Уколовшись безвозвратно;Отыгравшем на баяне.
Или лучше возьмешь клейИ пакетик с полиэтилена?Для себя и для друзей,И в работе будет перемена?
Translation
No Judge
What do you need, boy — what?Begging for money, collecting change?And what for, what do you need it for?You say you're dying.
You'll buy a bit of bread for your brother?The one who lies somewhere in a cellar,shot up beyond return,having played his last on the "accordion".
Or would you rather take some glueand a little polyethylene bag?For yourself and for your friends —and there'll be a change at work?
About the poem
A scene, almost a play: an old man and a boy begging for change. “What do you need, boy? Bread for your brother in some basement, who has shot up for the last time?” Or glue and a plastic bag “for yourself and your friends”? The boy will not listen — “no time for chatter” — and runs off “looking for the way to the latrine.” Then the old man calls him back and offers his own breakfast, “sorry it’s without sausage, take apples too” — and the boy does not need bread. The final stanza repeats an earlier one with the verbs shifted into the past: nothing has changed. No one is judged; the title is the poem’s whole restraint.