Текст песни Иосиф Бродский - письмо генералу

General! Let me be put on trial!
I want to acquaint you with the case:
the sum of suffering gives absurdity;
let the absurd have a body!
And yes his vessel looms
something black on something white.

General, I will tell you one more thing:
General! I took you for a rhyme to the word
"dying" - what happened to me, but
God to the end from grain chaff
did not separate, and now it
to use is a lie.
General! You are not there, and my speech
addressed, as usual, now
into that void, whose edges are edges
some vast, remote desert,
on the cards that you and me
could see, not even a trace.

General! If all the same you me
hear, it means the desert is hiding
a kind of oasis in itself, beckoning
rider by this; and the rider means
I am; I spur my horse;
the horse, general, does not gallop anywhere.

General! Always fought like a lion
I leave a stain on the flag ...