You could be driving or riding a taxi
Or simply walking along with a friend
With the abundance of cars in the city
It’s hard to walk through your life to the end.

Check out the car crash on the Moskva river
Three guys were taking the fourth to the morgue
All of them, even the driver, were injured
’Cept for the dead who was safe in his box.

Funeral deacon would skip higher notes
And hired weepers half-heartedly wept
Loud and flat was the brass band’s performance
Only the stiff didn’t cheat or fall flat.

His former boss, a concealed mafioso,
Kissed him on forehead and spat in disgust.
All took turns kissing, except for the body
Which was too timid to kiss anyone.

Suddenly thunder - and it started raining:
Forces of nature can get in the way
Everyone ran under covers and shelters
Only the dead one did not run away.

"So what it’s raining? He doesn’t mind!
It is the living who shiver and freeze.
Corpses were people of much better kind,
Brave people, nothing like you or like me."

Kingdom of shadows is peachy and rosy
There are no dangers, or troubles, or sins.
Each day we live - is by dear God’s mercy,
It is the dead who don’t fear a thing.

One can be buried alone or with others -
Living arrangements don’t bother the corpse
"He is so nice, that deceased friend of ours,
Doesn’t require much care at all."

Hard as you try, you cannot lose the feeling
There is a price tag attached to your head.
You can’t be sure and peaceful completely
Until you are undeniably dead.

 
 
 
 

I hear you complaining: “He’s fond of the corpses”
But no, it’s my destiny that makes me mad:
Sooner or later we’ll all get run over
Except for those who are already dead.