What is there ahead?
Not a single light.
Seven winds instead,
dashing through the night.

All the windows are
facing the ravine,
Yet the gates ajar -
toward the highway scene.

I’m unhitching my horses, I’m tired after all.
Hey, if someone is here, you could come to my aid!
There is no one - a shadow took shape in the hall,
And a vulture descended to me, unafraid.

Once you’re through the door,
it reminds a pub:
Every third’s your foe,
everyone’s in cups.

They will break your jaw,
uninvited guest!
And their saints deformed,
hanging skewed at best.

The discussion ensued was surreal and vague,
Someone moaned a sad song, a guitar’s badly played,
And a seizure-prone fella - a thief and a thug -
From beneath the place setting displayed me a blade.

"Who can answer me
why is it so dark?
For this house looks grim
like a plague-hit shack!

Aren’t no lamps at all,
air has flown away.
Seems you can’t recall
how to live these days?

All your doors are ajar, but your soul’s locked up tight.
Who’s the master in here? Bring me something to drink."
"You have been on the road for too long," they replied,
"You’ve forgotten the folk. We were always like this!

We are eating grass -
sorrel soup for life;
Acne covered us,
souls are sour from strife.

Many times we fought,
drunk all wine from shelves,
Squandered quite a lot,
and we hanged ourselves."

"I have ruined my horses, escaped from the wolves.
You should show me the land where there’s plenty of lamps,
You should show me the place that I sought in the woods,
Where they sing and don’t moan, where the floors don’t feel damp."

"We have never heard
such a place exists.
We long live unstirred
in the twilight mist.

From the olden times
that is how it looked:
Evil whispers, lies,
icons black with soot.

From the stench where the icons are hanging askew,
I emerged, bleary-eyed, whipped my horses to run,
To a place of their choosing, that they only knew,
Where there is still a folk that is living like one.

Many things were done,
many things are gone.
Life has thrown me around,
yet it fumbled this one.

Maybe I sang my song
quite ineptly at times?
A white tablecloth
and those dark black eyes.