© M. Godov, 2020

© International Union of writers, 2020

Mikhail Godov – member of the Union of writers of Moscow, member of the International Union of Writers, poet, sonnet writer, author of over 800 sonnets (10 wreath of sonnets included), and many poems of different genres published in a series of poetic books: «faces of love», «symphony of love», «Learning how to love», «Idols», «Love without the world is closely», «The house of soul», «I am talking to you about eternity» (series «modern and classics») and laureate of many international all-Russian literary contests and the winner of awards: International literary award «The gold quill of Russia 2008» (Moscow), award Belinski 2019, participant of Moscow International Book Fair (MIBF) 2019, author of songs and romances of different genres in Russian and German.

Since 2001 the poet lives in Nuremberg, Germany.

Preamble

This book is about an endless declaration of love to a wonderful woman in a classic sonnet style, in tradition, which goes all the way up to Francesco Petrarke, William Shakespeare, Ronsar, Bodler, Verlen and other famous masters of this genre.

The insatiable appetite for this love is that strong, that it could not be quenched, because since it is quenched, the lyrical hero glows with this love again and again.

The image of the beloved takes shape of all women, who made all the poets crazy, plebs and royals who fell in love with them, ready for any craziness and escapades for this love and at the same time converted to the only beloved, whom the poet gives the confession of love!

But words transferred by the time machine from far epochs by sophisticated ladies in crinolines and gallant gentlemen in j ackets and frills sewed of gold, forgotten and unfamiliar, are suddenly starting sounding modern, personal and heartfelt that the real feeling comes up that there is no threat by naphthalene smelling chests, that in our time that is far away from sentimentality there is only this way of confessing love, that Romeo and Julia, our contemporaries, live anywhere among us…

AND LIVE A DAY…

sonnet wreath book

This book is about many areas of life of humans and humanity from their origin up to now, the full range of feelings experienced by each of us, but its leitmotif is love in all its faces and hypostasis!

The «shell» that includes all life collisions and feelings is the favourite genre of the poet: a sonnet presented in its most difficult, superior and very rare mode of wreath of sonnets. The book includes five of them and three thematic cycle of sonnets, called by the author with regard to their number: «octet of sonnets». All this makes the book unique in its form and content, since there are no other precedents in the Russian and international poetry for poetic books that includes only wreaths of sonnets and belongs to the quill of only one poet (as the group of compendium), not to mention the extreme rarity of this genre. As far as the translation is concerned, from Russian, the native language of the poet, into English, the challenge for the translator is initially extremely difficult as the poetic language used by the author is very demanding and in a perfect form with a binding classic rhyming that makes the translation much more challenging. And even though the translator mostly managed it to translate the content of the poetic material with maximum effort, the elegant, peculiar and original form of the poetry retains only partly, despite this doesn't make the acquaintance with this book of the flamboyant, distinctive author, less attractive for the English-speaking reader.

Unquenchable thirst of love…
sonnet book
(Part one)

The name of rose

Sonnet 1

 
I wandered in the depth of garden alleys
Went hat in hand to spirit of this place
Among the statues, with their Gothic grace
Among the splash of multi-coloured wearing
 
 
The icon lamp of autumn there was lit.
October ascended to its golden throne
And yet the brightness wasn't gone
Carried by winds, so boastful and so swift.
 
 
In the array of asters, autumn flowers
A thorn so sharply touched my heart
That dark red rose, that velvet sight
And then my shield and helmet lost their power
 
 
This pain I still envision; as if so behoves,
Caused by the rose, which name is love.
 

Sonnet 3

 
Don't take for granted plain and trivial words,
They are just mask, when seen with more attention,
Don't take for granted casual, simple words
Behind them – all my pain, all my affection
 
 
Don't be confused with the indifferent tone,
It's an attempt, although not trustworthy,
To keep inside the loud, so unwilled moan…
This pain I can't endure, you've left no mercy.
 
 
To chat with you of trifles, little things,
To be amusing and to burst in laughing
To tell you just of lovely little things
Make a pretense: such moments are just nothing
 
 
But jokes…Take off the spell, I used to feel before,
For I just can't keep silence anymore.
 

Sonnet 15

 
Just touch my hand with hand of yours,
And our hearts will feel this touching.
I wish that we were so close,
As only can be ones, who're loving.
 
 
I wish that love could be for us
The breathing, hearing, and vision,
And blood in our veins, that runs,
The flesh and spirit of our living.
 
 
Don't let it leave us, don't let away,
Don't let it fade beyond a distance,
I want to experience each grain
Of love, each sad and happy instance.
 
 
To share with Her fate and fame,
Until the last anguish and pain.
 

Sonnet 17

 
Simplicity we often take for nonsense
And we're ashamed to say the gentle words
We hide our souls, we're probably unconscious
Of this, afraid of souls confidingly unclosed
 
 
It's difficult for us to talk in style
Of Romeo and Juliette, without tension.
We think since then the centuries has gone by
In other way life's writing its inventions
 
 
So let it be, and I've no intent to argue
Yes. Different is the World, where we belong
And my affection I am also hiding
Ashamed, as if Shakespeare's words were wrong,
 
 
The storm of feeling takes my power of speech…
Those tender words, extremely hard to reach.
 

Sonnet 19

 
You are entirely unexpected,
Your voice, your smile, your sudden gesture…
You are entirely unexpected
 
 
Like sent to me occasionally, good letter.
Like summer breath, like see and love itself
Like hope in the dark hour of despair,
You're going and returning then,
 
 
More cherished, as before you were.
And all this takes my breath away,
Of this white flame of fondness and much pain…
Just fly, like poplar fluff in May,
Not knowing of sadness and restraint…
 
 
As miracle of life, you are so treasured
Life can't be captured, as it runs unmeasured!
 

Sonnet 20

 
Don't harrow my soul, it's deepest part
So wrongfully, with sagebrush-bitter doubt,
Don't it let be occasionally cut,
This tenuous thread, by which our hearts are bound.
 
 
Don't tear the ties that join us,
For their living tissue's very fragile,
For we shall not restore them at once
By growing them, so real, so agile.
 
 
In our hearts. Let envy, that old witch
Cast her aspersions, splattering the poison:
No one but madman trust the rumors, which
Are spread around. Only love is worthy
 
 
Of all your trust. Leave jealousy behind
With our love it cannot be combined!
 

Sonnet 21

 
When hands are joined in embrace,
And eyes are in the endless sight
Don't let our words just stir that very bright
And clear minute with their feebleness
 
 
That minute when in one heartbeat
Two hearts will burst and fade again.
So queer, it defies our trying to explain
Words are but shadows, shifting, incomplete…
 
 
When in the fire of self-immolation
One twinkle with eternity can melt,
Though our language is so vain, but let
Your voice is as a fascination:
 
 
With pain, and self-forgetfulness, and mirth
No words one hears can be more inmost!
 

Sonnet 24

 
Near the well I'm bowing down
And touch it with my lips, so thirsty
I'm drawing this uneven line
Like bridge between us, frail and frosty
 
 
And step on it, for you I start
Each step on rope above the cirque.
I'm falling down in the spotlight
I'll take all agony and hurt.
 
 
Which can't be stronger, the unhidden
Fact that I am alive and craving.
This deadly risk I'm happily taking
For chance to see with you the Eden
 
 
I'll pay the painful price of falling
For twinkle of my freely soaring!
 

Sonnet 10

 
That moment sky swung very slow
Apart. The ground slipped away
Don't leave me, love, now please don't go
We used to share shining days!
 
 
Don't leave the distant dreams I saw
The songs and all the lines of mine
Don't you desert me, love, don't go:
The world with you is so divine!
 
 
And only when blood in my veins
Is cold, and when my soul's in flight,
Then you, my love, is free to leave
But only at my last goodbye
 
 
Though even at the edge of being
Love will remain my clear daydream.
 

Sonnet 86

 
Yes, you can act as you are willing,
All of your faults I will forgive,
But I will never let you leave,
Though of goodbye you're now thinking,
 
 
You'll turn with this our passion in close linking
By testing its impedance with no fright.
Like fierce wind blow in the depth of night
Will set the fire glowing and twinkling,
 
 
As thirst becomes extreme and so endless,
When for some hours we let it last,
Thus our affection will not pass,
For flame of mine is so quenchless
 
 
The heart just can't agree and can't surrender
To fate, when love's so vivid and so tender.
 

Sonnet 87

 
King in exile remains a king,
This is remembered by the crowd and court
But beggars, even with the golden ring
Deserve the fortune of the wailsome sort
 
 
The fortune's folly is a sound reason
But our life is constantly in change
Here reigns and rules His Majesty The Chance
Above all transient, perishable, fleeting.
 
 
All comes to end: the fame and honour
Will turn to nothing francs, pounds, doubloons
The currency quite solid is the only
The lovers' coins have a pretty tune,
 
 
It throws you down, then you're high above,
That golden coin with the name of Love!
 

Sonnet 67

 
I search for a pin in stake of hay
I search for love in disregard,
And under foam search for champagne
And nightingale beyond green buds,
 
 
The naked body under clothes
And essence hidden by the glare
A little hope among despair
And rhymes arranged in even rows
 
 
I search for violet in the graveyard
Find for my building ground so charred,
Encounters, brighter, then goodbyes
I crave for liberty and spell
 
 
I search for a pin in stake of hay
I search for love in disregard.
 

Sonnet 75

 
I long for passion to be shared
And still I suffer all this thirst
It's so insatiable. I dare
To reach love's temple, so inmost
 
 
Pray to your eyes, your silhouette
And deepest secret of the wame
I pray as restlessly as that
Naivety's in all I say.
 
 
I pray insanely, without measure
I'm whispering to you each sentence.
Love is the only creed I treasure —
I tell in worship and entrancement!
 
 
I long to melt with you in it
So our prayer'll be complete.
 

Sonnet 89

 
A pilgrim, philosopher, free-liver and poet
Enamored of ladies and art,
I've been living here forever, I know it,
Though now life of mine seems to start.
 
 
This world is so cruel, so wicked and fierce,
Where sweat with the blood flows down.
But God's in my heart, that is known to exist,
And people would name it Love.
 
 
Yes, if not for it, what's the reason for me
To enter this world, to be born?!
The cover of treachery, scary to see
Was not meant by me to be worn.
 
 
No, life is a miracle, growing above
The blood and the tears – the sprouts of love!
 

Sonnet 94

 
Here are again love's traps and tricks
Predicting them is not so easy.
Which stranger's face can love depict:
Of meretrix or the Mona Lisa?
 
 
And even if you're duke of Guise
Even if you're as smart as a whip
Then all the same the lovely whims
You will fulfill and act likewise:
 
 
Along the ledge you'll go, so pleasing
And sign so tender serenades,
And kiss her footprints and her shade
In Paris, London, or in Piza…
 
 
Amour, you'll finally take your crop
Love is the thing you can't fend off.
 

Sonnet 105
Love and music

 
I'm finally given to my love
As I am given to the tune
And I am yielding to the tune.
As I am yielding to my love,
 
 
For love and melody in me —
Integrally they live and sound
Like face so dear that I found
Like fervent voice, so close as can be…
 
 
They still resound in my soul
Like lust for life and lust for happiness
Like first oblation in your presence
But if sounds fade, so far and small
 
 
Then soul of mine will be deserted
Like empty stage with went down curtain…
 

Sonnet 111

 
Each thing's subject to rhythm returning
The clothes, tune and poet's lines
If not for them, much harder could be life
Like that of warrior with no tunic
 
 
The bottle of wine and the ale barrel
You cannot fill beyond the brim,
By winter fall the leaves of sallow
And even Edem's too small for Eve
 
 
Now all the heirs of Procrustes
Would like to put me in the pencil case
My bones they're breaking, very crusty
But only soul they cannot chase.
 
 
It is like aeon, all embracing
But with no love it has no basing!
 

Sonnet 113

 
Things have their cost, it's known
In dollars, euros, cheques and cash.
Thing have become so wiery, monotone,
The ghost of lucre is turning all to ash
 
 
I guess that is no place for bargain,
Where hate and envy're mixed with greed.
For me such life is very small and tangled
I'm used to other count, another creed.
 
 
And casting off the profits of transaction
Which boil in one's soul and blood
I never buy the fame or admiration,
 
 
My Lord, such fate can be the true attraction:
To pay for love with coins of affection!
 

Sonnet 116

 
Yes, beauty is so multi-faced,
So multifold and so diverse
So evidently evanescent,
Ingenious and so plain
 
 
The pattern of the maple leave
And ornament on crystal goblet… —
The soul was craving for each droplet,
And were yearning the eyes and lips.
 
 
In the daylight or dream so fluid
Descended slowly from the skies
The earthborn women, said so lucid:
 
 
Just touch my lips with lips of yours
In love all beauty now occurs!
 

Sonnet 118

 
The universe of Love to bear
Isn't easy for the most of us.
It's easier with Gavroche's glair
To keep on go wearing the junks
 
 
But even if the dignity you show
Can't cover even your dress suit
You soul, which is almost gone,
Bereft of love your beggar's rout!
 
 
All your attempt are good for nothing
And all your luck is just in vain
The circle of life where you keep running
Where all you courage's senseless strain
 
 
But sense in each thing can be found
While entering love's endless current!
 

Sonnet 119

 
I pray to smoke-blue bush of lilac
I pray to apple-tree in bloom
I worship Lord's ingenious findings
And glorify the beauty's grove.
 
 
The beauty, clear and pristine
That tempts us through the centuries
Like lady's precious memory
Like lovely eyelids flickering
 
 
Like Rose's scent so fragrant.
Oh, flight of butterfly, so frail!
For me you always will be sacred
Soul always looks for beauty's trail
 
 
The whole world it can roll down
But love is still its only crown!