Ne daj se Ines [English translation]

Do not give in, Ines

Don't give in to the years, my Ines

[Nor to] different moves and [different] habits,

Because still is your room warm

[With a] pleasant interior and [collection of] rarities.

You had better taste than I did.

Your room - beautiful - your landlady is in the hospital

You've always differed

By the color of the paper of your letters, by the gifts...

Followed me the next morning around nine to the [bus] stop

Then tumbles down the green bus

Chased by the automn breeze, like a [fallen] leaf,

Across one of the downhills of Belgrade.

I'm in an evening suit and gazes encircle me

Don't give in, youth of mine,

Do not give up, Ines

Long was our acquaintance being prepared

But then, purely by chance, along [sips of] warm brandy

And with merely several phrases of poorly concealed desire.

Your way of a lady and cheeks of a peasant girl.

[You vulgar] inerudite and [still a] noblewoman of mine!

Well, then your breasts, the bed,

And my room hung in the air like an orange,

Like an orange lamp,

Over the green and bruised up water of Zagreb;

39, Proletarian Brigades [Str.,] near Grkovich.

Soaking wet street from the window onwards and

Hum of the pre-evening street-cars.

Beautiful instances of nostalgia, Love and poverty,

The use of a common bathroom

And - please, if someone calls...

Don't give up, Ines - Here I am, getting up only to flip the record.

Was that indecent in this occasion,

Mozart, Requiem, Agnus Dei.

I still favor the beginning.

I have yet at my disposal a million more [some] gentle and [some] vulgar

Memories of our youth,

Which, in front of our own eyes

Cheats us and steals [from us] and abandons us.

Do not give in, Ines,

Tear up the invitation, cancel dinner,

Cheat [on] your husband by going to get your hair done

In some better hotel

Touch me underneath the table with your knee,

Generation of mine, lover.

I know that there is still youth to come,

Just unlike this one;

In average, 1938.

I will not have whom to stay young with,

If you all grow old,

And such youth would be hard to bear,

Yet, it appears you must be right,

Because all alone am I on this shore

Which all of you have abandoned and gave up too easily.

And it starts to rain again

Like it does rain in October on the islands.

A sea made of lead and a sky made of pines.

Distant voices that overlap:

Voice of a mother, that of a friend, of a daughter, a lover, boat, brother.

Hastily gathered laundry [from the line] before the rain

and as if the light has vanished with that whiteness.

Another little walk along the sea shore and it's over;

Don't give in, Ines.