Mihael Gudovskih — Криминальный шансон

Night district — under a streetlamp the silence smokes. Here other people’s fates were broken — no trial, no sleep. I walked the edge where the law is thin as glass, where every third man smiled, but his eyes were dark. Under the jacket — not fear, but the memory of roads lived through. Behind my back — not angels, but the ash of old alarms. I knew the price of words, I knew the taste of betrayal, where for a pretty talk they stick a load into your back.

This is criminal chanson — smoke, the block, and concrete, where love is under a heel, and the heart beats in unison. This is criminal chanson — life like an old gramophone, and on repeat my pain and a hoarse voice in the mic. This is criminal chanson — a night of risk by the shore [?], where everyone wants to be king, but pays in blood for the law. This is criminal chanson — not a movie and not a season. It’s when the soul is on fire, but you hold a steady bastion.

Velvet hall, a glass in hand, a look sharp as a knife. Here if a friend nods to you — don’t rush: it may be a lie. Under ladies’ whispers, under coin-clink, under a jazz motif, deals were born whose ending not everyone lived to see. I saw those who were kings — by morning they were no one. Those the whole hall greeted yesterday — today are gone for good. But I held on not by fronting — by a man’s word. If I went — then to the end, not falling into gossip.

This is criminal chanson — smoke, the block, and concrete, where love is under a heel, and the heart beats in unison. This is criminal chanson — life like an old gramophone, and on repeat my pain and a hoarse voice in the mic. This is criminal chanson — a night of risk by the shore [?], where everyone wants to be king, but pays in blood for the law. This is criminal chanson — not a movie and not a season. It’s when the soul is on fire, but you hold a steady bastion.

I’m no saint, but I didn’t sell my fate for copper. Let wolves hiss behind my back — I’ve got something to warm the heart. If night covers this city in silence once again, I’ll raise my hoarse voice and stay myself.

This is criminal chanson — in it both luxury and loss. In it — expensive jackets; under the sole — an old groan. Criminal chanson — like fate’s dark stretch of road, where it’s not the insolent who survive, but the spirit-hardened. This is criminal chanson — not for the weak, this backdrop: here you either hold your punch, or you leave across the border. This is criminal chanson — my law and my district, where even if the world is cruel — I still walk toward the throne.