Текст песни Бродский - Развивая Платона

I would like to live, Fortunatus, in a city where the river
     would protrude from under the bridge, as if from a sleeve - a hand,
        and that she fell into the gulf, spreading her fingers,
     like Chopin, who did not show anyone his fist.

     That there was an opera, and that in it the veteran-
     the tenor regularly sang the Mario aria in the evenings;
        so that the Tyrant applauded him in the box, and I'm in the stalls
     muttering, clenching his teeth with hatred: "ram".

     In this city there would be a yacht club and a football club.
     By the absence of smoke from brick factory pipes
        I would learn about the offensive of Sunday
     and for a long time would shake in the bus, excruciating in rubbish rub.

     I would weave my voice into a common animal's howl
     where the foot continues the head started.
        Of all the laws issued by Hammurabi,
     the most important - a penalty and a corner.

        II

     There would be a Library, and in the halls of its empty
     I would flip through the volume with the same number of commas,
        as the number of nasty words in daily speech,
     not breaking through into prose, nor, especially, in the verse.

     There would have been a big station, suffered in the war,
     with a facade that is more busy than the world outside.
        There at the sight of a green palm tree in the showcase of airlines
     the monkey would wake up, dormant in me.

     And when winter, Fortunatus, clothe the quarter in a row,
     I'd miss the Gallery, where every cloth
        - Especially Engra or David -
     as a birthmark would look like a stain.

     In the twilight, I would watch in the herd window
     bouncing cars scurrying back and forth
        by the slender naked columns with Doric hair,
     serenely white on the front of the Court.

        III

     There would be this coffee house with a good blancmange,
     where, saying that why do we need the twentieth century, if there is already
        the nineteenth century, I would have seen how the eyes of a colleague
     permanently focuses on the plug or knife.

     There should be that street with trees in two rows,
     entrance with torso of a nymph in a niche and other nonsense;
        and the portrait would hang in the living room, giving you a presentation
     about how the hostess looked when she was young.

     I would listen to a smooth voice, narrating about things,
     not having a candlelight dinner,
        and the fire in the fireplace, Fortunatus, would throw a crimson gleam
     on a green dress. But at the end withered.

     Time, current as opposed to water
     horizontally from Tuesday to Wednesday,
        in the dark there would smooth wrinkles
     and it would wash its own tracks.

        IV

     And there would be monuments there. I would have known the names
     not only the bronze horsemen who stuck in the stirrups
        history of his leg, but also their four-legged,
     taking into account the imprint left on them

     population of the city. And with the adherence to the lip
     cigarette after a long midnight returning on foot to himself,
        as a gypsy in the palm of your hand, along cracks in the asphalt
     I would have guessed, Ikai, aloud about his fate.

     And when I was captured as a result of espionage,
     subversive activity, vagrancy, menazh-
        a-troy, and the crowd would, raging around, screaming,
     Pointing at me with exaggerated indexes: "Not ours!" -

     I would be secretly happy, whispering to myself: "Look,
     this is your chance to find out what the inside looks like
        what you looked at from outside for so long;
     remember the same details, exclaiming "Vive la Patrie!"