Semyon Gudzenko - Семен Петрович Гудзенко (5.03.1922, Kiev - 12.02.1953, Moscow) who was a Russian poet, of the WWII generation. He is often compared with Pavel Kogan and Semen Kirsanov. He died from old war wounds as he predicted himself in one of his own poems.
BALLAD ABOUT THE FAITHFULNESS
Much written about jealousy,
About faithfulness, about unfaithfulness.
About the fact that two have met,
And the third one is sad in the march.
We broke at night into Odoyev,
To clear a passage to infantry.
And, alcohol diluting by water,
We drank at the fire all tired.
(to us all this so familiarly!..)
But the mistress of our house here appears on the threshold.
Certainly, comrade of mine was urgently called to the military commissar's headquarters.
Certainly, as if purposely, only we remained at home.
Tough choice of soldier's wives.
By melancholy catched a body.
O, as to me in that moment I wanted to be not lousy,
bearded - to be clean, with the fragrant skin.
To be tender.
God!.. On that night we did not know grief.
Only we were in the world...
But suddenly I heard: Grigoriy
... And quietly answered: Mary
... Mary! In distant Ishim you read letters by lips.
Love - as Siberia - is unbreakable.
But enters, squeaking by crutches,
soldier familiar to no one as me here,
by melancholy burned.
You allows me to stay at your house.
And suddenly you call: Semen.
Mary! That is my name.
And no more need I know.
You breathe by my letters.
I know. I believe. You next to me here.
1942
BEFORE THE ATTACK
When on death they go - they sing,
while before they allow to cry.
The most terrible hour in combat -
hour when waiting the attack.
Snow by mines is pitied all around
and turned black from the dust of mine.
Explosion - and your friend die.
And it means - death is passed by.
Now will come my turn.
the hunting goes now only after me.
Be cursed the forty first
- you, frozen in a snow infantry.
It seems to me that I am a magnet,
that I attract all mines.
Explosion - and Lieutenant wheezing.
And death is again passed by.
But we're no longer cannot wait.
And us conducts through the trenches the numb hostility,
by bayonet piercing necks.
Battle was short.
But then we drank icy vodka,
and I picked out by knife
from under my nails
a blood of the stranger.
1942
MY GENERATION
Us must not be pitied, indeed we would pitied no one.
We before our battalion commander as before the Lord our God, are clean.
Overcoats grew rusty from blood and clay on the living,
Blue flowers bloomed on the graves of the corpses.
They bloomed and singe... The fourth autumn passes.
Our mothers cry, and girlfriends are silently sad.
We did not know love, never learned the happiness of the crafts,
The difficult lot of soldiers is our lot.
Us must not be pitied, indeed we would pitied no one,
We before our Russia and in the tough time are clean.
But when we will return, and we will return with the victory,
Let them weld to us beer and meat they will grilled to the dinner
So that tables with oak legs would break from abundance.
We will bow into the feet to the kindred suffering people,
Let us kiss mothers and girlfriends, that they, loving, waited for us,
When we will return with a victory by bayonets obtained -
We'll kiss our women, my friend, and let us find work for ourselves.