if the sons of bitches want to mount your head up on the wall and your ambition doesn’t stretch to being ten feet tall don’t risk another moment, take that wanted ass of yours and scoot it to the forest, if you have to, on all fours the poor who can’t stomach living life down on their knees the morons, who gambled life away like it was free come one, come all, you wretches, take refuge in the wood where the law won’t dare to follow, cause who’s with us? Robin Hood! the company is good here, unless your skin is thin cause shooting shit is all we have, in the shit we’re in and even knights’ll you’ll find here, a knife in each one’s back cause playing fair has never got them anything but that they know all the trails here like the lines of this here song cause learning lines is all we have now everything’s gone wrong come losers, come misfits, come stay where life is good put your trust in our brother and our savior, Robin Hood! so when your life is forfeit, come here where life goes on pick a tree and call it home, some moss and call it warm a starry sky’s a blanket, there’s a river if you bathe we’re all men here, so don’t feel pressure to behave and sometimes, I know, you’ll sigh, for missing all you lost don’t breathe a word about it, it makes Robin very cross one thing’s for sure, old age will never get you in the wood who will set you free long before you get there? Robin Hood!
© Mark Vayngrib. Translation, 2019
© Mark Vayngrib. Performance, 2019