«All through his life he drew the scenes of war. / One starless night, he hit a mine at dawn / And traveled to the bottom with the ship, / His final picture incompletely drawn. All through his life, they came to him for cures, / He fought a furious battle against death / And died, from sel...»
«to Valentina Serova You used to say to me "I love you!", / But that was through your teeth, at night, / The truth was "I put up with you". / — You almost said it in the light. I could believe your lips in darkness, / The wicked magic of your bed, / But though the words you spoke were h...»
«to Valentina Serova The major brought the boy out on the gun; / His mother dead, unwept, no time for tears. / He was a child for whom the last ten days / In this world or the next will count as years. They brought him from the fortress, Brest-Litovsk, / Bullets had scarred and scratched th...»
«to Alexei Surkov Remember, Alyosha, the roads of Smolenshchina, / Remember the rain and the mud and the pain, / The women, exhausted, who brought milk in pitchers, / And clasped them like babies at breast, from the rain. The whispering words as we passed them — "God bless you!" / The eye...»