«Last night I tell you, I do not lie, / Up to the waist in melting snow, / I struggled from some strange railway halt. / I saw a hut and entered in: / Black monks were drinking tea and salt / While a gypsy girl made up to them. At the bedhead all the while / She kept on beckoning with he...»
«I returned to my city, familiar as tears, / As veins, as mumps from childhood years. You’ve returned here, so swallow as quick as you can / The fish oil of Leningrad’s riverside lamps. Recognize when you can December’s brief day, / Egg yolk folded into its ominous tar. Petersburg! I s...»
«I’ll tell you bluntly / One last time: / It’s only maddening cherry brandy, / Angel mine! Where the Greeks saw just their raped / Beauty’s fame, / At me through black holes gaped / Only shame. But the Greeks hauled Helen home / In their ships. / Here a smidgen of salty foam /...»
«For the resounding valor of millennia to come, / For the high-sounding name of the great human race, / I’ve cut myself off from honor and joy / At my ancestors’ feast, from my cup and my place. The wolfhound century leaps at my throat / But it isn’t wolf’s blood that flows through m...»