«Still far from patriarch or sage, / I’m still a half-respected age. / I still get cursed behind my back / In the savage tongue of tramcar rows, / Possessed of neither rhyme nor sense: / “What a so-and-so!” Oh, I apologize / But in my heart don’t mend my ways... If you think, you...»
«Skillful mistress of guilty glances / Heiress owning tiny shoulders, / The dangerous habits of the male are tamed / And the drowning woman-speech is dumb. Fish swim, flap fins, and puff their gills. / Here, take it, try to feed them now — / Their mouths that gape in silent O’s — / ...»
«By denying me the seas, the right to run and fly, / By holding my foot firm on the constraining earth, / What have you achieved? A splendid calculation, / But you couldn’t seize my muttering lips thereby.»
«What is the name of this street? / Mandelstam Street. / What the hell kind of name is that? / No matter how you turn it round, / It has a crooked sound, it isn’t straight. There wasn’t much about him straight, / His attitudes weren’t lily-white. / And that is why this street / O...»