Poems by Varlam Shalamov
1949
1950
1952
1954
1955
- Alive not by bread alone...
- All that is human slips away...
- And so I keep going...
- Our court nightingale...
- Purple Honey
- They say we plough shallow...
«(For Dmitri Shostakovich) Something miraculous burns in music; / as you watch, its edges crystallize. / Only music speaks to me / when others turn away their eyes. When fearful friends abandoned me / music stayed, even at my grave, / and sang like earth’s first shower of rain / or fl...»
«The righteous man followed God’s luminous angels / And hurried after them over the hill. / But his wife heard an anxious voice that whispered: / “It isn’t too late, not yet; you can still Look back at the towers of the town you came from, / At the street where you sang and the room wh...»
«That, is that a meadow? A cloud? Water / bewitched by the yellow moon? / Silvery glass above me, in front of me, / in the silvery distance, behind me...... No regret...... No desire...... / may the witch's mask gleam / and her story roll like a ball / to that silvery distance, across th...»
«A black day! Like a beggar after bread / I ask for death, death, / I beg of heaven, of doctors, / of friends, enemies, even of cеnsors, / I call to the Russian people: / if you can, come get me out of this! / Dip me in the water of life / or let me drink deep of the water of death.»