I Sit By The Window

I said fate plays a game without a score,
and who needs fish if you've got caviar?
The triumph of the Gothic style would come to pass
and turn you on--no need for coke, or grass.
I sit by the window. Outside, an aspen.
When I loved, I loved deeply. It wasn't often.

I said the forest's only part of a tree.
Who needs the whole girl if you've got her knee?
Sick of the dust raised by the modern era,
the Russian eye would rest on an Estonian spire.
I sit by the window. The dishes are done.
I was happy here. But I won't be again.

I wrote: The bulb looks at the flower in fear,
and love, as an act, lacks a verb; the zer-
o Euclid thought the vanishing point became
wasn't math--it was the nothingness of Time.
I sit by the window. And while I sit
my youth comes back. Sometimes I'd smile. Or spit.

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poem by Joseph Brodsky
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Bosnia Tune

As you pour yourself a scotch
Crush a roach or check your watch
As your hands adjust your tie people die

In the towns with funny names
Hit by bullets, caught in flames
By and large not knowing why people die

And in small places you don't know of
Yet big for having no chance to scream
Or say good-bye people die

Chorus: La, la... Let me know

People die as you elect
New apostles of neglect, self restraint
Whereby people die Too far off to practice love
For thy neighbour, brother Slav
Where your cherubs dread to fly people die

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poem by Joseph Brodsky
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Letters To The Roman Friend

From Martial
Now is windy and the waves are cresting over
Fall is soon to come to change the place entirely.
Change of colors moves me, Postum, even stronger
Than a girlfriend while she’s changing her attire.

Maidens comfort you but to a certain limit —
Can’t go further than an elbow or a kneeline.
While apart from body, beauty is more splendid —
An embrace is as impossible as treason.

I’m sending to you, Postum-friend, some reading.
How’s the capital? Soft bed and rude awakening?
How’s Caesar? What’s he doing? Still intriguing?
Still intriguing, I imagine, and engorging.

In my garden, I am sitting with a night-light
No maid nor mate, not even a companion
But instead of weak and mighty of this planet,

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poem by Joseph Brodsky
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From A School Anthology

1. E. Larionova
E. Larionova. Brunette. A colonel's
and a typist's daughter. Looked
at you like someone studying a clockface.
She tried to help her fellow mortals.
One day when we were lying side by side
upon the beach, crumbling some chocolate,
she said, looking straight ahead, out
to where the yachts held to their course,
that if I wanted to, I could.
She loved to kiss. Her mouth
reminded me of the caves of Kars.
But I wasn't scared off.
I hold
this memory dear, like a trophy won
on some unintelligible battle-
front, from enemies unknown.
That lover of plump women, that lurking tom,
D. Kulikov, then hove in sight --
he married her, did Dima Kulikov.

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poem by Joseph Brodsky
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