Contents

List of Collaborators vii

Introduction ix

Poems

Verse 3

from GIRLFRIEND 4

Your narrow, foreign shape 17

I

know the truth 18

What is this gipsy passion for separation 19

We shall not escape Hell 20

Some ancestor of mine 21

I’m glad your sickness 22

We are keeping an eye on the girls 23

No one has taken anything away 24

You throw back your head 25

Where does this tenderness come from? 26

Bent with worry 27

Today or tomorrow the snow will melt 28

VERSES ABOUT MOSCOW 29

from INSOMNIA 33

POEMS FOR AKHMATOVA 38

POEMS FOR BLOK 41

A

kiss on the head 48

from SWANS’ ENCAMPMENT 49

Yesterday he still looked in my eyes 51

To Mayakovsky 53

ON A RED HORSE 54

Praise to the Rich 61

God help us Smoke! 63

Ophelia: In Defence of the Queen 64

from WIRES 65

Sahara 73

The Poet 75