Gotta keep living, though I’ve died twice,
and water’s driving the city crazy:
how beautiful, what high cheekbones, how happy,
how sweet the fat earth to the plough,
how the steppe extends in an April upheaval,
and the sky, the sky – pure Michelangelo…
by Осип Эмильевич Мандельштам (Osip Emilyevich Mandelshtam. His surname is commonly latinised as Mandelstam)
(1935)
translated by Andrew Davis
Drawing the youthful Goethe to their breast,
those Roman nights took on the weight of gold…
I’ve much to answer for, yet still am graced;
an outlawed life has depths yet to be told.
by Осип Эмильевич Мандельштам (Osip Emilyevich Mandelshtam. His surname is commonly latinised as Mandelstam)
(1935)
translated by Robert Chandler
One short man said: “I would give anything if only I were even a tiny bit taller.”
He barely said it when he saw a lady medegician standing in front of him.
“What do you want?” says the medegician.
But the short man just stands there so frightened he can’t even speak.
“Well?” says the medegician.
The short man just stands there and says nothing. The medegician vanishes.
And the shortman started crying and biting his nails. First he chewed off all the nails on his fingers, and then on his toes.
—–
Reader! Think this fable over and it will make you somewhat uncomfortable.
by Даниил Иванович Хармс (Daniil Ivanovich Kharms)
a.k.a. Даниил Иванович Ювачёв (Daniil Ivanovich Yuvachov)
(1935)
translated by Matvei Yankelevich and Eugene Ostashevsky
The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.
World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.
And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes –
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one’s hands –
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses
by Louis MacNeice (1907-1963)
January, 1935
Rambling At The Bridge Head 