Poems by Joseph Brodsky

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To the President Elect

Joseph Brodsky

You've climbed the mountain. At its top,

the mountain and the climbing stop.

A peak is where the climber finds

his biggest step is not mankind's.

Proud of your stamina and craft

you stand there being photographed

Joseph Brodsky

For Schoolchildren

You know, I try, when darkness falls,

to estimate to some degree —

by marking off the grief in miles —

the distance now from you to me.

And all the figures change to words:

confusion, which begins at A,

and hope, which starts at B, move towards

a terminus (you) far away.

Joseph Brodsky

Daedalus in Sicily

All his life he was building something, inventing something.

Now, for a Cretan queen, an artificial heifer,

so as to cuckold the king. Then a labyrinth, the time for

the king himself, to hide from bewildered glances

an unbearable offspring. Or a flying contraption, when

the king figured himself so busy with new commissions.

The son of that journey perished falling into the sea,

like Phaeton, who, they say, also spurned his father’s

Joseph Brodsky

The Funeral Of Bobó

Bobó is dead, but don't take off your hat.

You can't explain why there's no consolation.

We cannot pin a butterfly upon

the Admiralty spire -- we'd only crush it.

The squares of windows no matter where

one looks on every side. And as reply

to `what happened?' you open up

Joseph Brodsky

At a Lecture

Since mistakes are inevitable, I can easily be taken

for a man standing before you in this room filled

with yourselves. Yet in about an hour

this will be corrected, at your and at my expense,

and the place will be reclaimed by elemental particles

free from the rigidity of a particular human shape

or type of assembly. Some particles are still free. It's not all dust.

So my unwillingness to admit it's I

Joseph Brodsky

Tsushima Screen

The perilous yellow sun follows with its slant eyes

masts of the shuddered grove steaming up to capsize

in the frozen straits of Epiphany. February has fewer

days than the other months; therefore, it's more cruel

than the rest. Dearest, it's more sound

to wrap up our sailing round

the globe with habitual naval grace,

moving your cot to the fireplace

Joseph Brodsky

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

Joseph Brodsky

Moscow Carol

In such an inexplicable blue,

Upon the stonework to embark,

The little ship of glowing hue

Appears in Alexander Park.

The little lamp, a yellow rose,

Arising -- ready to retreat --

Above the people it adores;

Near strangers' feet.

Joseph Brodsky

On The 100th Anniversary Of Anna Akhmatova

The fire and the page, the hewed hairs and the swords,

The grains and the millstone, the whispers and the clatter --

God saves all that -- especially the words

Of love and pity, as His only way to utter.

The harsh pulse pounds and the blood torrent whips,

The spade knocks evenly in them, by gentle muse begotten,

For life is so unique, they from the mortal lips

Sound more clear than from the divine wad-cotton.

Joseph Brodsky

Stone Villages

The stone-built villages of England.

A cathedral bottled in a pub window.

Cows dispersed across fields.

Monuments to kings.

A man in a moth-eaten suit

sees a train off, heading, like everything here, for the sea,

smiles at his daughter, leaving for the East.

A whistle blows.

Joseph Brodsky

A list of some observation

A list of some observation. In a corner, it's warm.

A glance leaves an imprint on anything it's dwelt on.

Water is glass's most public form.

Man is more frightening than its skeleton.

A nowhere winter evening with wine. A black

porch resists an osier's stiff assaults.

Fixed on an elbow, the body bulks

like a glacier's debris, a moraine of sorts.

Joseph Brodsky

Seven Strophes

I was but what you'd brush

with your palm, what your leaning

brow would hunch to in evening's

raven-black hush.

I was but what your gaze

in that dark could distinguish:

a dim shape to begin with,

later - features, a face.

Joseph Brodsky