- 1. 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
...
- 2. Bosnia Tune
As you pour yourself a scotch
Crush a roach or check your watch
As your hands adjust your tie people die
...
- 3. 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.
...
- 4. Letter To An Archaeologist
Citizen, enemy, mama's boy, sucker, utter
garbage, panhandler, swine, refujew, verrucht;
a scalp so often scalded with boiling water
that the puny brain feels completely cooked.
...
- 5. 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.
...
- 6. Moscow Carol
In such an inexplicable blue,
Upon the stonework to embark,
The little ship of glowing hue
Appears in Alexander Park.
...
- 7. Seaward
Darling, you think it's love, it's just a midnight journey.
Best are the dales and rivers removed by force,
as from the next compartment throttles "Oh, stop it, Bernie,"
yet the rhythm of those paroxysms is exactly yours.
...
- 8. Love
Twice I awoke this night, and went
to the window. The streetlamps were
a fragment of a sentence spoken in sleep,
leading to nothing, like omission points,
...
