Joseph Brodsky Time Poems
- 1. Bosnia Tune
As you pour yourself a scotch
Crush a roach or check your watch
As your hands adjust your tie people die
... - 2. 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.
... - 3. Folk Tune
It's not that the Muse feels like clamming up,
it's more like high time for the lad's last nap.
And the scarf-waving lass who wished him the best
drives a steamroller across his chest.
... - 4. 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.
... - 5. 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,
... - 6. Odysseus To Telemachus
My dear Telemachus,
The Trojan War
is over now; I don't recall who won it.
The Greeks, no doubt, for only they would leave
... - 7. 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
... - 8. I Threw My Arms About Those Shoulders
M.B.
I threw my arms about those shoulders, glancing
at what emerged behind that back,
...
