A review by wshier
The Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam by Osip Mandelstam
I am completely unqualified to rate, but felt like I had to read it given current events. I knew that Mandelstam lived in Kiev during the Russian Civil War and for a time in Crimea as well. The last poem in this collection:
Through Kiev, through the streets of the monster,
some wife's trying to find her husband.
One time we knew that wife,
the wax cheeks, the dry eyes.
Gypsies won't tell fortunes for beauties.
Here the concert hall has forgotten the instruments.
Dead horses along the main street.
The morgue smells in the nice part of town.
The Red army trundled its wounded
out of town on the last streetcar,
one blood-stained overcoat calling,
"Don't worry. We'll be back!"
Through Kiev, through the streets of the monster,
some wife's trying to find her husband.
One time we knew that wife,
the wax cheeks, the dry eyes.
Gypsies won't tell fortunes for beauties.
Here the concert hall has forgotten the instruments.
Dead horses along the main street.
The morgue smells in the nice part of town.
The Red army trundled its wounded
out of town on the last streetcar,
one blood-stained overcoat calling,
"Don't worry. We'll be back!"