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Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Searching... Author: BRODSKY, JOSEPH Matches Found: 141 Brodsky, Joseph Poet's Biography 141 poems available by this author 17TH SONNET TO MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS First Line: The thing that dragged from english mouths a shout Last Line: Among spectators, even so %it brought your enemies to their feet Subject(s): Mary, Queen Of Scots (1542-1587); Scottish Translations 24-MAY-80 First Line: I have braved, for want of wild beasts, steel cages Last Line: Only gratitude will be gushing from it 25. XII. 1993 First Line: For a miracle take one shepherd's throw Last Line: And follow you forever with its gaze A PART OF SPEECH Poem Text Recitation First Line: As for the stars they are always on] A SEASON Poem Text Recitation First Line: The time of the hawk counting chickens, of haystacks in AB OVO First Line: Ultimately, there should be a language Last Line: Whose immaculate zeroes won't ever hatch ADMONITION First Line: Trekking in asia, spending nights in odd dwellings, in Last Line: And it's only you who can do the job AFTER US First Line: After us, it is certainly not the flood Last Line: In the anteroom of the golden age ALMOST AN ELEGY Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: In days gone by I too would stand and wait Last Line: Not music yet, already more than noise Subject(s): Waiting; Jacob (bible); Love – Complaints; Memory ALMOST AN ELEGY First Line: In days gone by I too would stand and wait Last Line: Only the downpour to my slumbering mind: %not music yet, already more than noise Subject(s): Scottish Translations ANGEL First Line: A white, pure-cotton angel Last Line: With happiness whose diameter lies somewhere in evergreen ca ANTHEM First Line: Praised be the climate %for putting a limit Last Line: To the rest of matter %should please the latter ANTI-SHENANDOAH: TWO SKITS AND A CHORUS First Line: Why don't we board a train and go off to persia Last Line: Always be ready to say kaput, %but wear a helmet AT A LECTURE First Line: Since mistakes are inevitable, I can easily be taken Last Line: To the lake: I don't like myself. But you are welcome to my AT THE CITY DUMP IN NANTUCKET First Line: The perishable devours the perishable in broad daylight Last Line: Swells the darkening overcast AUGUST RAIN First Line: In broad daylight it starts to get dark with breathless Last Line: -- almost my own but muted by years' vast distance -- %barit AXIOM First Line: The world was wrought of a mixture of dirt, water, fire Last Line: We, the deposits, eagerly multiply BELFAST TUNE Poem Text First Line: Here's a girl from a dangerous town Last Line: Because the town's too small Subject(s): Belfast, Northern Ireland BELFAST TUNE First Line: Here's a girl from a dangerous town Last Line: I dream of her either loved or killed %because the town's too small Subject(s): Belfast, Northern Ireland BERLIN WALL TUNE First Line: This is the house destroyed by jack Last Line: Or that the quacks ask too high a fee, %come to this wall, and see Subject(s): Berlin Wall BLUES First Line: Eighteen years I've spent in manhattan Last Line: Money is green, and I am gray BRISE MARINE First Line: Dear, I ventured out of the house late this evening, merely Last Line: Ebb tide; I smoke in the darkness and inhale rank seaweed CAPE COD LULLABY Poem Text First Line: The eastern tip of the empire drives into night Last Line: Depends on the sleeper. A cod stabds at the door Subject(s): Cape Cod CAPE COD LULLABY First Line: The eastern tip of the empire drives into night Last Line: For good or ill, in the dreams that such sleep brings %depends on the sleeper. A cod stands at the d Subject(s): Cape Cod CAPPADOCIA First Line: A hundred and forty thousand warriors of mithridates ponticus Last Line: Trophy: the features of nobody's cappadocia CATCH First Line: From the dress-box's plashing tissue paper CENTAURS I First Line: They briskly bounce out of the future and having cried 'futile!' Last Line: Profile, there is no tomorrow CENTAURS II First Line: Part ravishing beauty, part sofa, in the vernacular -- sophie Last Line: Which is what we were, frankly, in our era CENTAURS III First Line: A marble-white close-up of the past-cum-future hybrid Last Line: The six-winged mixture of faith and the stratosphere CENTAURS IV First Line: The instep-shaped landscape, the shade of a jackboot, with nothing moving Last Line: Into, escaping the telescope CLOUDS First Line: Ah, summer clouds %of the baltic! I swear Last Line: And was lighter than body, %better than soul CONSTANCY First Line: Constancy is an evolution of one's living quarters into Last Line: Spineless, soggy, pearl-shrouding contents DAEDALUS IN SICILY Poem Text First Line: All his life he was building something, inventing something Last Line: Straightens up wsith a grunt, and heads out for hades Subject(s): Daedalus DAEDALUS IN SICILY First Line: All his life he was building something, inventing something Last Line: Straightens up with a grunt, and heads out for hades Subject(s): Daedalus ECLOGUE IV: WINTER First Line: In winter it darkens the moment lunch is over Last Line: As long as the whiteness lasts. And after ECLOGUE: 5. SUMMER First Line: I hear you again, mosquito hymn of summer ELEGY First Line: Whether you fished me bravely out of the pacific Last Line: Memory, though to you this makes indeed no difference ELEGY First Line: Sweetheart, losing your looks, go to live in a village Last Line: You'll make out yourself, and a colorless brushstroke near ELEGY First Line: About a year has passed. I've returned to the place of battle Last Line: But it reads 'in grief,' or 'in brief,' or 'in going under' EPITAPH FOR A CENTAUR First Line: To say that he was unhappy is either to say too much Last Line: Turned out to be less durable than his humanity Variant Title(s): Cenataurs: ETUDE First Line: I embrace these shoulders and I look Last Line: Then it has left this house and gone EXETER REVISITED First Line: Playing chess on the oil tablecloth at sparky's Last Line: Its pale, cloud-swaddled lux FIFTH ANNIVERSARY (4 JUNE 1977) First Line: A falling star, or even more so, an asteroid Last Line: Since I no longer know what earth I will lie in. %squeak away, squeak away, pen! Use up the paper FIN DE DIECLE First Line: The century will soon be over, but sooner it will be me Last Line: Nor the charms of new latitudes, but the other way around: %ount FLIGHT TO EGYPT First Line: Inside the cave (an off-plumb dugout, %but a roof above their heads, for all Last Line: Was the infant. But he was infans, silent FLOURISH First Line: O if the birds sang while the clouds felt bored by singing Last Line: Decembrist, beheaded later and breathing hard FLY First Line: While you were singing, fall arrived FOOTNOTE TO WEATHER FORECASTS First Line: A garden alley with statues of hardened mud Last Line: And where snowflakes float in the air as a good example %of FOR SCHOOLCHILDREN First Line: You know, I try, when darkness falls, Last Line: They count on meeting in the sun FOREWORD TO PETER VIERECK'S NEW BOOK, TIDE AND CONTINUITIES First Line: An introduction to a book Last Line: The gods may feel quite lost for words FROM SONNETS ON THE STATUE OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS, IN THE LUXEMBOURG First Line: Mary, the scots are sots in any case Last Line: Of paper I've crumpled up and thrown away FUNERAL OF BOBO First Line: Bobo is dead, but don't take off your hat HAWK'S CRY IN AUTUMN First Line: Wind from the northwestern quarter is lifting him high HAWK'S CRY IN AUTUMN First Line: Wind from the northwestern quarter is lifting him high above Last Line: With a loud shout in english, winter's here! HISTORY OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, ACT I First Line: Ladies and gentlemen and the gay! HOMAGE TO CHEKHOV First Line: Sunset clings to the samovar, abandoning the veranda Last Line: In the provinces, too, nobody's getting laid, %as throughout the galaxy HOMAGE TO GIROLAMO MARCELLO First Line: Once in winter, I, too, sailed in Last Line: Is but water and me, since water also %has no past HOW LONG I'VE BEEN TAPPING AROUND, YOU CAN SEE BY THE HEEL Last Line: So that my heart %might know something that god knows I HAVE ENTERED A CAGE IN PLACE OF A WILD BEAST Last Line: But until [they] cram my mouth with clay, %from it will resound only gratitude I SIT BY THE WINDOW First Line: I said fate plays a game without a score Last Line: Which is worse: the dark inside, or the darkness out I WAS ONLY THAT WHICH Last Line: Lost in the firmament, %the sphere spins IN FRONT OF CASA MARCELLO First Line: The sun's setting, and the corner bar bangs its shutters Last Line: Now a line scrawled in haste and rhyming IN MEMORIAM First Line: The thought of you is receding like a chambermaid given notice IN MEMORY OF CLIFFORD BROWN First Line: It's not the color blue, it's the color cold Last Line: Aping the ice floe and waxing polar IN MEMORY OF MY FATHER: AUSTRALIA First Line: You arose -- I dreamt so last night -- and left for Last Line: For the first time since you formed a cloud above a chimney IN THE LAKE DISTRICT First Line: In those days, in a place where dentists thrive Last Line: Across my cheek and down onto my pillow ISCHIA IN OCTOBER First Line: Once a volcano here belched with zest Last Line: Than what aeneas saw sailing through JEWISH CEMETERY NEAR LENINGRAD Last Line: A couple of miles from the tram terminus KELOMYAKKI Poem Text First Line: Dumped in the dunes snatched from the witless finns KOLO First Line: In march the soldiers %with rifles on their shoulders Last Line: In some concrete lair %facing betrayal LAGOON First Line: Down in the lobby three elderly women, bored Last Line: The speed of light equals a fleeting view, %even when blackout robs us blind LAGOON First Line: In the lobby, three old women, in deep armchairs, sit Last Line: When no light exists LEAVING First Line: As we left the garden-party LETTERS FROM THE MING DYNASTY First Line: Soon it will be thirteen years since the nightingale Last Line: Rustling across the wild barley's withered blade LOVE SONG First Line: If you were drowning, I'd come to the rescue Last Line: Because the church is firmly against divorce LULLABY First Line: Birth I gave you in a desert Last Line: Just a lamp to guide the treasured %child who's late, %lit by someone whom that desert %taught to wa MCMXCIV First Line: Lousy times: nothing to steal and no one to steal from Last Line: Their desire to multiply. In this white captivity MCMXCV First Line: The clowns are demolishing the circus. The elephants have run off to india Last Line: She'll be hitting nineteen ninety-five MONUMENT TO PUSHKIN First Line: And silence %not another word Last Line: Is more comfortable than standing %on pedestals MY DEAR, I LEFT THE HOUSE TODAY LATE IN THE EVENING Last Line: I smoke in the darkness and inhale the rottenness of the ebb tide NATIVITY First Line: No matter what went on around them; no matter Last Line: For taking an alien for its neighbor NATIVITY POEM First Line: Imagine striking a match that night in the cave Last Line: Of man: his homelessness plain to him now in a homeless one NATURE MORTE First Line: People nd things crowd in Last Line: Son or god, I am thine NEW JULES VERNE First Line: A perfect line of horizon. Without a blot. A swanky NEW LIFE First Line: Imagine that war is over, that peace has resumed its reign Last Line: I am nobody, as ulysses once muttered to polyphemus NEW STANZAS TO AUGUSTA, SELS First Line: I held those shoulders in my arms, and glanced Last Line: He disappeared-abandoned it to me NEW STANZAS TO AUGUSTA: 1 First Line: September came on tuesday Last Line: Rain-curtains close the last clear spot. %I need no south NORTH OF DELPHI First Line: The plight of a pawn tells the king what it's all about Last Line: It's the fear of tautology that guarantees well-being OCTOBER TUNE First Line: A stuffed quail Last Line: Keeps the corner lit ODE TO CONCRETE First Line: You'll outlast me, good old concrete Last Line: And wrapped in a petrified long skirt ODYSSEUS TO TELEMACHUS Poem Text Recitation First Line: My dear telemachus, Subject(s): Fathers & Sons ONLY ASHES KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO BE BURNED OUT Last Line: Because carrion is freedom from cells, freedom from %the whole: an apotheosis of particles PERSIAN ARROW First Line: Your wooden shaft has vanished; so has the body Last Line: That of the human hand is more so PHOTOGRAPH First Line: We lived in a city tinted the color of frozen vodka Last Line: Birds of paradise sing, despite no bouncing branches PILGRIMS First Line: Past arenas, sanctuaries %past smart cemeteries Last Line: With soldiers for dung %with poets for a song POLAR EXPLORER Poem Text Recitation First Line: All the huskies are eaten. There is no space Subject(s): Explorers; Arctic; Exploring; Discovery; Discoverers POLONAISE: A VARIATION First Line: Autumn in your hemisphere whoops cranes and owls PORTA SAN PANCRAZIO First Line: The bees haven't buzzed away, nor has a horseman galloped Last Line: Triumphs, with its physique, over a chance to touch you PORTRAIT OF A TRAGEDY First Line: Let's look at the face of tragedy. Let's see its creases Last Line: Come on! Fly the gates of your pigsty open POSTCARD First Line: The country is so populous that polygamists and serial Last Line: Not the army and navy stadium but the cemetery POSTCARD FROM LISBON First Line: Monuments to events that never took place: to bloody Last Line: On matter, by dint of the population REVEILLE First Line: Birds acquaint themselves with leaves Last Line: Hearts as well. But rocks will last ROMAN ELEGIES Poem Text Recitation by Author First Line: The captive mahogany of a private roman Subject(s): Rome, Italy ROMAN ELEGIES First Line: The captive mahogany of a private roman Last Line: Enough to last one through the whole blackout Subject(s): Rome, Italy SEVEN STROPHES First Line: I was but what you'd brush SEXTET First Line: An eyelid is twitching. From the open mouth Last Line: Will splash in a pond and repeat your oval SIR, YOU ARE TOUGH First Line: Sir, you are tough, and I am tough Last Line: But who will write whose epitaph SIX YEARS LATER Poem Text First Line: So long had life together been that now Subject(s): Time SIX YEARS LATER First Line: So long had life together been that now Last Line: Through them into the future, into night Subject(s): Time SO FORTH First Line: Summer will end. September will come. Once more it's okay to shoot Last Line: The more speckled turn the eggs of quail, woodcock, grouse, SOHO First Line: Reflected in a venetian mirror, heavy-framed Last Line: Leave no trace on the snow SONG First Line: I wish you were here, dear Last Line: If it's followed by dying SONG First Line: I wish you were here, dear SONG First Line: From all the days ahead %I'll bring a tear I've shed Last Line: It's something you can drop %to the bottom of the well' SONG OF WELCOME First Line: Here's your mon, here's your dad Last Line: And saturn holds the wreath SONNET TO MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS Poem Text First Line: The thing that dragged from english mouths a shout Last Line: It brought your enemies to their cold feet Subject(s): Mary, Queen Of Scots (1542-1587); Scottish Translations; Mary Stuart SPEECH OVER SPILLED MILK: 1 First Line: I arrive at christmas without a kopeck Last Line: Houses aren't themselves at all SPEECH OVER SPILLED MILK: 2 First Line: Equality, pal, throws brotherhood off Last Line: (what's poetry but a review %of the existing evidence?) SPEECH OVER SPILLED MILK: 3 First Line: I sit alone on new year's eve Last Line: I'd take her for my daughter! Look, %a little swallow in the sky STAR OF THE NATIVITY First Line: In the cold season, in a locality accustomed to heat more than Last Line: Was looking into the cave. And that was the father's stare SUMMER WILL END. SEPTEMBER WILL BEGIN. THERE WILL BE OPEN S Last Line: The more speckles there are on the lost at hide and seek %eggs of the grouse, woodcock, and scared p TALE First Line: In walks the emperor, dressed as mars Last Line: But there is one's cigar TAPS First Line: I've been reproached for everything save the weather Last Line: Might use my pinhole, at any rate THE BERLIN WALL TUNE Poem Text First Line: This is the house destroyed by jack Last Line: At pendulums they don’t shoot Subject(s): Berlin Wall TO A FRIEND: IN MEMORIAM Poem Text First Line: It's for you whose name's better omitted - since for Last Line: From the shores = who knows which? Though for now it has no importance Subject(s): Mourning; Bereavement TO A FRIEND: IN MEMORIAM First Line: It's for you whose name's better omitted - since for Last Line: Now it has no importance Subject(s): Mourning TO A TYRANT First Line: He used to come here till he donned gold braid Last Line: Oh yes!' if only they could rise and be there TO MY DAUGHTER First Line: Give me another life, and I'll be singing Last Line: Hence, these somewhat wooden lines in our common language TO URANIA First Line: There is a limit to everything: including grief Last Line: And further on battleships sail, %and the wide expanse is sky blue, like linen edged with lace TO URANIA First Line: Everything has its limit, including sorrow Last Line: And the expanse grows blue like lace underware TORNFALLET First Line: There is a meadow in sweden Last Line: Stars. Here's venus; %no one between us TRANSATLANTIC First Line: The last twenty years were good for practically everybody Last Line: Even a proper flag to hoist VENICE: LIDO First Line: A rusty romanian tanker, wallowing out in the azure Last Line: Rustle their soiled banknotes, anticipating payment VERSES ON ACCEPTING THE WORLD First Line: All this was, was Last Line: Our planet is like a recruit %sweating on a march VERTUMNUS First Line: I met you for the first time ever in latitudes you'd call foreign Last Line: Against yellow floorboards. 'return, vertumnus.' VIA FUNARI First Line: Ugly gargoyles peek out of your well-lit window Last Line: And not in the vigilant, telescope-hugging nightime VIEW FROM THE HILL First Line: Here is your frozen city cut into marble cubes Last Line: Like a church, lost somewhere amid the fields VIEW WITH A FLOOD First Line: A somewhat familiar landscape, currently flooded. Currently Last Line: To spot the faraway enemy battleships steaming fast WINTER WEDDING First Line: We said our vows in the new year Last Line: And I count all I see YORK First Line: The butterflies of northern england dance over the goosefoot Last Line: Which turns the source of love into an object of hate YOU, GUITAR-SHAPED THING WITH A TANGLED SPIDER'S WEB Last Line: Putting out the stars of the salute, hissing loudly, in a glass, %and the decanters standing like a |
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