Russia

One of the big 'must read' blogs is AnthonyWilson'sPoetry site, but I find I rarely agree with the poems he's chosen/enjoys. This one is an exception--It's the Russian [b. 1933] Yevgeny Yevtushenko's "damp white imprints..." if only because it seems to have come from Last year at Marienbad [1961], the infamous modern cinema classic:

Damp white imprints dog the feet;

snowbound trolley, snowbound street.

Her tip of glove to lip and cheek,

“Goodbye.” Go.

Deathly, into soaring snow

and stillness, as expected, go.

A turn:

    the plunge to the metro.

A blare of lights. A melting hat.

I stand, am spun in drafts, see black

take the tunnel, train, and track,

sit and wait as others sat,

touch cold marble, chill my hand

and, heavy-hearted, understand

that nothing ever really happened,

ever would, ever can.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko, translated by Anthony Kahn, from Stolen Apples (Doubleday, 1971)