<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Poetry Gives Off Smoke<div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div class="KonaBody" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding-right: 5px;"><p style="font-variant-ligatures: normal !important; font-variant-position: normal !important; font-variant-numeric: normal !important; font-variant-alternates: normal !important; font-variant-east-asian: normal !important; line-height: 23px !important;" class="">Poetry gives off smoke<br class="">but it doesn’t die out.<br class="">It acts kind of crazy, flutteringly, <br class="">when it chooses us.<br class="">This fellow’s no fool, <br class="">sucking tranquillizers, <br class="">toting in a little briefcase<br class="">a boiled beet-root.<br class="">Right now he’d like a mousse<br class="">or baba au rhum, <br class="">but the Muse-<br class="">some kind of Muse! -<br class="">grabs him<br class="">by the scruff of the neck! <br class="">Thoughts drill a hole in his forehead, <br class="">and he’s mislaid the spoon-<br class="">and he’s a giant! Socrates, for the Lord’s sake...<br class="">in an Oblomov dust-jacket. O.K....<br class="">he’s no Apollo-<br class="">he’s puny and ugly, <br class="">skinny: he’s like a golden mushroom, <br class="">unsteady...<br class="">transparent.<br class="">But suddenly some sort of whistling<br class="">is in his ears, and then...<br class="">a period! <br class="">And like a slugger’s hook<br class="">across the chops of the ages, <br class="">a line! <br class="">And there<br class="">an insane little bird<br class="">falls off its feet, <br class="">a crazy rag-picker, <br class="">drunk, <br class="">a kind of society clown. But something gives her the word<br class="">and-<br class="">like branches in winter, <br class="">God rings from within, and her eyelids turn<br class="">to marble.<br class="">And here’s a bum<br class="">a shaman, <br class="">really-<br class="">from among the lunatics! <br class="">Pour him champagne, <br class="">bring him<br class="">women, not rum cakes! <br class="">Suddenly an order from within<br class="">will come through sternly, and he’s the instant<br class="">voice of the people, damned near<br class="">Savonarola! <br class=""><br class="">Poetry acts kind of strange, it flutters<br class="">when it chooses us.<br class="">And it has no mercy, either, <br class="">afterwards. It stamps 'Pure Souls'<br class="">on us...but who’s the judge? <br class="">Yes, <br class="">for the horse-blinkered multitudes we’re 'decadents, '<br class="">but for ourselves, we ourselves are... are...<br class="">well, yes! Redemption! </p><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Yevgeny Yevtushenko</div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span></div><p style="font-variant-ligatures: normal !important; font-variant-position: normal !important; font-variant-numeric: normal !important; font-variant-alternates: normal !important; font-variant-east-asian: normal !important; font-size: 17px !important; font-family: Roboto, sans-serif !important; line-height: 23px !important;" class=""><br class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>(Translated by James Dickey with Anthony Kahn) <br class=""></p><div style="font-size: 12px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;" class=""><br class=""></div></div></div></body></html>