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.
And the words won't rise either like that rod
or like logs to rejoin their old grove's sweet rot
and like eggs in the frying pan the face
spills its eyes all over the pillowcase.
Are you warm tonight under those six veils
in that basin of yours whose strung bottom wails;
where like fish that gasp at the foreign blue
my raw lip was catching what then was you?
I would have hare's ears sewn to my bald head
in thick woods for your sake I'd gulp drops of lead
and from black gnarled snags in the oil-smooth poad
I'd bob up to your face as some Tirpitz won't.
But it's not on the cards or the waiter's tray
and it pains to say where one's hair turns gray.
There are more blue veins than the blood to swell
their dried web let alone some remote brain cell
We are parting for good my friend that's that.
Draw an empty circle on your blue pad.
This will be me: no insides in thrall.
Stare at it a while then erase the scrawl.
Poem by
Joseph Brodsky
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