Two Poems

He said:


Pregnant you sit, and pale,
How you have changed, poor girl.

Plucking at your dress, you sit
And you want to go on weeping, weeping. . .

What makes you women spoil us
And, falling, give us your lips,

Then run beyond the platforms,
Outstripped by speeding trains? . .

How hard you tried to keep up
With the blurring carriage windows. . .

Trains rattle by, express and mail,
Trains to Khabarovsk and elsewhere. . .

From Moscow all the way
To Ashkabad, like numb idols,

Women stand as if turned to stone,
Their bellies proffered to the moon.

And swinging into the light,
In the unpeopled life of the night—

How well the moon, with her
Big belly, understands them.

Andrey Voznesensky





She said:



Permissive Society

Wake, for the dawn has put the stars to flight,
And in my bed a stranger, so once more,
What seemed to be a good idea last night,
Appears, this morning, sober, rather poor.

Connie Bensley