Not only did she refuse
to entertain the almighty ruler,
following the example of the oriental beauty
who bought off her life
by telling the caliph beautiful stories during 1001 nights,
but, imagine,
Osip Mandelstam, carelessly,
wrote a poem about Stalin,
saying "he always made holidays out of executions."
But Boris Pasternak was unjustly accused
when answering Hazyain’s phone call
and the crucial question about Osip’s talent,
told him that it wasn’t a matter of talent any more,
but of life and death.
It is known that when Alexander of Macedon
destroyed the unyielding Thebes,
besides the temples, he also left untouched
the house of the famous epic poet Pindar.
But what kind of soul is it, tell me,
for which the house of a poet is more important
than the lives of the newly-born?!
And what kind of mind is it that, for Christ’s sake,
preferred the mastery of a poet
to the right of existence under this sky?!
Perhaps Hegel was right when he said
that the role of arts, according to its highest definition,
ended with the Weimar Republic.
And just, perhaps, because of that
its successive minister, Goethe,
set an example,
so, now it’s more often the case that
writers become presidents
of states and governments.
But the development of humanity
will still have to prove
that no one, nowhere
will have to write poems
to save his own head.