Ode to Stalin
Osip Mandelshtam, Ode to Stalin. November 1933
This poem, which Mandelshtam read to a small circle of friends, was reported to the authorities, leading to Mandelshtam's exile in 1934.
We live sensing no country under our feet
Our words can't be heard beyond ten paces
And where there is enough for half a chat--
There the Kremlin mountaineer is mentioned.
His greasy fingers are like worms fat
And his words are like heavy weights correct.
His cockroach giant mustachios grin
His jackboots shine around his shins.
Around him is the rabble of thin-necked leaders
He toys with the services of these half-people.
One whistles one miaows one whimpers
He alone relaxes and orders.
Like horseshoes one after another he forges ukases--
One gets it in the groin one in the head one in the brow one in the eye.
Each execution for him is raspberry sweet
And the broad chest of an Ossete.
Source: Gregory Freidin, A Coat of Many Colors: Osip Mandelstam and his Mythologies of Self-Presentation (Berkeley: University of Califomia Press, 1987), p. 242.