Ode to Stalin (Stalin Epigram) November 1933 by Osip Mandelstam

This poem, which Mandelstam read to a small circle of friends, was reported to the authorities, leading to Mandelstam’s exile in 1934. ‘Been thinking – who is going to write an ‘Ode to Netanyahu 2024‘? Maybe I should have a go. Here is the ode that Osip died for.

We are living, but can’t feel the land where we stay,
 More than ten steps away you can’t hear what we say.
 But if people would talk on occasion,
 They should mention the Kremlin Caucasian.
 
 His thick fingers are bulky and fat like live-baits,
 And his accurate words are as heavy as weights.
 Cucaracha’s moustaches are screaming,
 And his boot-tops are shining and gleaming.
 
 But around him a crowd of thin-necked henchmen,
 And he plays with the services of these half-men.
 Some are whistling, some meowing, some sniffing,
 He’s alone booming, poking and whiffing.
 
 He is forging his rules and decrees like horseshoes –
 Into groins, into foreheads, in eyes, and eyebrows.
 Every killing for him is delight,
 And Ossetian torso is wide. (Tr. Dmitri Smirnov)

Another translation