Poems Are My Link With The Times,

I Am In The Middle Of It: Chaos And Poetry; Poetry And Love And Again, Complete Chaos. Pain, Disorder, Occasional Clarity; And At The Bottom Of It All: Only Love; Poetry. Sheer Enchantment, Fear, Humiliation. It All Comes With Love

In The Terrible Years Of The Yezhov Terror I Spent Seventeen Months Waiting In Line Outside The Prison In Leningrad. One Day Somebody In The Crowd Identified Me . . . And Asked Me In A Whisper . . . "can You Describe This?" And I Said: "i Can."

Let Whoever Wants To, Relax In The South, And Bask In The Garden Of Paradise. Here Is The Essence Of North—and It's Autumn I've Chosen As This Year's Friend.

Forgive Me, That I Manage Badly, Manage Badly But Live Gloriously, That I Leave Traces Of Myself In My Songs, That I Appeared To You In Waking Dreams.

No Foreign Sky Protected Me, No Stranger's Wing Shielded My Face. I Stand As Witness To The Common Lot Survivor Of That Time, That Place.