Yevgeny Yevtushenko Poems

We live, dying is not our business,
shame is another lost episode,
but like an unseen madonna, conscience
is standing at every crossroad.
...

We’ve been bewitched by countless lies,
by azure images of ice,
by false promises of open sky and sea,
and rescued by a God we don’t believe.
...

She knows the river, net and hook,
and hunts it deep as any.
Love opens her a petaled look:
'I couldn’t care a penny!
...

She was sitting on the rough embankment,
her cape too big for her tied on slapdash
over an odd little hat with a bobble on it,
her eyes brimming with tears of hopelessness.
...

Is it possible that we are so twisted
there is no salvation for any of us,
and that ideas have become wingless
in an age of winged rockets?
...

And once again a fisherman’s hut
opening to me late in the night,
suddenly as much a part of me
as the one along whose floor I used to crawl.
...

They tell me, shaking their heads:
'You should be kinder... You are somehow-furious.'
I used to be kind. It didn’t last long.
Life was breaking me hitting me in the teeth.
...

Fears are dying out in Russia
like the ghosts of bygone years,
and only like old women, here and there,
they still beg for alms on the steps of a church.
...

I would like
to be born
in every country,
have a passport
...

You are great in love.
You are bold.
My every step is timid.
I'll do nothing bad to you,
...