Stalin Epigram

We live…
without feeling the ground beneath us.

Our words—
they vanish after ten paces.

But when a whisper escapes,
it speaks of the Kremlin mountaineer.

His fingers…
thick as worms, swollen with filth.

His words…
heavy as iron weights.

His mustache—
a nest of laughing cockroach feelers.

His boots—
a blinding shine.

Thin-necked men slither around him.
Half-men. Servants.

They whistle. They meow. They snivel.

But he—
he alone speaks.

And when he points, it is boom.

Decrees, hammered like horseshoes.

One to the groin.
One to the forehead.
One to the brow.
One to the eye.

Each execution—
a sweet raspberry on his tongue.

And the chest of the Ossetian
swells.

– Ossip Mandelstam (1934)