Dumb Ways to Fail

Don't know by heart all poems
Written by Mandelstam,
And by Yesenin, and by Pasternak.
Know more - than professor - poems written by Kharms -
Dumb ways to fail, so many dumb ways to fail!

Don't identify lecturer,
Say to him: "Old man, help me cheat!",
Put him to the blush by your burning voice,
Drive needles under his fingernails -
Dumb ways to fail, so many dumb ways to fail!

Come, see questions and run away with shouts,
Be stopped by duties at the entrance,
Run after Brusov to make kittens free,
Lost in the city cause of imagist's tricks -
Dumb ways to fail, so many dumb ways to fail!