Linguistic contrastive research on phraseological units and translation analysis allow for different classifications of interlinguistic phraseological equivalents. However, they are not a recipe for successful translation because system equivalence must be distinguished from translation equivalence. Phraseologisms are the main compositional element of many of Stanislaw J. Lec’s aphorisms. The poet used them in a traditional or modified form, updating unexpected content. The article focuses on somatic phraseological units, which Lec used very often. Since phraseological units with a somatic component are common in many languages, it is assumed that their translation would be easy. Scrutinizing the translation series of “Unkempt Thoughts” into Russian made it possible to show various ways of translating phraseological units that are part of the text. The analyses conducted confirmed that there are no universal translation solutions. In addition, it was indicated that the equivalent selection is largely influenced by contextual factors and the translator’s subjective interpretation of the original text. Moreover, the translation strategies adopted by him are of great importance, e.g., preserving wordplay in the translation, the structure of the aphorism, the main lexical component of phraseological units, the transmission of hidden meanings, or one of the selected semantic aspects of the aphorism.