You by Vladimir Mayakovsky
You by Vladimir Mayakovsky You came – determined, because I was large, because I was roaring, but on close inspection you saw a mere boy. You seized and snatched away my heart and began to play with it – like a girl with a bouncing ball. And before this miracle every woman was either a […]
To All and Everything by Vladimir Mayakovsky
To All and Everything by Vladimir Mayakovsky No. It can’t be. No! You too, beloved? Why? What for? Darling, look – I came, I brought flowers, but, but… I never took silver spoons from your drawer! Ashen-faced, I staggered down five flights of stairs. The street eddied round me. Blasts. Blares. Tires screeched. It was […]
Conversation with Comrade Lenin by Vladimir Mayakovsky
Conversation with Comrade Lenin by Vladimir Mayakovsky Awhirl with events, packed with jobs one too many, the day slowly sinks as the night shadows fall. There are two in the room: I and Lenin- a photograph on the whiteness of wall. The stubble slides upward above his lip as his mouth jerks open in speech. […]
Back Home by Vladimir Mayakovsky
Back Home by Vladimir Mayakovsky Thoughts, go your way home. Embrace, depths of the soul and the sea. In my view, it is stupid to be always serene. My cabin is the worst of all cabins ; All night above me Thuds a smithy of feet. All night, stirring the ceiling’s calm, dancers stampede to […]
Past One O’Clock … by Vladimir Mayakovsky
Past One O’Clock … by Vladimir Mayakovsky Past one o’clock. You must have gone to bed. The Milky Way streams silver through the night. I’m in no hurry; with lightning telegrams I have no cause to wake or trouble you. And, as they say, the incident is closed. Love’s boat has smashed against the daily […]
Our March by Vladimir Mayakovsky
Our March by Vladimir Mayakovsky Beat the squares with the tramp of rebels! Higher, rangers of haughty heads! We’ll wash the world with a second deluge, Now’s the hour whose coming it dreads. Too slow, the wagon of years, The oxen of days — too glum. Our god is the god of speed, Our heart […]
My Soviet Passport by Vladimir Mayakovsky
My Soviet Passport by Vladimir Mayakovsky I’d tear like a wolf at bureaucracy. For mandates my respect’s but the slightest. To the devil himself I’d chuck without mercy every red-taped paper. But this … Down the long front of coupés and cabins File the officials politely. They gather up passports and I give in My […]
Call To Account! by Vladimir Mayakovsky
Call To Account! by Vladimir Mayakovsky The drum of war thunders and thunders. It calls: thrust iron into the living. From every country slave after slave are thrown onto bayonet steel. For the sake of what? The earth shivers hungry and stripped. Mankind is vapourised in a blood bath only so someone somewhere can get […]
Attitude To A Miss by Vladimir Mayakovsky
Attitude To A Miss by Vladimir Mayakovsky That night was to decide if she and I were to be lovers. Under cover of darkness no one would see, you see. I bent over her, it’s the truth, and as I did, it’s the truth, I swear it, I said like a kindly parent: “Passion’s a […]
At the Top of My voice by Vladimir Mayakovsky
At the Top of My voice by Vladimir Mayakovsky My most respected comrades of posterity! Rummaging among these days’ petrified crap, exploring the twilight of our times, you, possibly, will inquire about me too. And, possibly, your scholars will declare, with their erudition overwhelming a swarm of problems; once there lived a certain champion of […]