Vladimir Mayakovsky

Vladimir Mayakovsky HOME
Past One O'Clock One version of the suicide poem that was found in his pocket 1 She loves me-loves me not. My hands I pick and having broken my fingers fling away. So the first daisy-heads one happens to flick are plucked, and guessing, scattered into May. Let a cut and shave reveal my grey hairs. Let the silver of the years ring out endlessly ! Shameful common sense - I hope, I swear - Will never come to me. 2 It's already two. No doubt, you've gone to sleep. In the night The Milky Way with silver filigrees. I don't hurry, and there is no point in me waking and disturbing you with express telegrams. 3 The sea goes to weep. The sea goes to sleep. As they say, the incident has petered out. The love boat of life has crashed on philistine reefs You and I are quits. No need to reiterate mutual injuries, troubles and griefs. 4 D'you see, In the world what a quiet sleeps. Night tributes the sky with silver constellations. In such an hour as this, one rises and speaks to eras, history, and world creation. 5 I know the power of words, I know words' tocsin. They're not the kind applauded by the boxes. From words like these coffins burst from the earth and on their own four oaken legs stride forth. It happens they reject you, unpublished, unprinted. But saddle-girths tightening words gallop ahead. See how the centuries ring and trains crawl to lick poetry's calloused hands. I know the power of words. Seeming trifles that fall like petals beneath the heel-taps of dance. But man with his soul, his lips, his bones. A CLOUD IN TROUSERS The beginning, FROM Russian poetry: the modern period, University of IOWA press, 1978 Your thought Mysing in those brains of oatmeal Like a bloated functionary on an oily sofa I’ll mock it to death with a dripping shred of my heart And nourish my biting contempt. No gray hair in my soul, No doddering tenderness. I rock the world with the tunder of my voice, Strolling, looking good Twenty-two. Sensitive ones, Your love ia a violin solo, Cruder ones use a drum. But you can’t be like me, Inside out, all lips. Come out and learn, Cambric-prim officialdom Of the angelic leagues! You too, ladies, thumbing your lips like a cook His cookbook. If you prefer, I’ll be pure raging meat, Or if you prefer, As the sky change tone, I’ll be absolutely tender, Not a man, but a cloud in trousers! Flowery Nice doesn’t exist! Again I sing to praise Men used as hospital beds, Women wornout as clishes. A CLOUD IN TROUSERS, PART 1 You think malaria makes me delirious? It happened. In Odessa it happened. 'I'll come at four,' Maria promised. Eight. Nine. Ten. Then the evening turned its back on the windows and plunged into grim night, scowling Decemberish. At my decrepit back the candelabras guffawed and whinnied. You would not recognise me now: a bulging bulk of sinews, groaning, and writhing, What can such a clod desire? Though a clod, many things! The self does not care whether one is cast of bronze or the heart has an iron lining. At night the self only desires to steep its clangour in softness, in woman. And thus, enormous, I stood hunched by the window, and my brow melted the glass. What will it be: love or no-love? And what kind of love: big or minute? How could a body like this have a big love? It should be teeny-weeny, humble, little love; a love that shies at the hooting of cars, that adores the bells of horse-trams. Again and again nuzzling against the rain, my face pressed against its pitted face, I wait, splashed by the city's thundering surf. Then midnight, amok with a knife, caught up, cut him down out with him! The stroke of twelve fell like a head from a block. On the windowpanes, grey raindrops howled together, piling on a grimace as though the gargoyles of Notre Dame were howling. Damn you! Isn't that enough? Screams will soon claw my mouth apart. Then I heard, softly, a nerve leap like a sick man from his bed. Then, barely moving, at first, it soon scampered about, agitated, distinct. Now, with a couple more, it darted about in a desperate dance. The plaster on the ground floor crashed. Nerves, big nerves, tiny nerves, many nerves! galloped madly till soon their legs gave way. But night oozed and oozed through the room and the eye, weighed down, could not slither out of the slime. The doors suddenly banged ta-ra-bang, as though the hotel's teeth chattered. You swept in abruptly like 'take it or leave it!' Mauling your suede gloves, you declared: 'D' you know, I'm getting married.' All right, marry then. So what, I can take it. As you see, I'm calm! Like the pulse of a corpse. Do you remember how you used to talk? 'Jack London, money, love, passion.' But I saw one thing only: you, a Gioconda, had to be stolen! And you were stolen. In love, I shall gamble again, the arch of my brows ablaze. What of it! Homeless tramps often find shelter in a burnt-out house! You're teasing me now? 'You have fewer emeralds of madness than a beggar has kopeks!' But remember! When they teased Vesuvius, Pompeii perished! Hey! Gentlemen! Amateurs of sacrilege, crime, and carnage, have you seen the terror of terrors my face when I am absolutely calm? I feel my 'I' is much too small for me. Stubbornly a body pushes out of me. Hello! Who's speaking? Mamma? Mamma! Your son is gloriously ill! Mamma! His heart is on fire. Tell his sisters, Lyuda and Olya, he has no nook to hide in. Each word, each joke, which his scorching mouth spews, jumps like a naked prostitute from a burning brothel. People sniff the smell of burnt flesh! A brigade of men drive up. A glittering brigade. In bright helmets. But no jackboots here! Tell the firemen to climb lovingly when a heart's on fire. Leave it to me. I'll pump barrels of tears from my eyes. I'll brace myself against my ribs. I'll leap out! Out! Out! They've collapsed. You can't leap out of a heart! From the cracks of the lips upon a smouldering face a cinder of a kiss rises to leap. Mamma! I cannot sing. In the heart's chapel the choir loft catches fire! The scorched figurines of words and numbers scurry from the skull like children from a flaming building. Thus fear, in its effort to grasp at the sky, lifted high the flaming arms of the Lusitania. Into the calm of the apartment where people quake, a hundred-eye blaze bursts from the docks. Moan into the centuries, if you can, a last scream: I'm on fire! […] A CLOUD IN TROUSERS (ENDING) Your thoughts, dreaming on a softened brain, like an over-fed lackey on a greasy settee, with my heart's bloody tatters I'll mock again; impudent and caustic, I'll jeer to superfluity. Of Grandfatherly gentleness I'm devoid, there's not a single grey hair in my soul! Thundering the world with the might of my voice, I go by - handsome, twenty-two-year-old. Gentle ones! You lay your love on a violin. The crude lay their love on a drum. but you can't, like me, turn inside out entirely, and nothing but human lips become! Out of chintz-covered drawing-rooms, come and learn decorous bureaucrats of angelic leagues. And you whose lips are calmly thumbed, as a cook turns over cookery-book leaves If you like I'll be furiously flesh elemental, or -changing to tones that the sunset arouses if you like I'll be extraordinary gentle, not a man, but - a cloud in trousers!

Past One O'Clock

One version of the suicide poem that was found in his pocket

1
She loves me-loves me not.
My hands I pick
and having broken my fingers
fling away.
So the first daisy-heads
one happens to flick
are plucked,
and guessing,
scattered into May.
Let a cut and shave
reveal my grey hairs.
Let the silver of the years
ring out endlessly !
Shameful common sense -
I hope, I swear -
Will never come
to me.
2
It's already two.
No doubt, you've gone to sleep.
In the night
The Milky Way
with silver filigrees.
I don't hurry,
and there is no point in me
waking and disturbing you
with express telegrams.
3
The sea goes to weep.
The sea goes to sleep.
As they say,
the incident has petered out.
The love boat of life
has crashed on philistine reefs
You and I
are quits.
No need to reiterate
mutual injuries,
troubles
and griefs.
4
D'you see,
In the world what a quiet sleeps.
Night tributes the sky
with silver constellations.
In such an hour as this,
one rises and speaks
to eras,
history,
and world creation.
5
I know the power of words, I know words' tocsin.
They're not the kind applauded by the boxes.
From words like these coffins burst from the earth
and on their own four oaken legs stride forth.
It happens they reject you, unpublished, unprinted.
But saddle-girths tightening words gallop ahead.
See how the centuries ring and trains crawl
to lick poetry's calloused hands.
I know the power of words. Seeming trifles that fall
like petals beneath the heel-taps of dance.
But man with his soul, his lips, his bones.

A CLOUD IN TROUSERS

The beginning, FROM Russian poetry: the modern period,
University of IOWA press, 1978

Your thought
Mysing in those brains of oatmeal
Like a bloated functionary on an oily sofa
I’ll mock it to death with a dripping shred of my heart
And nourish my biting contempt.
No gray hair in my soul,
No doddering tenderness.
I rock the world with the tunder of my voice,
Strolling, looking good
Twenty-two.
Sensitive ones,
Your love ia a violin solo,
Cruder ones use a drum.
But you can’t be like me,
Inside out, all lips.
Come out and learn,
Cambric-prim officialdom
Of the angelic leagues!
You too, ladies, thumbing your lips like a cook
His cookbook.
If you prefer,
I’ll be pure raging meat,
Or if you prefer,
As the sky change tone,
I’ll be absolutely tender,
Not a man, but a cloud in trousers!
Flowery Nice doesn’t exist!
Again I sing to praise
Men used as hospital beds,
Women wornout as clishes.

A CLOUD IN TROUSERS, PART 1
You think malaria makes me delirious?
It happened.
In Odessa it happened.
'I'll come at four,' Maria promised.
Eight.
Nine.
Ten.
Then the evening
turned its back on the windows
and plunged into grim night,
scowling
Decemberish.
At my decrepit back
the candelabras guffawed and whinnied.
You would not recognise me now:
a bulging bulk of sinews,
groaning,
and writhing,
What can such a clod desire?
Though a clod, many things!
The self does not care
whether one is cast of bronze
or the heart has an iron lining.
At night the self only desires
to steep its clangour in softness,
in woman.
And thus,
enormous,
I stood hunched by the window,
and my brow melted the glass.
What will it be: love or no-love?
And what kind of love:
big or minute?
How could a body like this have a big love?
It should be teeny-weeny,
humble, little love;
a love that shies at the hooting of cars,
that adores the bells of horse-trams.
Again and again
nuzzling against the rain,
my face pressed against its pitted face,
I wait,
splashed by the city's thundering surf.
Then midnight, amok with a knife,
caught up,
cut him down
out with him!
The stroke of twelve fell
like a head from a block.
On the windowpanes, grey raindrops
howled together,
piling on a grimace
as though the gargoyles
of Notre Dame were howling.
Damn you!
Isn't that enough?
Screams will soon claw my mouth apart.
Then I heard,
softly,
a nerve leap
like a sick man from his bed.
Then,
barely moving,
at first,
it soon scampered about,
agitated,
distinct.
Now, with a couple more,
it darted about in a desperate dance.
The plaster on the ground floor crashed.
Nerves,
big nerves,
tiny nerves,
many nerves!
galloped madly
till soon
their legs gave way.
But night oozed and oozed through the room
and the eye, weighed down, could not slither out of
the slime.
The doors suddenly banged ta-ra-bang,
as though the hotel's teeth
chattered.
You swept in abruptly
like 'take it or leave it!'
Mauling your suede gloves,
you declared:
'D' you know,
I'm getting married.'
All right, marry then.
So what,
I can take it.
As you see, I'm calm!
Like the pulse
of a corpse.
Do you remember
how you used to talk?
'Jack London,
money,
love,
passion.'
But I saw one thing only:
you, a Gioconda,
had to be stolen!
And you were stolen.
In love, I shall gamble again,
the arch of my brows ablaze.
What of it!
Homeless tramps often find
shelter in a burnt-out house!
You're teasing me now?
'You have fewer emeralds of madness
than a beggar has kopeks!'
But remember!
When they teased Vesuvius,
Pompeii perished!
Hey!
Gentlemen!
Amateurs
of sacrilege,
crime,
and carnage,
have you seen
the terror of terrors
my face
when
I
am absolutely calm?
I feel
my 'I'
is much too small for me.
Stubbornly a body pushes out of me.
Hello!
Who's speaking?
Mamma?
Mamma!
Your son is gloriously ill!
Mamma!
His heart is on fire.
Tell his sisters, Lyuda and Olya,
he has no nook to hide in.
Each word,
each joke,
which his scorching mouth spews,
jumps like a naked prostitute
from a burning brothel.
People sniff
the smell of burnt flesh!
A brigade of men drive up.
A glittering brigade.
In bright helmets.
But no jackboots here!
Tell the firemen
to climb lovingly when a heart's on fire.
Leave it to me.
I'll pump barrels of tears from my eyes.
I'll brace myself against my ribs.
I'll leap out! Out! Out!
They've collapsed.
You can't leap out of a heart!
From the cracks of the lips
upon a smouldering face
a cinder of a kiss rises to leap.
Mamma!
I cannot sing.
In the heart's chapel the choir loft catches fire!
The scorched figurines of words and numbers
scurry from the skull
like children from a flaming building.
Thus fear,
in its effort to grasp at the sky,
lifted high
the flaming arms of the Lusitania.
Into the calm of the apartment
where people quake,
a hundred-eye blaze bursts from the docks.
Moan
into the centuries,
if you can, a last scream: I'm on fire!

[…]
A CLOUD IN TROUSERS (ENDING)
Your thoughts,
dreaming on a softened brain,
like an over-fed lackey on a greasy settee,
with my heart's bloody tatters I'll mock again;
impudent and caustic, I'll jeer to superfluity.
Of Grandfatherly gentleness I'm devoid,
there's not a single grey hair in my soul!
Thundering the world with the might of my voice,
I go by - handsome, twenty-two-year-old.
Gentle ones!
You lay your love on a violin.
The crude lay their love on a drum.
but you can't, like me, turn inside out entirely,
and nothing but human lips become!
Out of chintz-covered drawing-rooms, come
and learn decorous bureaucrats of angelic leagues.
And you whose lips are calmly thumbed,
as a cook turns over cookery-book leaves
If you like I'll be furiously flesh elemental,
or -changing to tones that the sunset arouses
if you like I'll be extraordinary gentle,
not a man, but - a cloud in trousers!