Vladimir Mayakovsky had the remarkable tribute of being praised both by Stalin and by Pasternak. Stalin said of him: "He was and is the most talented poet of the Socialist epoch, and indifference to his memory is a crime."
A Cloud in Trousers
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 furious flesh elemental,
or--changing to tones that the sunset arouses---
If you like--
I'll be extraordinarily gentle,
not a man, but--a cloud in trousers!
I don't believe flowery Nice exists at all!
Once more a song in praise I proffer
to men, bedridden as a hospital,
to women, worn-out as a proverb.
(1914-15)
A note on the sale of this book:
Mayakovsky, translated and editied by Herbert Marshall, 1965, 432 pages, ndj, faded spine, rest of cover and inside, vg, $35
In a few weeks I may be able to have this book charged and shipped through Amazon.com.
A Cloud in Trousers
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 furious flesh elemental,
or--changing to tones that the sunset arouses---
If you like--
I'll be extraordinarily gentle,
not a man, but--a cloud in trousers!
I don't believe flowery Nice exists at all!
Once more a song in praise I proffer
to men, bedridden as a hospital,
to women, worn-out as a proverb.
(1914-15)
A note on the sale of this book:
Mayakovsky, translated and editied by Herbert Marshall, 1965, 432 pages, ndj, faded spine, rest of cover and inside, vg, $35
In a few weeks I may be able to have this book charged and shipped through Amazon.com.
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