Prologue The evening, Like a patient out of his bed,

Frowning, A nerve leapt

Your thought, And Decemberish,3 Down.
Fantasizing on a sodden brain, At first,
Like a bloated lackey on a greasy couch Left the windows He barely moved.
sprawling, -- And vanished in dire darkness. Then, apprehensive
With my heart’s bloody tatters, I’ll mock And distinct,
it again. Behind me, I hear the neighing and He started prancing.
Until I’m contempt, I’ll be ruthless and laughter And now, he and another two,
galling. Of candelabras. Darted about, step-dancing.

There’s no grandfatherly fondness in me, You wouldn’t recognize me if you knew On the ground floor, the plaster was
There are no gray hairs in my soul! me prior: falling fast.
Shaking the world with my voice and A bulk of sinews
grinning, Moaning, Nerves,
I pass you by, -- handsome, Fidgeting. Big ones
Twentytwoyearold. What can such a clod desire? Little ones,--
But a clod desires many things. Various! --
Gentle souls! Galloped madly
You play your love on the violin. Because for oneself it doesn’t matter Until, at last,
The crude ones play it on the drums Whether you’re cast of copper Their legs wouldn’t carry them.
violently. Or whether the heart is cold metal.
But can you turn yourselves inside out, At night, you want to wrap your clamor The night oozed through the room and
like me In something feminine, sank.
And become just two lips entirely? Gentle. Stuck in slime, the eye couldn’t slither
out of it.
Come and learn-- And thus, Suddenly the doors started to bang
You, decorous bureaucrats of angelic Enormous, As if the hotel’s teeth were chattering.
leagues! I hunch in the frame,
Step out of those cambric drawing-rooms And with my forehead, I melt the You entered,
window glass. Abrupt like “Take it!”,
And you, who can leaf your lips Will this love be tremendous or lame? Mauling suede gloves, you tarried,
Like a cook turns the pages of her recipe Will it sustain or pass? And said:
books. A big one wouldn’t fit a body like this: “You know,--
It must be a little love, -- a baby, sort of, I’m soon getting married.”
If you wish-- It shies away when the cars honk and
I’ll rage on raw meat like a vandal hiss, Get married then.
Or change into hues that the sunrise But adores the bells on the horse-tram. It’s all right,
arouses, I come face to face I can handle it.
If you wish-- With the rippling rain, You see -- I’m calm, of course!
I can be irreproachably gentle, Yet once more, Like the pulse
Not a man -- but a cloud in trousers. And wait Of a corpse.
Splashed by the city surf’s thundering
I refuse to believe in Nice1 blossoming! roar. Remember?
I will glorify you regardless, -- You used to say:
Men, crumpled like bed-sheets in Running amok with a knife outside, “Jack London,4
hospitals, The night caught up to him Money,
And women, battered like overused And stabbed him, Love and ardor,”--
proverbs. Unseen. I saw one thing only:
You were La Gioconda,5
The stroke of midnight Which had to be stolen!
Fell like a head from a guillotine.
Part I And someone stole you.
The silver raindrops on the windowpane
You think I’m delirious with malaria? Were piling a grimace Again in love, I shall start gambling,
And yelling. With fire illuminating the arch of my
This happened. It was as if the gargoyles of Notre eyebrows.
In Odessa, this happened. Dame And why not?
Started yelping. Sometimes, the homeless ramblers
“I’ll come at four,” promised Maria.2 Will seek to find shelter in a burnt down
Damn you! house!
Eight... Haven’t you had enough yet?
Nine... Cries will soon cut my throat all around. You’re mocking me?
Ten. “You’ve fewer emeralds of madness
I heard: than a beggar kopecks, there’s no
Soon after, Softly, disproving this!”
But remember Thus fear, As if from consumption,
Pompeii6 came to end thus Reaching up to the sky, called The trodden chest gasped for air.
When somebody teased Vesuvius! And raised
Lusitania’s7 fiery arms with worry. The city, with gloom, blocked the road
Hey! rather fast.
Gentlemen! A hundred-eyed blaze looked into the
You care for peace And when --
Sacrilege, Of apartments, where the people Nevertheless! --
Crime perspired. The street coughed up the strain onto
And war. With a final outcry, the square
But have you seen Will you moan, at least, And pushed the portico off its throat, at
The frightening terror To report to the centuries that I’m on last,
Of my face fire? It seemed as if,
When Accompanied by the choirs of an
It’s archangel’s chorus,
Perfectly calm? Part II Recently robbed, God would show us
His heat!
And I feel- Glorify me!
“I” The great ones are no match for me! But the street squatted down and yelled
Is too small to fit me. Upon everything that’s been done out coarsely:
Someone inside me is getting smothered. I stamp the word “naught.” “Let’s go eat!”

Hello! As of now, I have no desire to read. The Krupps9 and the Krupplets gather
Who’s speaking? Novels? around
Mother? So what! To paint menacing brows on the city,
Mother! While in the gorge
Your son has a wonderful sickness! This is how books are made, Corpses of words are scatted about,--
Mother! I used to think: -- Two live and thrive,--
His heart has been set alight! Along comes a poet, “Swine”
Tell Lydia and Olga, his sisters, And opens his lips with ease. And another one,--
That there’s simply no where to hide. Inspired, the fool simply begins to sing I believe “borsch”.
Every word, --
Whether funny or crude, Oh please! And poets, soaking in sobs and
That he spews from his scorching mouth, It turns out: complaining,
Jumps like a naked prostitute Before they can sing with elation, Run from the street, resentful and sour:
From a burning brothel. On their calloused feet they tramp for “With those two words there’s no way
some time, to portray now
People sniff-- While the brainless fishes of A beautiful lady,
Something’s burned down. imagination Or love
They call the firemen. Are splashing and wallowing in the Or a dew-covered flower.”
In glittering helmets, heart’s slime.
They carelessly start intruding. And while, hissing with rhymes, they And after the poets,
Hey, tell the firemen: boil Thousands of others stampeded:
No boots allowed! All the loves and the nightingales in a Students,
With a sizzling heart one has to be broth-like liquid, Prostitutes,
prudent. The tongueless street merely squirms Salesmen.
I’ll do it! and coils --
I’ll pump my watery eyes into containers. It has nothing to yell or even speak Gentlemen,
Just let me push off my ribs and I’ll start. with. Stop!
I’ll leap out! I’ll leap out! You can’t You are not the needy;
restrain me! In our pride, we work all day with So how dare you to beg them,
They’ve collapsed. goodwill gentlemen!
You can’t leap out of the heart! And the city towers of Babel8 are again
restored. Covering yards with each stride,
From the cracks of the lips, But God We are healthy and ardent!
A cindering kiss springs, Grinds Don’t listen to them, but thrash them
Running away from the smoldering face. These cites into empty fields, instead!
Stirring the word. Them,
Mother! Who are stuck like a free add-on
I can’t sing. In silence, the street dragged on the To each king-size bed!
In the heart’s chapel, the choir was set ordeal.
ablaze! A scream stood erect on the gullet’s Are we to ask them humbly:
road. “Help us, please!”
The figurines of words and numbers While fat taxies and cabs were bristling Imploring them for hymns
From the skull, still, And oratorios?
Like kids from a burning building, scurry. Wedged in the throat.
We are the creators with the burning A dog licking the hand that it’s being “Good!”17
hymns thrashed by?
To the hum of the mills and laboratories. It’s good when from scrutiny a yellow
I am laughed at sweater18
Why should I care about Faust? By the present-day tribe. Hides the soul!
In a fairy display of the fireworks’ loot, They’ve made It’s good when
He’s gliding with Mephistopheles on the A scabrous joke out of me. On the gibbet, in the face of terror,
parquet of galaxies! But I can see crossing the mountains of You shout:
I know-- time, “Drink Cocoa -- Van Houten!”19
A nail in my boot Him, whom the others can’t see.
Is more frightening than Goethe’s10 This moment,
fantasies! Where men’s sight falls short, Like a Bengal light,
Wearing the revolutions’ thorny crown, Crackling from the blast,
I am Leading at the head of the hungry I wouldn’t exchange for anything,
The most golden-mouthed,11 horde, Not for any money.
With every word I am giving The year 1916 is coming around.
The body a name-day, Clouded by cigar smoke,
And the soul a rebirth, Among you, his precursor,14 And stretching like a liquor glass,
I assure you: Wherever there’s pain, I’ll be near. One could make out the drunken face of
The minutest speck of the living I have nailed myself to the cross there, Severyanin.20
Is worth more than all that I’ll ever do on On every single drop of a tear.
this earth! There’s nothing left to pardon now! How dare you call yourself a poet
In souls that bred pity, I burnt out the And gray, like a quail, twitter away your
Listen! fields. soul!
The present-day Zarathustra,12 That is much harder than When
Wet with sweat, Taking a thousand thousands of With brass knuckles
Is dashing around you and preaching here. Bastilles. This very moment
We, You have to split the world’s skull!
With faces crumpled like a bed spread, And when
With lips sagging like a chandelier, His advent announcing, You,
We, Joyful and proud, With one thought alone in your head,
The Leprous City detainees, You’ll step up to greet the savior-- “Am I dancing with style?”
Where, from filth and gold, lepers’ sores I will drag Look how happy I am
were raised, My soul outside, Instead,
We are purer than the Venetian azure seas, And trample it I,--
Washed by the sunshine’s balmy rays. Until it spreads out! A pimp and a fraud all the while.
And give it to you, red in blood, as a
I spit on the fact flag. From all of you,
That Homer and Ovid didn’t create Who soaked in love for plain fun,
Soot-covered with pox, Part III Who spilled
Men like us all, Tears into centuries while you cried,
But at the same time, I know Ah, how and wherefrom I’ll walk away
That the sun would fade Did it come to this And place the monocle of the sun
If it looked at the golden fields of our That the dirty fists of madness Into my gaping, wide-open eye.
souls. Against the luminous joy were raised in
the air? I’ll wear colorful clothes, the most
Muscles are surer than prayers to us! outlandish
We won’t pray for aid any more! She came,-- And roam the earth
We-- The thought of a madhouse To please and scorch the public,
Each one of us-- And curtained my head with despair. And in front of me,
Holds in his grasp On a metal leash,
The driving reins of the world! And Napoleon will run like a little puppy.
As in the Dreadnought’s15 downfall
This led to Golgotha in the auditoriums13 With chocking spasms Like a woman, quivering, the earth will
Of Petrograd, Moscow, Kiev, Odessa, The men jumped into the hatch, before lie down,
And there wasn’t one of you the ship died, Wanting to give in, she will slowly
Who wasn’t imploring thus: The crazed Burlyuk16 crawled on, slump.
“Crucify him!” passing Things will come alive
Teach him a lesson!” Through the screaming gaps of his eye. And from all around,
But to me,-- Almost bloodying his eyelids, Their lips will lisp:
People, He emerged on his knees, “Yum-yum-yum-yum-yum!”
Even those of you who were mean,-- Stood up and walked
To me, you are dear and I love you with And in the passionate mood, Suddenly,
passion. With tenderness, unexpected from one The clouds
so obese, And other stuff in the air
Haven’t you seen He simply said: Stirred in some astonishing commotion,
As if the workers in white, up there, And swallow you stale. Maria! Maria!29
Declared a strike, all bitter and emotional. Look-- Let me in, Maria!
The savage thunder peeked out of the Is the sky playing Judas once more, Don’t leave me out on the street!
cloud, irate. With a handful of stars that were soaked You can’t?
Snorting from huge nostrils, it howled in betrayal? My cheeks cave in,
And for a moment, the face of the sky The night, But you wait ruthlessly.
bent out of shape, Like Mamai,25 feasted with delight, Soon, sampled by everyone,
Resembling the iron Bismarck’s21 scowl. Crushing the city with its bottom’s heft. Stale and pallid,
And someone, Our eyes won’t be able break through I’ll come out
Entangled in the clouds’ maze, this night, And mumble toothlessly
To the café, stretched out his hand now: As black as Azef!26 That today I’m
Both, tender somehow, “Remarkably candid.”
And with a womanly face, Slumped in the corner of the saloon, I
And at once, like a firing cannon. sit, Maria,
Spilling wine on my soul and the floor, You see--
You think And I see: My shoulders are drooping again.
That’s the sun above the attics In the corner, round eyes are lit
Gently stretching to caress the cheeks of And with them, Madonna bites the In the streets, the men
the café? heart’s core. Prick the fat in their four-story craws.
No, advancing again to slaughter the They show their eyes,
radicals Why bestow such radiance on this Worn out in the forty years of despair,
It’s General Galliffet!22 drunken mass? and restless-
What do they have to offer? They snicker because
Take your hands out of your pockets, You see – once again, In my teeth,
wanderers - They prefer Barabbas27 Again,
Pick up a bomb, a knife or a stone Over the Man of Golgotha? I hold the hardened crust of last night’s
And if one happens to be armless, caresses.
Let him come to fight with his forehead Maybe, deliberately,
alone! In the human mash, not once The rain wept over the sidewalks, --
Do I wear a fresh-looking face. That puddle-imprisoned fraudster.
Go on, starving, I am, The corpse of the street, clobbered by
Servile Perhaps, cobbles, soaked in its cries.
And abused ones, The handsomest of your sons But the gray lashes--
In this flea-swarming filth, do not rot! In the whole human race. Yes! --
The eyelashes of icicles became frosted
Go on! Give them, With tears from the eyes--
We’ll turn Mondays and Tuesdays The ones molded with delight, Yes! --
Into holidays, painting them with blood! A quick death already, From the drainpipes’ overcast eyes.
Remind the earth whom it tried to debase! So that their children may grow up
With your knives be rough! right; Every pedestrian was licked by the
The earth Boys -- into fathers rain’s snout:
Has grown fat like the mistress’ face, Girls -- into pregnant ladies. Athletes glistened in the carriages on
Whom Rothschild23 had over-loved! the street.
Like the wise men, let the new born People burst
May the flags flutter in the line of fire babes Overstuffed,
As they do on holidays, with a flare! Grow gray with insight and thought And their fat oozed out.
Hey, street-lamps, raise the traders up And they’ll come Like a muddy river, it streamed on the
higher, To baptize the infants with names ground,
Let their carcasses hang in the air. Of the poems I wrote. Together with juices from
A cud of old meat.
I cursed, I praise the machine and the industrial
Stabbed Britain. Maria!
And hit in the face, In some ordinary, common gospel, How can I fit a tender word into bulging
Crawled after somebody, It may perhaps, be written ears?
Biting into their ribs. That I’m the thirteenth apostle.28 A bird
Sings for alms
In the sky, red like La Marseillaise,24 And when my voice rumbles bawdily, With a hungry voice
The sunset gasped with its shuddering Every evening, Rather well,
lips. For hours and hours, But I am a man,
awaiting my call, Maria,
It’s insanity! Jesus, Himself, may be sniffling Coughed up by the ailing night into
The forget-me-nots of my soul. Presnya’s30 filthy palms.
Not a thing will remain from the war.
Maria, do you want me?
The night will come, Part IV Maria, take me in, please.
Bite into you
With shivering fingers I’ll squeeze the As a soldier You’re shaking your curly head
iron throat of the bell! Amputated by war, coarsely?
Alone You’re knitting your brows like you’re
Maria! And unwanted, rough?
Cherishes his remaining leg. Do you think
The pastures of streets turn wild and loud! That this
They’re squeezing my neck and I’m Maria, -- Winged one, close by,
almost collapsing. You won’t have me? Knows the meaning of love?
You won’t!
Open! Ha! I too am an angel; used to be one
I’m hurt! Then gloomy and dismal, before--
Look - my eyes are pricked out Once more, With a sugar lamb’s eye, I stared at your
By the common womanly hatpins! I shall carry faces,
My tear-stained heart But I don’t want to give presents to
You’ve opened the door. Forward, mares anymore, --
Like a dog, All the torture of Sevres that’s been
My child! Limping, made into vases.34
Oh, don’t be alarmed! Carries the paw Almighty, You created two hands,
You see these women, That the speeding train had ran over. And with care,
Hanging on my neck like mountains, -- Made a head, and went down the list, --
Through life, I drag with me With the blood from the heart I cheer But why did you make it
A million of massive, enormous, pure the road that I roam, So that it pained
loves Flowers cling to my jacket, making it When one had to kiss, kiss, kiss?!
And a million millions of filthy, dusty,
disgusting lovelets. The sun will dance a thousand times I thought that you were the Great God,
Don’t be afraid round the earth, Almighty
If betraying the vow Like Salome32 But you’re a miniature idol, -- a dunce
Of honesty, Danced around the head of the Baptist. in a suit,
Seeing a thousand pretty faces, I’ll throw Bending over, I’m already reaching
myself at them, -- And when my years, at their very end, For the knife that I’m hiding
“Those, who love Mayakovsky!”- Will finish their dance and wrinkle, At the top of my boot.
Please, understand that that is the dynasty A million bloodstains will spread
Of the queens, who have mounted the The path to my Father’s kingdom. You, swindlers with wings,
heart of a madman. Huddle in fright!
I’ll climb out Ruffle your shuddering feathers,
Maria, closer! Filthy (sleeping in gullies all night), rascals!
And into his ears, I’ll whisper You, reeking of incense, I’ll open you
Whether naked and shameless, While I stand wide,
Or shivering in dismay, At his side: From here all the way to Alaska.
Yield the wonder of your lips, so gentle:
My heart and I have never lived until “Mister God, listen! Let me go!
May, Isn’t it tedious
But in my past, To dip your generous eyes into clouds You can’t stop me!
A hundreds of Aprils assembled. Every day, every evening? Whether I’m right or wrong
Let’s, instead, Makes no difference,
Maria! Start a festive merry-go-round I will not be calmer.
A poet sings praises to Tiana31 all day, On the tree of knowledge of good and Look, --
But I-- evil! The stars were beheaded all night long
I’m made of flesh, Omnipresent, you’ll be all around us! And the sky is again bloody with
I’m a man, -- From the wine, all the fun will ensue slaughter.
I ask for your body, And Apostle Peter, who’s always been
Like the Christians pray: frowning, Hey you,
“Give us this day Will perform the fast-paced dance -- ki- Heaven!
Our daily bread.” ka-pu.33 Take your hat off,
We’ll bring all the Eves back into Eden: When you see me near!
Maria, give it to me! Order me
And I’ll go-- Silence.
Maria! From the boulevards, I’ll pick up all the
I fear to forget your name pretty girls needed The universe sleeps.
As a poet fears to forget under pressure And bring them to you! Placing its paw
A word Under the black, star-infested ear.
He conceived in a restless night, Should I?
Equal to God in effect.
No?
Your body
I shall continue to love and treasure