MAYAKOVSKY, Vladimir
And could you?
Just now I smeared the map of the daily grind,
splashing paint out of a glass;
I revealed the sharp cheek-bones of the ocean
on a platter of jellied meat.
I read the summons of new lips
on the scales of a tin fish.
And you
could you
play a nocturne
on a drain-pipe flute?
The Fop’s Smock
I’ll sew myself a pair of black trousers
from the velvet of my voice.
A yellow smock from three yards of sunset.
I’ll saunter along the Nevsky Prospect of the world,
along its polished strips,
with the step of Don Juan and a fop.
Let the earth, gone to seed from neglect, yell out:
“You’re going off to rape the green springs!”
I throw a taunt at the sun, grinning brazenly,
“It’s good to roll my r’s along
the smooth surface of asphalt!”
Isn’t it because the sky is blue
And the earth is my lover in this celebratory cleaning,
that I give you verses? Amusing ones, like bi-ba-bo,
and sharp and useful ones, like toothpicks.
Women, who love my flesh, and this
girl, looking at me like I’m her brother,
shower your smiles on me, the poet.
I’ll sew them onto my smock like flowers.
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мечтающую на размягченном мозгу, как выжиревший лакей на засаленной кушетке, буду дразнить об окровавленный сердца лоскут:
досыта изъиздеваюсь, нахальный и едкий.
и старческой нежности нет в ней! Мир огромив мощью голоса, иду - красивый,
двадцатидвухлетний.
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musing 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 doddering tenderness. I rock the world with the thunder of my voice, strolling, looking good —
twenty-two.
dagdroom in uw hersenpap als een vervette butler in een mottige fauteuil kom ik te sarren met een bloedige lap hart,
mij te bezatten aan mijn hoon, venijnig, vuil.
waar geen seniele zachtheid is te vinden. De wereld tartend met mijn macht van stem verplaats ik mij - iets moois
van tweeëntwintig.
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An Extraordinary Adventure Which Befell Vladimir Mayakovsky In A Summer
Cottage
…..
The sun responded!
“You and I,
my comrade, are quite a pair!
Let’s go, my poet,
let’s dawn
and sing
in a gray tattered world.
I shall pour forth my sun,
and you—your own,
in verse.”
…..