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The Backbone Flute
by Vladimir Mayakovsky
translated from the Russian by Andrey Kneller

III.

I'll forget the year, the day, the date.
With a sheet of paper, I'll lock myself up in
isolation.
O inhuman magic, create!
Through the suffering words, perform your creation!

Today, just upon walking in,--
Something was wrong in the house,--
I sensed.
In your silky dress, you had something concealed
And the room smelled strongly of incense.
Are you glad to see me?
A very cold
"very."
Confusion overtook reason and began to fill me.
Burning and feverish, I began despairing.

Listen,
Either way,
You can't hide a corpse.
A terrible lie is lava on the head.
Whatever you do,
Each sinew of yours
Into the megaphone
Trumpets:
I'm dead! dead! dead!
No,
Answer me.
No more lies!
(Where can I go now, disgraced?)
Like two empty graves, your eyes
Excavate two hollows upon your face.

The graves grow deeper.
No bottom at all.
It seems,
I will plunge headfirst from the scaffold.
Like a tightrope, I've stretched out my soul
And juggling words, I totter there, baffled.

I know
That his love is worn out and dull.
Boredom holds you in its captivity.
Reyouth yourself inside my soul
And invite the heart to the body's festivity.

I know
For a woman, every man must pay.
For a while,
I will have to dress you into the gray
Of tobacco smoke,
Instead of the fresh, Parisian style.

My love,
Like an apostle in the time long past,
I'll carry down a thousand thousands roads.
In the ages, a crown for you is cast
And in that crown,
In the rainbow of shudders, shine my words.

As elephants, with hundredweight games, assiduous,
Completed the victory of Pyrrhus,
I packed your brain with the tread of a genius
All in vain.
Nothing could bind us.

Rejoice,
Rejoice,
My anguish
Is now too great!
You have finished me off!
All I can do is to run to the nearest strait
And thrust my head into the water's maw.

You gave me your lips.
So lifeless they were that my passion ceased.
I froze and pulled back.
It felt as though, repentant, I kissed
A monastery hacked from a frigid rock.

Doors
Banged.
He entered,
Entwined in the streets' delight.
I,
Split in a wail, overflowing with spite.
Cried out to him:
"All right,
I'll go,
All right!
Let her remain.
Dress her up in fine rags,
Shy wings will swell in silk, of course.
Watch out or she'll float away.
Around her neck, like the weight of a rock,
Tie a necklace of priceless pearls!"

Oh, what a
Night!
I myself tightened the noose of despair.
Seeing me change from somber to jovial,
The face of the room wrenched from the scare.

A redoubling phantom of your likeness arose;
Your eyes illumined the carpet it lied on.
As if a new Byalik had composed
A blinding Queen of the Hebrew Zion.

In anguish,
Before her, whom I had relinquished,
I dropped to my knees, overwhelmingly.
Having surrendered,
King Albert, diminished,
Was a gift-laden birthday boy compared to me.

Flowers and grasses, turn gold in the sun!
Turn vernal and lively, o universe!
I desire one poison, just one-
To keep drinking and drinking this verse.

You, the thief of my heart,
Who has robbed it of everything,
Into delirium, you've tortured my soul.
This gift, my dear, do not disregard-
Perhaps, after this, I'll write nothing at all.

Convert into a holiday this precious date!
O, crucifixion-like magic,
Create and create now!
As you see-
With the nails of words, today,
I am nailed to paper.

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