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A Cloud in Trousers
by Vladimir Mayakovsky
translated from the Russian by Andrey Kneller

Part II
 
Glorify me! 
The great ones are no match for me!
Upon everything that’s been done
I stamp the word “naught.”
 
As of now, I have no desire to read.
Novels?
So what!
 
This is how books are made,
I used to think: -- 
Along comes a poet,
And opens his lips with ease.
Inspired, the fool simply begins to sing --
Oh please!
It turns out:
Before they can sing with elation,
On their calloused feet they tramp for some time,
While the brainless fishes of imagination
Are splashing and wallowing in the heart’s slime.
And while, hissing with rhymes, they boil
All the loves and the nightingales in a broth-like liquid,
The tongueless street merely squirms and coils --
It has nothing to yell or even speak with.
 
In our pride, we work all day with goodwill
And the city towers of Babel8 are again restored.
But God
Grinds
These cites into empty fields,
Stirring the word.
 
In silence, the street dragged on the ordeal.
A scream stood erect on the gullet’s road.
While fat taxies and cabs were bristling still,
Wedged in the throat.
As if from consumption,
The trodden chest gasped for air.
 
The city, with gloom, blocked the road rather fast.

And when --
Nevertheless! --
The street coughed up the strain onto the square
And pushed the portico off its throat, at last,
It seemed as if,
Accompanied by the choirs of an archangel’s chorus,
Recently robbed, God would show us His heat!
 
But the street squatted down and yelled out coarsely:
“Let’s go eat!”
 
The Krupps9 and the Krupplets gather around
To paint menacing brows on the city,
While in the gorge
Corpses of words are scatted about,--
Two live and thrive,--
“Swine” 
And another one,--
I believe “borsch”.
 
And poets, soaking in sobs and complaining,
Run from the street, resentful and sour:
“With those two words there’s no way to portray now
A beautiful lady,
Or love
Or a dew-covered flower.”
 
And after the poets,
Thousands of others stampeded:
Students,
Prostitutes,
Salesmen.
 
Gentlemen,
Stop!
You are not the needy; 
So how dare you to beg them, gentlemen! 
 
Covering yards with each stride,
We are healthy and ardent!
Don’t listen to them, but thrash them instead!
Them,
Who are stuck like a free add-on 
To each king-size bed!
 
Are we to ask them humbly:
“Help us, please!”
Imploring them for hymns
And oratorios?
We are the creators with the burning hymns
To the hum of the mills and laboratories.
 
Why should I care about Faust?
In a fairy display of the fireworks’ loot, 
He’s gliding with Mephistopheles on the parquet of galaxies!
I know--
A nail in my boot
Is more frightening than Goethe’s10 fantasies!
 
I am
The most golden-mouthed,11
With every word I am giving
The body a name-day,
And the soul a rebirth,
I assure you:
The minutest speck of the living
Is worth more than all that I’ll ever do on this earth!
 
Listen!
The present-day Zarathustra,12
Wet with sweat,
Is dashing around you and preaching here.
We,
With faces crumpled like a bed spread,
With lips sagging like a chandelier,
We, 
The Leprous City detainees,
Where, from filth and gold, lepers’ sores were raised,
We are purer than the Venetian azure seas,
Washed by the sunshine’s balmy rays.
 
I spit on the fact
That Homer and Ovid didn’t create
Soot-covered with pox,
Men like us all, 
But at the same time, I know 
That the sun would fade
If it looked at the golden fields of our souls.
 
Muscles are surer than prayers to us!
We won’t pray for aid any more!
We--
Each one of us--
Holds in his grasp
The driving reins of the world!
 
This led to Golgotha in the auditoriums13
Of Petrograd, Moscow, Kiev, Odessa, 
And there wasn’t one of you
Who wasn’t imploring thus:
“Crucify him!”
Teach him a lesson!”
But to me,--
People, 
Even those of you who were mean,-- 
To me, you are dear and I love you with passion.
 
Haven’t you seen
A dog licking the hand that it’s being thrashed by?
 
I am laughed at 
By the present-day tribe.
They’ve made
A scabrous joke out of me. 
But I can see crossing the mountains of time,
Him, whom the others can’t see.
 
Where men’s sight falls short,
Wearing the revolutions’ thorny crown,
Leading at the head of the hungry horde,
The year 1916 is coming around.
 
Among you, his precursor,14
Wherever there’s pain, I’ll be near.
I have nailed myself to the cross there,
On every single drop of a tear.
There’s nothing left to pardon now!
In souls that bred pity, I burnt out the fields.
That is much harder than
Taking a thousand thousands of Bastilles.
 
And when
His advent announcing, 
Joyful and proud,
You’ll step up to greet the savior--
I will drag
My soul outside,
And trample it 
Until it spreads out!
And give it to you, red in blood, as a flag. 

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