By Vladimir Mayakovsky
(words weak words.. Then..)
FOUR
Strike a real suckerpunch:
“Ceasarborns ceasar – divineborns divine”, (Right on),
But into what word then should crawl
One like I?
Where is that hideout designed to MY height?
It would be simpler if I were compacted
To be just as tiny as, say, the World Ocean;
On tiptoes of waves I would rise to full height, then
Pleasure the moon with a tide-flow of strokes.
And oh, if I were only as dirt poor
As a tycoon!
But why would my soul need money?!
Besides, a sateless robber lodges in my soul;
For my desires are a horde so raucous
That to please them
The lot of all your Californias' gold
Would not afford.
If only I were half as crude and tongueless of a dummy
As Petrarch was or, even worse, a Dante!
I would ignite ablaze the soul of a belovéd one and only!
Or with a lyric order her to burn up whole!
Yet, as it stands, into a
Triumphal arch
My love and
Words alike
Are bound
To form;
So that,
While
Gushing
Festively
And ever-tracelessly,
Would cross
Its length
My ladyloves
From every
Future century…
But oh, if only I became reborn
To be as quiet as a thunderstorm,
And known for frequent moping;
Then I would drench
That withered Scythian
— The Earth —
With rolls of ever-wrenching purest trembling!
I
Know
That if I roared, unclasping
My vast own voice in its full power — Why, distant comets,
With their arms of burning
Snapping,
Out of sad yearning towards earth would lurch.
To munch down nights
I'd gape my lightbeam eyes!..
If only their real glow
Was just as feeble as the sun's…
But as it is, what use in wasting time
To siphon off my rays
Unto the Earth's emaciated bosom?
And so, I guess I'll merely pass on through,
All by myself my grand loveiathan pulling…
But think:
Just how immaculately loony
Some couple's midnight must have stewed,
And how Goliathine
Their acts of loving
To have spawned ME:
Who would grow up to be too goddamn big
For words like "huge'',
And who would grow to feel
So largely
Unwanted!