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

Part III
 
Ah, how and wherefrom
Did it come to this
That the dirty fists of madness
Against the luminous joy were raised in the air?
 
She came,--
The thought of a madhouse
And curtained my head with despair.
 
And
As in the Dreadnought’s15 downfall
With chocking spasms 
The men jumped into the hatch, before the ship died,
The crazed Burlyuk16 crawled on, passing
Through the screaming gaps of his eye.
Almost bloodying his eyelids,
He emerged on his knees,
Stood up and walked
And in the passionate mood,
With tenderness, unexpected from one so obese,
He simply said:
“Good!”17
 
It’s good when from scrutiny a yellow sweater18
Hides the soul!
It’s good when
On the gibbet, in the face of terror,
You shout:
“Drink Cocoa -- Van Houten!”19
 
This moment,
Like a Bengal light,
Crackling from the blast, 
I wouldn’t exchange for anything,
Not for any money.
 
Clouded by cigar smoke,
And stretching like a liquor glass,
One could make out the drunken face of Severyanin.20
 
How dare you call yourself a poet
And gray, like a quail, twitter away your soul!
When
With brass knuckles
This very moment
You have to split the world’s skull!
 
You,
With one thought alone in your head,
“Am I dancing with style?”
Look how happy I am
Instead,
I,--
A pimp and a fraud all the while.
 
From all of you,
Who soaked in love for plain fun,
Who spilled
Tears into centuries while you cried,
I’ll walk away
And place the monocle of the sun
Into my gaping, wide-open eye.
 
I’ll wear colorful clothes, the most outlandish
And roam the earth
To please and scorch the public,
And in front of me,
On a metal leash,
Napoleon will run like a little puppy.
 
Like a woman, quivering, the earth will lie down,
Wanting to give in, she will slowly slump.
Things will come alive
And from all around,
Their lips will lisp:
“Yum-yum-yum-yum-yum!”
 
Suddenly,
The clouds
And other stuff in the air
Stirred in some astonishing commotion,
As if the workers in white, up there,
Declared a strike, all bitter and emotional.
 
The savage thunder peeked out of the cloud, irate.
Snorting from huge nostrils, it howled 
And for a moment, the face of the sky bent out of shape,
Resembling the iron Bismarck’s21 scowl. 
 
And someone,
Entangled in the clouds’ maze,
To the café, stretched out his hand now: 
Both, tender somehow,
And with a womanly face, 
And at once, like a firing cannon.
 
You think 
That’s the sun above the attics
Gently stretching to caress the cheeks of the café?
No, advancing again to slaughter the radicals
It’s General Galliffet!22
 
Take your hands out of your pockets, wanderers -
Pick up a bomb, a knife or a stone
And if one happens to be armless,
Let him come to fight with his forehead alone!
 
Go on, starving,
Servile
And abused ones,
In this flea-swarming filth, do not rot!
 
Go on!
We’ll turn Mondays and Tuesdays
Into holidays, painting them with blood!
Remind the earth whom it tried to debase!
With your knives be rough!
The earth
Has grown fat like the mistress’ face,
Whom Rothschild23 had over-loved!
 
May the flags flutter in the line of fire
As they do on holidays, with a flare!
Hey, street-lamps, raise the traders up higher,
Let their carcasses hang in the air.
 
I cursed,
Stabbed
And hit in the face,
Crawled after somebody,
Biting into their ribs.
 
In the sky, red like La Marseillaise,24
The sunset gasped with its shuddering lips.
 
It’s insanity!
 
Not a thing will remain from the war.
 
The night will come, 
Bite into you
And swallow you stale.
 
Look--
Is the sky playing Judas once more,
With a handful of stars that were soaked in betrayal?
 
The night,
Like Mamai,25 feasted with delight,
Crushing the city with its bottom’s heft.
Our eyes won’t be able break through this night,
As black as Azef!26
 
Slumped in the corner of the saloon, I sit,
Spilling wine on my soul and the floor,
And I see:
In the corner, round eyes are lit
And with them, Madonna bites the heart’s core.

Why bestow such radiance on this drunken mass?
What do they have to offer?
You see – once again,
They prefer Barabbas27
Over the Man of Golgotha?
 
Maybe, deliberately, 
In the human mash, not once
Do I wear a fresh-looking face.
I am,
Perhaps,
The handsomest of your sons
In the whole human race.
 
Give them,
The ones molded with delight,
A quick death already,
So that their children may grow up right;
Boys -- into fathers
Girls -- into pregnant ladies.
 
Like the wise men, let the new born babes
Grow gray with insight and thought
And they’ll come
To baptize the infants with names
Of the poems I wrote.
 
I praise the machine and the industrial Britain.
In some ordinary, common gospel,
It may perhaps, be written
That I’m the thirteenth apostle.28
 
And when my voice rumbles bawdily, 
Every evening,
For hours and hours,
awaiting my call,
Jesus, Himself, may be sniffling
The forget-me-nots of my soul.

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