Selected Poems

A Letter to Tatiana Yakovlev

138 ✦ vladimir mayakovsky A Letter to Tatiana Yakovlev In a kiss, whether on the hands or the lips, in the trembling of a body of those close to me, the red color of my Republics also should blaze bright. I have no love for Parisian love: dress any old female up in silks, and stretching out, I’ll doze off, having said “down, boy” to the dogs of animal passion. You alone are my equal in size; stand, then, beside me, eyebrow to eyebrow, let me tell of this important evening in normal human fashion. It’s five o’clock, and now the dense forest of people has settled down. The populated city is deserted, and I hear only the whistling argument of trains to Barcelona. In the black sky, lightning’s tread, the thunder of swearwords in a celestial drama— this is no storm, but simply jealousy moving mountains. Don’t believe the raw materials of stupid words, don’t be afraid of that trembling— I will bridle, I will subdue the feelings of scions of the nobility. The measles of my passion may come off in scabs, but my joy is inexhaustible; of it, simply and at length, I will speak in verse. the soviet years ✦ 139 140 ✦ vladimir mayakovsky Jealousy, wives, tears . . . to hell with them!— my eyelids will swell, might as well be the Viy. It’s not just about me— I am jealous on behalf of Soviet Russia. I’ve seen the patches on your shoulders, consumption licks them with its breath. But you see, it’s not our fault— one hundred million were in a bad way. Now we are gentler with such types— you won’t straighten out very many with sports— but we in Moscow need you too— we don’t have enough long-legged girls. It’s not for you, through snows and typhus having marched upon those legs, to give them up here for caresses at dinners with oil magnates. Don’t think about it, squinting your eyes beneath their straightened arches. Just come here, come to the crossroads of my big and awkward arms. You don’t want to? Then stay and spend the winter, and this insult we’ll add to the general bill. All the same, someday I’ll come and take you— you alone or along with Paris. 1928 the soviet years ✦ 141 ...