Selected Poems

150,000,000

196 ✦ vladimir mayakovsky 150,000,000 A Poem 150,000,000 is the name of the craftsman of this poem. The bullet is its rhythm. Its rhyme, a fire spreading from building to building. 150,000,000 now speak through my lips. This edition is printed by rotary footsteps on the cobblestone paper of squares. Who would ask the moon, who could compel the sun to answer: why do you cause all these nights and days? Who can name the ingenious author of the earth? So of this my poem no one is the creator. And it has only one idea— to shine into the coming tomorrow. This very year, on this day, at this hour, underground, above ground, through the sky, and still higher, there appeared the following posters, placards, leaflets: “EVERYONE! EVERYONE! EVERYONE! Everyone who can’t take any more! Walk out together and march!” (signed): VENGEANCE—MASTER OF CEREMONIES. HUNGER—MANAGING DIRECTOR. BAYONET. BROWNING. BOMB. (three signatures of the secretaries) Let’s go! Letsgoletsgo! Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go! It’s all tumbling down! Vanka! Stuff some Kerensky bucks in your sandal! Think you can run off to the meeting barefoot? Our sweet little Russia’s had it! They’ve ruined the poor girl! We’ll find a new Russia. A worldwide one! selected long poems ✦ 197 198 ✦ vladimir mayakovsky Let’s go-o-o-o-o-o! There he sits, done up in gold, at tea with petits fours. I’ll come to him as cholera. I’ll come to him as typhus. I’ll come to him, I’ll tell him: “Wilson,” I’ll say, “Woodrow, you want a bucket of my blood? You’ll see . . .” We’ll make it to Lloyd George himself, and we’ll tell him: “Listen here, Georgie . . .” “Sure, you’ll make it to him! He’s across oceans. You think they’re scared of some old Russian packhorse?” “Not a bit of it! We’ll go on our own two feet!” Letsgoletsgo! Roused by the call, from the forests, half awake, a host of beasts and their young crept out. A piglet crushed by an elephant squealed. Puppies formed into puppy ranks. Now, a human scream can be unbearable, but the beasts’ cry tied your very soul in knots. I will translate the animals’ roar for you, in case you don’t know the language of beasts: “Listen up, Wilson, swimming in fatback! If men are to blame, then give them the punishment. But we didn’t sign any treaty in Versailles. Why should we, the beasts, have to go hungry? Fellow beasts, fling your animal grief at Wilson! Oh, to eat our fill just one more time! Let’s be off to Indias stuffed with tall grasses, let’s head for American pastures!” O-o-o-h! We’re so cramped in this cage of a blockade. Forward march, automobiles! To the meeting, motorbikes! Step aside, small fries! Make way for the roads! Road after road now falls into rank. Listen to what the roads have to say. Well, what is it they’re saying? “We’ve choked to death on winds and dust, winding along rails through the starving steppe. We’re tired of trudging along behind convicts, mile after flimsy, unpaved mile. We want to pour out in asphalt, settling down under the weight of express-lines. selected long poems ✦ 199 200 ✦ vladimir mayakovsky Rise up! You’ve slept there long enough, cradled by highway dust! Let’s go-o-o-o!” E-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e. Let’s go to the coalfields! To get some bread! Black bread, baked just for us! Only a fool would set off without fuel. To the meeting, all you steam engines! Steam engines, to the meeting! Hur-r-r-r-r-r-y-y-y-y-y up! Hurryhurry! Hey, all you provinces, break free from your anchors! After Tula, Astrakhan, huge bulk after bulk, lands that have stood still since Adam’s day set off, and advanced together with others, their cities giving off tiny rumbles. Driving away the party-crashing darkness, with lamps bumping forehead to forehead, legions of firelight march to the meeting with giant streetlamp strides. And above, reconciling water with fire, the drowned and festering seas rolled forward. “Make way for the mischievous Caspian waves! We won’t change our course and...