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!