Mayakovsky in the Year 1913
Although I didn’t know your days of glory
I was present at your tempestuous dawn
and today I’ll take a small step back in history
to remember, as I’m entitled to, times gone.
With every line, your words increased in power!
Unheard of voices gathering in swarms!
Those were no idle hands that threw up such towering
and menacing new forms!
Everything you touched suddenly seemed
somehow altered, different from before,
and whatever you destroyed, remained
that way, and in every syllable the roar
of judgement. Often dissatisfied, alone,
driven on by an impatient fate,
you knew how fast the time was nearing when
you’d leap, excited, joyful, to the fight.
We could hear, as we listened to you read,
the reverberating thunder of the waters
and the downpour squinted angrily as you slid
into your wild confrontations with the city.
Your name, in those days unfamiliar, flashed
like streaks of lightning through the stuffy hall.
It’s with us still today, remembered, cherished
throughout the land, a thundering battle call.
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