Vladimir Mayakovsky

 

Revolutionary Russia’s avant-garde with the Japanese writer Tamiji Naito, Moscow, May 1924 (photo by Anatoly Cemenka). From left to right: Pasternak, Mayakovsky, Naito, (diplomat) Arseny Voznesensky, Olga Tretyakova, Eisenstein, and Lilia (or Lili) Brik. Mayakovsky always seemed to tower over these gatherings, as he does in this photo with that ubiquitous fag.

Clouds up to tricks

High
       in the sky
                      sailed clouds.
Just four of them —
                                 none of your crowds.
From the first to the third
                                       they looked men,
while the fourth
                         was a camel.
                                              Then,
when they were well adrift,
they were joined
                          on the way
                                            by a fifth,
from which,
                   absolutely irrelevant,
ran elephant
                     after elephant.
Till —
       perhaps a sixth