Posted by LIT, excerpts from Mayakovsky's "Cloud in Trousers": as translated by David Lehman. From part one, for example:
Hey!
Gentlemen!
You who,
next to me,
are rank amateurs
in the realms
of sacrilege,
mischief,
and mayhem —
have you laid eyes on
the most terrifying thing
in the world –
my face
when I am totally calm,
cool and collected?
I fear
my ego
isn’t big enough
for the rest of me
which
is struggling
to emerge
as a full-born youth
from a Madonna’s womb.
For more click here.
On Mayakovsky's birthday, July 19, watch this space for more Mayakovsky.
About ten or eleven years ago, the San Diego Reader reprinted a poem of mine that had appeared in The Kenyon Review. The poem was entitled "Poem in the Manner of Vladimir Mayakovsky." Next to the poem, there was a photo of me that Bill Hayward had taken back in 1996. Beneath the photo: the name Vladimir Mayakovsky. — DL