Past one oโclock. You must have gone to bed. The Milky Way streams silver through the night. Iโm in no hurry; with lightning telegrams I have no cause to wake or trouble you. And, as they say, the incident is closed. Loveโs boat has smashed against the daily grind. Now you and I are quits. Why bother then To balance mutual sorrows, pains, and hurts. Behold what quiet settles on the world. Night wraps the sky in tribute from the stars. In hours like these, one rises to address The ages, history, and all creation.
Vladimir MayakovskyOn Iโll pass, dragging my huge love behind me. On what feverish night, deliria-ridden, by what Goliaths was I begot โ I, so big and by no one needed?
Vladimir MayakovskyA line is a fuse that's lit. The line smolders, the rhyme explodesโ and by a stanza a city is blown to bits.
Vladimir MayakovskyFormerly I believed books were made like this: a poet came, lightly opened his lips, and the inspired fool burst into song โ if you please! But it seems, before they can launch a song, poets must tramp for days with callused feet, and the sluggish fish of the imagination flounders softly in the slush of the heart. And while, with twittering rhymes, they boil a broth of loves and nightingales, the tongueless street merely writhes for lack of something to shout or say
Vladimir MayakovskyIf an American is motoring on his own, he (the paragon of morality and chastity) will slow down and stop beside every solitary pretty female pedestrian, bare his teeth in a big smile, and tempt her into his car with a wild roll of the eyes. A lady who fails to appreciate his passion will qualify as an idiot who doesn't realise how lucky she is to have the opportunity of getting to know the owner of this 100-horse-power motor car.
Vladimir MayakovskyThey stood brow to brow, brown to white, black to black, he supporting her elbows, she playing her limp light fingers over his collarbone, and how he "ladored,"he said, the dark aroma of her hair blending with crushed lily stalks, Turkish cigarettes and the lassitude that comes from "lass." "No, no, don't," she said, I must wash, quick-quick, Ada must wash; but for yet another immortal moment they stood embraced in the hushed avenue, enjoying as they had never enjoyed before, the "happy-forever" feeling at the end of never-ending fairy tales.
Vladimir MayakovskyThereโs no grandfatherly fondness in me, There are no gray hairs in my soul! Shaking the world with my voice and grinning, I pass you by, - handsome, Twentytwoyearold.
Vladimir MayakovskyIn our language rhyme is a barrel. A barrel of dynamite. The line is a fuse. The line smoulders to the end and explodes; and the town is blown sky-high in a stanza.
Vladimir MayakovskyArt must not be concentrated in dead shrines called museums. lt must be spread everywhere โ on the streets, in the trams, factories, workshops, and in the workers' homes.
Vladimir MayakovskyIf you like I'll be furious flesh elemental, or- changing to tones that the sunset arouses- if you like- I'll be extraordinary gentle, not a man but - a cloud in trousers.
Vladimir Mayakovsky