A Letter to Tatiana Yakoleva

In the caresses of lips
or hands
in the tremblings of bodies
near and dear to me
the red colour
of my motherland
must also
burning be.

I dislike
the love
that Paris boasts
of females one adorns
with silks and fashions
who stretch out dreamily
saying:
"u es beau!
with a bitch’s
animal passion.

You alone
equal me in height
stand now beside me
brow to brow
and about that
oh so important night
let’s talk
like human beings now.

Five p.m.
and since that time
let people
of the dreaming pines
depopulate
the inhabited city..
I hear only
argumentative whines
of trains
for Barcelona quitting.

On the heaven’s black
lightning acts
thunder
tamed
in the drama of heaven.
That’s not thunder,
simply the fact –
of jealousy
moving mountains even.

Don’t believe the raw stuff
stupid words and idle.
Don’t be frightened
by these reelings.
I’ll tame
I’ll bridle
gentry-offsprung
feelings.
Passion’s measles
scabs only leave
but happiness’s
unwitherable ever.

I’ll be long
I’ll be brief
talking only in poetry’s fever.
Enough
of jealousy
wives
tears
Eyelids swell
fittingly I weave.

I’m not myself
but I’m jealous, dear
of Soviet Russia
even.
I saw on shoulders
rags and tatters,
TB
licked them
with a sighing cough.
We’re not to blame,
so what’s the matter?
A hundred million
were badly off.
We can only rectify
a few
for such a gentle sport.

We’re needed in Moscow,
me and you,
there’re not enough
of our long-legged sort.
But with those legs
you won’t be passing
through snow
and typhoid-typhoons.
Here they give them
for caressing
at banquets
for oil-tycoons.
You furrow your forehead
don’t be afraid
eye-brow arcs straighten to bands.
Come to me so
or in the cradle
of my great
big
clumsy hands.


You don’t want to?
You’ll stay behind and winter there?
Well that insult
to the general account
is gathered.
Just the same
sometime or other
I’ll take you dear
from Paris
single
or together.

Suggested Read : Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky