Mayakovsky's Suicide Note??

 

At the Top of My Voice

Unfinished Prelude to the Second Part of a Poem on the Five Year Plan

 

1

She love me-loves me not.

My hands I pick

and having broken my fingers

fling away.

So the first daisy-heads

one happens to flick

are plucked,

and guessing,

scattered into May.

Let a cut and shave

reveal my grey hairs.

Let the silver of the years

ring out endlessly!

Shameful common sense -

I hope, I swear -

Will never come

to me.

 

2

It's already two.

No doubt, you've gone to sleep.

In the night

The Milky Way

with silver filigrees.

I don't hurry,

and there is no point in me

waking and disturbing you

with express telegrams.

 

3

The sea goes to weep.

The sea goes to sleep.

As they say,

the incident has petered out.

The love boat of life

has crashed on philistine reefs.

You and I

are quits.

No need to reiterate

mutual injuries,

troubles

and griefs.

 

4

D'you see,

In the world what a quiet sleeps.

Night tributes the sky

with silver constellations.

In such an hour as this,

one rises and speaks

to ears,

history,

and world creation.

 

5

I know the power of words, I know words' tocsin.

They're not the kind applauded by the boxes.

From words like these coffins burst from the earth

and on their own four oaken legs stride forth.

It happens they reject you, unpublished, unprinted.

But saddle-girths tightening words gallop ahead.

See how the centuries ring and trains crawl

to like poetry's calloused hands.

I know the power of words. Seeming trifles that fall

like petals beneath the heel-taps of dance.

But man with his soul, his lips, his bones...

 

1928-1930

 

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