Boris Pasternak
To Mayakovsky

You are engrossed in ledgers,
In plans and tragic policies,
You who once sang to the brink
The Flying Dutchman with your verse.

A storm swelled at your canvas tent
And roared, intensifying,
Until you, wing d still, descended
At last to walk beside me again.

And now you sloganeer about oil?
Lost in your confusion
I imagine some therapist
Might restore you your wrath.

I ask, is not your true path,
The one that passes beneath
Arches of poorhouses,
Also your rightful path?

Translated by Don Mager