Velimir Khlebnikov
I swam across the Sudak Gulf...

I swam across the Sudak Gulf,
I rode a wild horse.
I shouted:
        "Russia has perished, is no more,
        partitioned now like Poland!"
        And people stared in horror.
I said:
        "The heart of a modern Russian hangs like a bat."
And people repented.
I said:
        "Hlaha! Uthlofan, lauflings!
        Hlaha! Ufhlofan, lauflings!"
I said:
        "Down with the Hapsburgs! Bridle the Hohenzollerns!"
And I wrote with an eagle feather. Golden, silky, it swirled above the sturdy quill.
I walked by the shores of a beautiful lake,
in bast-bound shoes and a sky-blue shirt.
And I was beautiful too.
I had an old bronze bludgeon with a rugged round head.
I once had a double-reed panpipe and a sawed-off horn.
I had my picture taken with a skull in my hand.
I saw sea serpents at Petrovsk.
I went to the Urals with water from the Caspian,
and poured it into the Kara Sea.
I called the snows of high Kazbek eternal, but I prefer
the soft brocades of autumn in the Urals.
On the Greben Mountains I found the teeth of a manta ray
and silver scallop shells large as the wheel of Pharaoh's chariot.

Translated by Paul Schmidt