Velimir Khlebnikov
If I turn humankind into a clock...

If I turn humankind into a clock
And show how the century hand moves
Wouldn't war disappear from our age
Like an obsolete letter from the alphabet?
Our kind got itself piles
From the springy chairs of war,
But I tell you what I learned about the future
Through my preterhuman dreams.
I know you are faithful wolves,
To your five shots I respond with a handshake.
Still, don't you hear the rustle of Fate's needle —
That wonderful seamstress?
I will flood existing government formations
With the deluge of my powerful thought,
I will reveal fabulous Kitezh
To acolytes of the old fatuity.
When the gang of globe's chairmen
Is offered to the hungry like a moldy bread crust,
Every existing government's nut
Will become obedient to our wrench.
And when a bearded girl
Throws the promised stone
You'll say: "This is exactly what
We were awaiting for centuries."
Ticking clock of humanity,
Turn my thought into your moving hand!
Some will grow as governments fail, others — through the book.
Let the Earth be domineerless.
Chairglobegreatest!
This song must be like a dodder:
I tell you, the universe is the strike of a match
On the face of numbers,
And my thought is the master key
For a door behind which — a suicide...

Translated by Boris Kokotov