Vladimir Mayakovsky
A few words about my mamma

I have a mamma on blue cornflower wallpaper.
But I pace about in peahen colors,
torturing shaggy camomiles with my measuring stride.
When the evening sounds its rusty oboes,
I walk to the window,
believing
I shall see again
the cloud
reposing
upon the house.
But mamma’s sick in bed,
and from it
a rustling of people scurries to an empty corner.
Mamma’s aware —
this is the helter-skelter of mad thoughts
crawling from behind the roofs of the Shustov factory.
And when the dimming window-frame
bloodies my forehead, crowned with a felt hat,
then I shall speak out,
pushing apart with my bass voice the wind’s howl:
"Mamma.
If I should feel sorry
for the vase of your torment,
knocked down by the heels of the cloud dance —
who then would fondle the golden hands,
imploringly twisted on the signboard by the shop-windows of Avanzo?"

Translated by Max Hayward and George Reavey