Vladimir Mayakovsky
As an Adolescent

In adolescence, major decisions are made.
Any fool is taught grammar and reason.
But I
was kicked out of my school in 5th grade
and thrown in and out of the Moscow prisons.
Your
apartment-sized world
is one of the littlest.
There, you breed many curly-haired lyricists.
But who needs those lapdogs, with old, stale lyrics?!
I
was taught
how to love
in the Moscow Butyrkis.
What should I care about Bois de Boulogne?!
Why should I sigh when I look at the sea?!
By the funeral parlor, sitting alone,
I
fell in love
with the peep hole of the cell 103.
They see the sun daily,
and hold it in low esteem,
“What is it worth, that little bright ray?”
But I,
at that time,
for a single warm beam,
would have given — the whole world away. 

Translated by Andrey Kneller