Vladimir Mayakovsky
Brother writers

It seems, I shall never grow accustomed
to sitting in the “Bristol,”
drinking tea,
lying by the line —
I shall upset the glasses,
clamber on the table
“Listen
literary brothers!
You sit,
eyes drowning in tea,
your velvet elbows worn with scribbling.
Raise your eyes from the unemptied glasses!
Disentangle your ears from those shaggy locks!
Darlings,
what wedded you to words, you who sit glued to walls
and wall-paper?
Do you know that
Francois Villon,
when he finished writing,
did his job of plundering?
And you,
who quake at the sight of a penknife,
boast yourselves guardians of a splendid age.
What have you to write about to-day?
Any solicitor’s assistant finds
life
a hundred times more interesting.
Gentlemen poets,
have you not tired
of pages,
palaces,
love
and lilac blooms?
If such as you
are the creators,
then I spit upon all art.
I’d rather open a shop,
or go on the Stock Exchange
and bulge my sides with fat wallets.
In a tavern rear
I’ll spew up my soul
in a drunken song.
Will the blow tell,
cleave through your sheaves of hair?
But you’ve only one idea
under that mop of hair:
to comb! And why?
For a while, it’s not worth the labour
and to be eternally
combed
is impossible.”

Translated by George Reavey