Vladimir Mayakovsky
Order No. 2 to the army of the arts

This is for you —
the fleshy baritones
who, since the days
of Adam,
have shaken those dens called theaters
with the arias of Romeos and Juliets.

This is for you —
the peintres,
grown as robust as horses,
the ravening and neighing beauty of Russia,
skulking in ateliers
and, as of old, imposing Draconian laws on flowers
and bulking bodies.

This is for you —
who put on little fig leaves of mysticism,
whose brows are harrowed with wrinkles —
you, little futurists,
imaginists,
acmeists,
entangled in the cobweb of rhymes.
This is for you —
who have exchanged rumpled hair
for a slick hairdo,
bast shoes for lacquered pumps,
you, men of the Proletcult,
who keep patching
Pushkin’s faded tailcoat.

This is for you —
who dance and pipe on pipes,
sell yourselves openly,
sin in secret,
and picture your future as academicians
with outsized rations.
I admonish you,
I —
genius or not —
who have forsaken trifles
and work in Rosta,
I admonish you —
before they disperse you with rifle-butts:
Give it up!

Give it up!
Forget it.
Spit
on rhymes
and arias
and the rose bush
and other such mawkishness
from the arsenal of the arts.
Who’s interested now
in — “Ah, wretched soul!
How he loved,
how he suffered...”?
Good workers —
these are the men we need
rather than long-haired preachers.
Listen!
The locomotives groan,
and a draft blows through crannies and floor:
“Give us coal from the Don!
Metal workers
and mechanics for the depot!”
At each river’s outlet, steamers
with an aching hole in their side,
howl through the docks:
“Give us oil from Baku!”
While we dawdle and quarrel
in search of fundamental answers,
all things yell:
“give us new forms!”

There are no fools today
to crowd, open-mouthed, round a “maestro”
and await his pronouncement.
Comrades,
give us a new form of art —
an art
that will pull the republic out of the mud.

Translated by Max Hayward and George Reavey