Vladimir Mayakovsky
Order No. 2 to the army of arts

This is to you,
well-fed baritones,
from Adam
to the present day
shaking the dives called theatres with the groans
of Romeo and Juliet or some such child’s play.

To you,
maitres painters
fattening like ponies,
guzzling and guffawing salt of the earth,
secluded in your studios,
forever spawning
flowers and girlflesh for all you are worth.

To you,
fig-leaf-camouflaged mystics,
foreheads dug over with furrows sublime,
futuristic,
imagistic,
acmeistic,
stuck tight in the cobwebs of rhyme.

To you,
who abandoned smooth haircuts for matted,
slick shoes for bast clogs a-la-russki,
proletcultists
sewing your patches
on the faded frock-coat of Alexander Pushkin.

To you,
dancing
or playing the tune,
now openly betraying,
now sinning in secret,
picturing the future as an opportune
academic salary for every nitwit!

I say to you,
I,
whether genius or not,
working in ROSTA,
abandoning trilles:
quit your rot
before you’re debunked
with the butts of rilles!

Quit it,
forget
and spit
on rhymes,
arias,
roses,
hearts
and all other suchlike shit
out of the arsenals of the arts.

Whoever cares
that “Ah, poor creature,
how he loved, how his heart did bleed!”
Master-craftsmen,
not long-haired preachers,
that is what we need.

Hark!
Locomotives groan,
draughts
through their floors and windows blow;
“Give us coal from the Don,
mechanics,
fitters
for the depot!”

On every river, from source to mouth,
with holes in their sides, river-boats too
lie idle, dismally howling out:
“Give us oil from Baku!”

While we kill time, debating
the innermost essence of life,
“Give us new forms, we’re waiting!”
everything seems to cry.

We’re nobody’s fools
till your lips come apart
to stare, expectant, like cows chewing cud.
Comrades,
wake up,
give us new art
to haul the Republic out of the mud!

Translated by Dorian Rottenberg