On the pavement of my trampled soul the steps of madmen weave the prints of rude crude words. — Vladimir Mayakovsky

Soon, sampled by everyone, Stale and pallid, I’ll come out And mumble toothlessly That today I’m ‘Remarkably candid. — Vladimir Mayakovsky

To us love says humming that the heart’s stalled motor has begun working again. — Vladimir Mayakovsky

But I, from poetry’s skies, plunge into communism, because without it I feel no love. — Vladimir Mayakovsky

The love boat has crashed against the everyday You and I, we are quits And there is no use listing mutual hurts, sorrows, and pains. — Vladimir Mayakovsky

Gentle souls! You play your love on the violin. The crude ones play it on the drums violently. But can you turn yourselves inside out, like me And become just two lips entirely? — Vladimir Mayakovsky

If you wish, I shall grow irreproachably tender: not a man, but a cloud in trousers! — Vladimir Mayakovsky

In our language rhyme is a barrel. A barrel of dynamite. The line is a fuse. The line smoulders to the end and explodes; and the town is blown sky–high in a stanza. — Vladimir Mayakovsky

If you prefer, I’ll be pure raging meat, or if you prefer, as the sky changes tone, I’ll be absolutely tender, not a man, but a cloud in trousers! — Vladimir Mayakovsky

Love for us is no paradise of arbors–to us love tells us, humming, that the stalled motor of the heart has started to work again. — Vladimir Mayakovsky

I want to be understood by my country, but if I fail to be understood–what then?, I shall pass through my native land to one side, like a shower of slanting rain. — Vladimir Mayakovsky

Too slow, the wagons of years, The oxen of days––too glum. Our god is the god of speed, Our heart––our battle–drum. — Vladimir Mayakovsky

It must be a little love,–a baby, sort of, It shies away when the cars honk and hiss, But adores the bells on the horse–tram. — Vladimir Mayakovsky

Our planet is poorly equipped for delight. One must snatch gladness from the days that are. In this life it’s not difficult to die. To make life is more difficult by far. — Vladimir Mayakovsky

Listen! If stars are lit It means there is someone who needs it, It means someone wants them to be, That someone deems those specks of spit Magnificent! — Vladimir Mayakovsky

Comrade life, let us march faster, March faster through what’s left of the five–year plan. — Vladimir Mayakovsky

If you like I’ll be furious flesh elemental, or–changing to tones that the sunset arouses–if you like–I’ll be extraordinary gentle, not a man but–a cloud in trousers. — Vladimir Mayakovsky

The love boat has crashed against the everyday. — Vladimir Mayakovsky

I understand the power and the alarm of words–Not those that they applaud from theatre–boxes, but those which make coffins break from bearers and on their four oak legs walk right away. — Vladimir Mayakovsky

No gray hairs streak my soul, No grandfatherly fondness there i shake the world with the might of my voice, and walk–handsome, twentytwoyearold. — Vladimir Mayakovsky

There’s a monument due me by rank already I’d blow the damn thing up with dynamite So strongly I hate every kind of dead thing So much I adore every kind of life! — Vladimir Mayakovsky