Jack Hirschman

VLADIMIR MAYAKOVSKY

You, thunderer and swirl of
     the flag of blood and roses,
kneader of the bread of poem,
deathless comrade of dithyramb
     and liberty,
you whose suicided life 
     I carry as a forge,
who first strode the street
     of this century,
ai, you were the first
singing through the slum of trash
and the molecules chained
to a thousand yesterdays,
wiper of the gravy of history
from the mouth of obese lies,
servant of Revolution,
you who, among men, stormed
the pallid lips of neutrality
and apathy,
not as a stud of craven doom,
not as semblable
but as a thrust and momentum
of mass and energy
announcing the towering totems
of humanity freed from the hut,
you Russian more American
than English,
you sabbath-destroyer
and leveler of trumpery
and religious double-talk,
I have plucked the bullet
so many times from your brain
I could feed a hundred
armed struggles with your dream.

–Jack Hirschman