OCTOBER
We trample filial obedience,
We have gone and sat down saucily,
Keeping our hats on,
Our feet on the table.
You don't like us, since we guffaw with blood,
Since we don't wash rags washed millions of times,
Since we suddenly dared,
Ear-splittingly, to bark: Wow!
Yes, sir, the spine
Is as straight as a telephone pole,
Not my spine only, but the spines of all Russians,
For centuries hunched.
Who makes a louder noise on earth now than we?
You say: Bedlam—
No milestones—no stakes—
Straight to the devil——. On the church porch our red cancan is glorious.
What, you don't believe? Here are hordes,
Droves of clouds at men's beck and call,
And the sky like a woman's cloak,
And no eyelash of sun.
Jesus is on the cross again, and Barabbas
We escort, mealy-mouthed, down the Tverskoi Prospekt. . . .
Who will interrupt, who? The gallop of Scythian horses?
Violins bowing the Marseillaise?
