Vladimir Mayakovsky 1929

My Soviet Passport



Source: Sputnik no.12/1982, translated by Herbert Marshall;

Transcribed: by Liviu Iacob.

I'd tear

like a wolf

at bureaucracy.

For mandates

my respect's but the slightest.

To the devil himself

I'd chuck without mercy

every red-taped paper.

But this ...

Down the long front

of coupés and cabins

File the officials

politely.

They gather up passports

and I give in

My own vermilion booklet.

For one kind of passport -

smiling lips part

For others -

an attitude scornful.

They take

with respect, for instance,

the passport

From a sleeping-car

English Lionel.

The good fellows eyes

almost slip like pips

when,

bowing as low as men can,

they take,

as if they were taking a tip,

the passport

from an American.

At the Polish,

they dolefully blink and wheeze

in dumb

police elephantism -

where are they from,

and what are these

geographical novelties?

And without a turn

of their cabbage heads,

their feelings

hidden in lower regions,

they take without blinking,

the passports from Swedes

and various

old Norwegians.

Then sudden

as if their mouths were

aquake

those gentlemen almost

whine

Those very official gentlemen

take

that red-skinned passport

of mine.

Take-

like a bomb

take - like a hedgehog,

like a razor

double-edge stropped,

take -

like a rattlesnake huge and long

with at least

20 fangs

poison-tipped.

The porter's eyes

give a significant flick

(I'll carry your baggage

for nix,

mon ami...)

The gendarmes enquiringly

look at the tec,

the tec, -

at the gendarmerie.

With what delight

that gendarme caste

would have me

strung-up and whipped raw

because I hold

in my hands

hammered-fast

sickle-clasped

my red Soviet passport.

I'd tear

like a wolf

at bureaucracy.

For mandates

my respect's but the slightest.

To the devil himself

I'd chuck

without mercy

every red-taped paper,

But this ...

I pull out

of my wide trouser-pockets

duplicate

of a priceless cargo.

You now:

read this

and envy,

I'm a citizen

of the Soviet Socialist Union!

