DON’T YOUR SHOULDER BLADES ITCH?
Whenever a rainbow hangs down its bow
or the sky
shines blue
without patch or stitch,
tell me,
don’t your shoulder blades —
both
begin to itch?
Don’t you wish
that from under your jersey
where a drudge-born hump
used to hide,
throwing off
the shirt’s dull burden,
a pair of wings
would go winging wide/
Or when night
with its nightliest stairs
lolls along
and the Bears —
Great and Little —
prowl and growl,
don’t you feel restless?
Don’t you long. . .?
Oh yes, you do,
and how!
We’re cramped.
And the sky
has no bounds,
no border.
Oh,
to fly up
to God’s apartments
and show
old Savaoh
an eviction order
from the Moscow Soviet’s
Housing Department!
Kaluga,
dug in
among meadow
and grove,
dozing
down
in your earthly pit!
Now then, Kaluga,
come on, Tambov!
Skyward
like sparrows
flit!
Isn’t it fline,
with marriage on your mind,
swish! —
to wing off
over land and sea,
to pluck out
an ostrich’s feather
from behind
and back
with a present
for your fiance?
Saratov!
On what
have you fixed an eye?
Charmed?
By a birdie’s dot?
Up-
soar swallow-like
into the sky;
it’s time you grew wings,
That’s what!
Here’s a good thing to do —
no deed more audacious;
choose a night
and dash through it,
devil-me-dare,
to Rome;
give a thrashing
to a Roman fascist
then back
in an hour
Or else —
to your samovar in Tver.
the dawn’s opened up
and go racing:
you see
who's faster —
it or me?
Buf. . . .
all this is nothing
but imagination.
People
so far
are a wingless nation.
People
are created on a lousy plan:
a back
good for nothing but pains.
So to buy an aeroplane each,
if you can,
is really
all that remains.
Like a bird then with tail,
two wings
and feathers
you’ll whet your nose
all records to beat.
Tear off the ground!
Fly, planes, through the heavens!
Russia,
soar up
In a sky-bound fleet!
Quicker!
Why,
stretching up like a pole,
admire from earth
the heavenly hole?
Come,
show your bravery,
avio!
1923
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