Classic and Contemporary Poetry
OCTOBER, by ANATOLY BORISOVICH MARIENHOF Poet's Biography First Line: We trample filial obedience Last Line: Emerging madly from the garage? Subject(s): Russian Revolution | ||||||||
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 milestonesno 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? Has it ever before been heard of, that the forger Of steel bracelets for the globe Should smoke his rotten tobacco as importantly As the officer used to clink his stirrups? You askAnd then? And then dancing centuries. We shall knock at all doors And no one will say: Goddamyou, get out! We! We! We are everywhere: Before the footlights, in the center of the stage, Not softy lyricists, But flaming buffoons. Pile rubbish, all the rubbish in a heap, And like Savonarola, to the sound of hymns, Into the fire with it. ... Whom should we fear? When the mundiculi of puny souls have becomeworlds. Every day of ours is a new chapter in the Bible. Every page will be great to thousands of generations. We are those about whom they will say: The lucky ones lived in 1917. And you are still shouting: They perish! You are still whimpering lavishly. Dunderheads! Isn't yesterday crushed, like a dove By a motor Emerging madly from the garage? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION by VALERY YAKOVLEVICH BRYUSOV WAGE-SLAVES TO WAR-MAKERS by EDWARD RALPH CHEYNEY TO RUSSIA NEW AND FREE (INSCRIBED TO MADAME BRESHKOVSKAYA) by ROBERT UNDERWOOD JOHNSON RUSSIA: 1918 by MARY CRAIG SINCLAIR YOUNG RUSSIA by AMOS RUSSEL WELLS SCYTHIANS by ALEXANDER (ALEKSANDR) ALEXANDROVICH BLOK TWELVE by ALEXANDER (ALEKSANDR) ALEXANDROVICH BLOK |
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