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THE DEATH OF LENIN, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: It's time that I began
Last Line: The prison-cells of men.
Alternate Author Name(s): Mayacovsky, Vladimir Vladimirovich
Subject(s): Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich (1870-1924); Russia; Soviet Union; Russians


It's time that I began
the tale of Lenin,
but not because
no suffering yet remains.
It's time because
the bitter bewildered complaints
are turned
to a master penetrated pain.
It's time to refashion
his words with their stormy drive.
Shall we then
pour our spirits out
in weeping?
No man is alive
as Lenin
is still alive:
our knowledge, our power,
the weapon left in our keeping.
People are ships
although it's land they sail.
Before
they've crossed
their chartered courses
their timbers
are clogged with barnacles
that cripple
all their churning
forces.
But when at last,
with storms outpaced, the ships,
nearer the sun,
to dock have come,
the seaweeds'
beards of green
they strip
and scrape the orange jellyfishes' scum.
I cleanse myself
by Lenin's light
to steer again
on revolution's sea.
And yet I draw back scared
at what I write
as any youth who shrinks
from falsity.
That head is aureoled against the skies;
I fear the laurel wreath
will shadow now
the authentic
human
wise
tremendous
Lenin
brow.
I fear
the mausoleum
the pomp of functions,
with admiration's cult,
will spoil my plea,
and that they'll smear away
with softening unction
Lenin
and his simplicity.
As for the apple of my eye
I tremble.
Let no confectioners
prettily
do him wrong.
My heart has cast its vote,
I can't dissemble
and conscience here dictates my song.
All Moscow
hooters shake
the icy earth.
At watchfires now
half-frozen men are bowed.
Who is he?
what did he do?
where was his birth?
why
for one man
do such wide honors crowd?
Word upon word
from memory's disinterred:
not one will serve -
O put them all aside.
What poverty
in the factory
of the word!
What words can fitly
announce the man who died?
We have seven days
no more.
Twelve hours
declare the clocks.
Can life go on
as it went before?
With no apologies
death knocks.
With no apologies
to tell a time
and the wits of calendars
go astray:
"That was an Epoch,"
our voices chime,
"an Era" --
shuffle the problem away!
And we still sleep
at night,
our days
busily pass,
we drink water
with cool delight
if it's our water
in our own glass.
But if a man comes up
to control
time's flood
and swing it another way,
we say,
"What a prophetic soul,"
and "What a genius,"
we say.
We're men
with no pretensions in life.
Whistles us up
or else we wander.
If we can only please a wife
we smile
and on our virtues ponder.
If,
body and spirit fused in one,
a man comes
out of the common ruck.
"He looks like a king,"
we mutter stunned,
"a Gift from God,"
we are thunderstruck.
Not wholly stupid or shrewd,
the chatter swells
and then is gone in air,
each vaporous word.
What kernel rattles
in such hallow shells?
The heart's untouched,
the hands unstirred.
For Lenin
what yardsticks
can be kept?
We've seen it,
all,
we know the life he led.
In through our doors
the Era stepped
and on our lintels
didn't bang its head.
Then,
who can speak of Lenin's noble line,
"Our Leader by God's Grace?"
If he'd
been branded
royal and divine,
his name
with wraths relentless
would I chase.
I'd fling myself
against
the long procession,
attack the crowd,
confuse the funeral show.
I'd find the curse
that blasts
with sulphurous passion
before they drowned
my voice
and brought me low.
My blasphemies
I'd hurl
in heaven's smug face.
bombs at the Kremlin
Down with him!
I'd heave.
But by the coffin
now
Dzerzhinsky paces,
its post unguarded
the Cheka
now could leave.
A million eyes
two eyes
these eyes of mine
well
with tear-icicles:
the harsh hour's well-chosen.
God's used
to thick-laid words
that praise and whine:
today
the pang is true:
hearts break
though frozen.
We come
to bury
the earthiest man
of all
who on man's earth
have come
to live and die.
Earthy
but not like those
who sprawl
with eyes rot-rooted
in their private stye.
He grasped the earth
entire
one sweep of thought
and all time's secrets
he unbared,
all lies.
Like you and me,
in what
he hoped and sought,
save that perhaps
at the corner of his eyes
in a finer net
of wrinkles
the skin was caught
and round the lips more mockery
subtly taut.
But not a hint of the despot
who looms above
and crushed with reinflick
under a callous wheel.
For comrades
tenderly burned his ready love;
for enemies
his anger flashed
in steel.
At times
as with us
things wouldn't come aright
at times
he met with sickness and distress.
For instance
I at billiards
strain my eyes;
his game was one more fit
for leaders:
chess.
Then he turned
chess
to the game of the world, and played
Yesterday's pawns
were living people then:
and the workers' power
securely based he laid
over capital's piles,
the prison-cells of men.





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