From Street To Street

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The boule-
vard.
Bull-
dogs
of years
your faces
grow steely.
Steel horses
steal the first cubes
jumping from the windows
of fleeting houses.
Swan-necked belfries
bend in electric-wire nooses!
The giraffe-hide sky unlooses
motley carrot-top bangs.
The son
of patternless fields
is dappled like trout.
Concealed by clocktower faces,
a magician
pulls
rails from the muzzle of a tram.
We are enslaved!
Baths.
Showers.
Elevators
elevate
the soul's bodice.
Hands
burn
the body.
Cry all you may:
"I didn't want it!" -
a rope-
burn
of torment.
From the chimney
a whipping wind tears
a gray tuft of wool.
A balding lamppost
lustfully strips off
the street's
black stocking.

© Vladimir Mayakovsky