Poetry of Issue #7        Page 42

ONE OF THOSE WHO MADE A POEM

Vladimir Mayakovsky afflicted with romantic passions
his wild energies squared and cubed, killed himself, too
young, that moment of despair made the instant a forever,
but by then he had imprinted his vision on the language
in rhythmic words that even suicide could not extinguish.

His monument in Moscow, massive stone in upward thrust,
pulls at the lives that gather below in Mayakovsky Square, where
they come to declaim his poems and their own, their voices often
outlawed, then allowed to return, then again driven away. But always
they come back, to shout out poems and manifestos and to try again

to see what he saw.

                                    Vladimir Mayakovsky's done his job

  Chris Brandt