One of Mayakovsky’s most well known poems also happened to be an earlier one, "Cloud in Pants" (sometimes translated as "Cloud in Trousers", which I prefer). A full translation is available here and is best read with the pandemonium of a Prokofiev symphony turned up in the other room. The operatic sentiment is over the top and the theatrical energy is explosive.

Written prior to the Russian Revolution, it is an attack upon the former power structures of Russia, as through the story of a spurned lover who takes the form of a vengeful ghost. Form is that of a tetraptych. But first begins with a Prologue, which could be seen as a parody for the traditional calling upon the muse for the poet’s guidance:

Sophisticates,
play their love on a violin.
For yobbos a drum will do.
They like to bang.
......................But who,
except me, can turn him—
self inside out into
a pair of lips
spitting out pips?

Part One, ‘Down with Love’, begins the narrative, where we find a man feverishly waiting for his lover, only to have the racking of his nerves be for nought, coldly denied. At the end of the section, flashpoint hits and causes a transformation into the flames of a disembodied language:

(((((Torched figures of speech
escape from my head
like children from a blazing building.
Fear is a tornado sucking in the sky
and lifting in its eye
the torched hulk of the Lusitania.
Into luxury cabins
where passengers hide
lasers of flame multiply.)))))

I’m on fire.
I’m on fire.

In Part Two, ‘Down With You Art’, Barnum’s Zarathustra begins the retribution:

Our task is to strip
the facade to tatters. And put the boot in,
rupturing what is within, to stamp it out.

Modest assistance is not sought.
To hell with hymns, four part choirs.
All we require to make our poems
is the hum of hard work in foundries,
the labouring masses, blood and sweat.

Incidentally, that Faust fellow
was just playing extravagant games
with the devil on a carpet.
Damnation! A nail in my shoe
hurts more than all Goethe.

I should know. My gift of the gab
makes every word trip off the tongue,
a feast day for the body and soul.
I say unto you, the merest spark
of life in a living man means more than
the sum total of what I do or have done.

Part Three, 'Down with Society', becomes more carnal:

...............I curse,
.........................coax,
...............extort,
.........................abort,
...............knife,
.........................bite
...............deep
.........................into
...............meat,
.........................chew
...............tender
.........................parts.
...............Enter
.........................hearts.

The sky
must die.
Bright hope
declines.

Its
light
revoked,
splits
into
gloams.

Night
chops in two
and eats the mess
of potage. You.

No residue,
except the bones
and darkness.

(Trust the Judas sky
with its double-agent
stars. Night feasts too
on the rump of the city).

Sunset
bleeds to death.

Finally, in Part Four, 'Down with Your Religion', the chaos continues but with this, our hero attempts a renewal through the second courtship of Maria, but only to again be turned away, the wound consequentially leading to a challenge with his father:

The haemorrhaging path
leads to my father’s house.
I’ll arrive, derelict from
rough living, rough dying,
But not too dead to stoop
and bawl in his ear,

“Listen, mister god,
your eyes must stream
from sticking hairy eyebrows
in the celestial blancmange
day after day. Why don’t you
climb down and join me
in a dance around the May Pole
garlanded by good and evil?
You have the keys to cupboards
everywhere. Let’s unlock the wine.
You’ll find, even your gloomy apostles
and the virgin martyrs will want to
step out and dance a fandango.

We could set up a couple of little Eves.
And heaven would be heaven again.
Just say the word. A nod will do. Tonight
I’ll trawl the boulevards for top totty.

Wouldn’t you like that?

.............................The only sign

is wind stirring in your beard....