(Source: littletsu)
Our Mayakovsky
1893-infinity
germany, 1918
I THINK ABOUT TUBERCULOSIS AND BEARS: ”In February 1916 Brik published “The Backbone Flute” in an edition...
”In February 1916 Brik published “The Backbone Flute” in an edition of six hundred copies, another small book for their shelf of Futurist poetry. The books were distributed in Petrograd bookshops and among their friends. That winder, as Lili remembered, she and Mayakovsky “were never apart.”
…
(letter from moscow to petrograd, april 1918)dear and extraordinary lilyonok!
don’t be ill, for the sake of christ! if Oska isn’t going to look after you and carry your lungs(at this point i had to stop and dive into your letter to see how it’s spelt: i wanted to put ‘lugns’) wherever they have to go, then I’ll bring a forest of conifers into your flat and I’ll have a sea set up in Oska’s study according to my own instructions. And if your thermometer climbs any higher than thirty six degrees, I’ll break all his paws off.
By the way you can put down my fantasies about coming to you to my general state of dreaminess. If my affairs, nerves and health go on like this your little puppy will fall down in the gutter belly upwards, jerk his little legs weakly and give up his gentle soul to God. But if a miracle happens, I’ll be with you in about two weeks!
I’m finishing the kinemo picture. I’m off now to the study to try on Frelikh’s trousers. In the last act I’m a dandy.
I’m not writing any poetry, though I’d really like to write something full of emotion about a horse.
By the summer I’d like to make a film with you. I’d write a screenplay for you. I’ll develop this plan when I arrive. For some reason I’m convinced you’ll agree. Don’t be ill. Write.
I love you my dear little warm sun. I kiss Oska.
I embrace you till your bones crunch
Your Volodya
When asked to say something about myself I talked of Mayakovsky, who was my God.
In the darkness his voice, not addressing me, slid in verse along the fence. I had become used to the fact that Volodya [Mayakovsky] was constantly creating verses, both silently and aloud, when he was with me. I didn’t pay any attention to his being a poet…I was enlightened when suddenly I heard the words, pronounced softly,
Listen!
If they light up the stars—
That means—somebody needs them, doesn’t it?…We walked farther, then sat somewhere on a low bench under the starlit sky while Mayakovsky recited his verses for me for a long time. That night the marvelous, enormous, infinite feeling of awe and the most faithful friendship were lit in me.
(Source: littletsu)
mayakovsky’s funeral
82
On the 14th of April 1930 Vladimir Mayakovsky committed suicide.
