Vladimir Mayakovsky - Order No. 2 To the Army of the Arts lyrics

This is for you— the fleshy baritones who, since the days of Adam, have shaken those dens called theaters with the arias of Romeos and Juliets This is for you— the peintres, grown as robust as horse, the ravening and neighing beauty of Russia, skulking in ateliers an, as of old, imposing Draconian laws on flowers and bulking bodies. This is for you— who put on little fig leaves of mysticism, whose brows are harrowed with wrinkles— you, little futurists, imaginists, acmeists, entangled in the cobweb of rhymes. This is for you— Who have exchanged rumpled hair For a slick hairdo, Bast shoes for lacquered pumps, You, men of the Proletcult, Who keep patching Pushkin's faded tailcoat. This is for you— who dance and pipe on pipes, sell yourselves openly, sin in secret, and picture your future as academicians with outsized rations. I admonish you, I— genius or not— who have forsaken trifles and work in Rosta, I admonish you— before they disperse you with rifle-bu*ts: Give it up! Give it up! Forget it. Spit on rhymes and arias and the rose bush and other such mawkishness from the arsenal of the arts. Who's interested now in—“Ah, wretched soul! How he loved, how he suffered...”? Good workers— these are the men we need rather than long-haired preachers. Listen! The locomotives groan, and a draft blows through crannies and floor: “Give us coal from the Don! Metal workers and mechanics for the depot!” At each river's outlet, steamers with an aching hole in their side, howl through the docks: “Give us oil from Baku!” While we dawdle and quarrel in search of fundamental answers, all things yell: “give us new forms!” There are no fools today to crowd, open-mouthed, round a “maestro” and await his pronouncement. Comrades, give us a new form of art— an art that will pull the republic out of the mud.