Page:Knight (1975) Past, Future and the Problem of Communication in the Work of V V Khlebnikov.djvu/47

39 An event which repeats itself endlessly in the same way—the ticking of a clock, the rising and setting of the sun, the daily routine of sleep and work—belongs to this slime-coated, ossified world of 'byt'. Stahlberger points out that this is why Mayakovsky, as a revolutionary, wants to stop the sun in its tracks. In his poem, "An Extraordinary Adventure Which Befell Vladimir Mayakovsky in a Summer Dacha", Mayakovsky—bored with the grind of drawing posters—suddenly shouts at the sun "Get Down!" Incredibly, it does so, strides across the fields comes through the garden, presses its mass through the windows of the poet's cottage—and speaks in a deep bass:

"For the first time since creation,

I drive the fires back.

You called me?

Give me tea, poet,

spread out, spread out the jam!"

Occurring as it does "for the first time since creation", this is a novel, time-defying event. Time's tyranny is conquered; the poet treats the sun familiarly as an equal—a comrade—and the two resolve to pour forth their 'byt'—destroying, creative light, to "dawn and sing in a gray tattered world".

The theme of speaking to the stars and commanding suns is to be found almost throughout Khlebnikov's works. In his "Declaration of the Presidents of the Terrestrial Sphere", written in 1917, he tells the public not to blame him and his