Mayakovsky

It is 1912. Pre-revolutionary
Leningrad. Excuse me,
St. Petersburg. You see
a teenager
with a square head
under a square hat
smoking sticks
of dynamite. He asks you
if you have the time. He asks you
if you have the time to read a  poem
or collect rocks to throw
at the czar's procession.
Life is hard, he says.
But he says it with a smile
and you believe
what he will go on
to prove eighteen years later.