PART II: explication of mayakovsky's "past one o'clock..."

Past One O’Clock by Vladimir Mayakovsky

Past one o’clock. You must have gone to bed.
The Milky Way streams silver through the night.
I’m in no hurry; with lightning telegrams
I have no cause to wake or trouble you.
And, as they say, the incident is closed.
Love’s boat has smashed against the daily grind.
Now you and I are quits. Why bother then
To balance mutual sorrows, pains, and hurts.
Behold what quiet settles on the world.
Night wraps the sky in tribute from the stars.
In hours like these, one rises to address
The ages, history, and all creation.


I mentioned Mayakovsky’s final poem in my last post and after rereading it I can’t seem to escape it; it’s haunting me. Setting aside my personal appreciation for the poem, I’ve attempted to adequately and, most importantly, objectively explicate it.

The poem begins with a note on the time. This creates a sensation of drowsiness, preparing the reader for the lethargy in Mayakovsky’s tone. He continues with “You must have gone to bed.” In his other poems, Mayakovsky addresses the reader and demands his or her attention. His verse serves as a call to action. Instead, Mayakovsky has given us a wishy-washy sentiment, continuing with “I’m in no hurry.”
All of this greatly contrasts Mayakovsky’s usual discourse of nonstop action coupled with passion and intensity. He appears defeated, claiming that he has no reason to wake “you”, which one can presume is the reader, whom he usually addresses with great fervor. The word “love” is crucial in the poem’s sixth line because I believe that a translator could interpret the Russian word to mean either “love” or “passion.” So, taking that into consideration, when Mayakovsky says, “Love’s boat has smashed against the daily grind.” he means that his passion has died because of the routines of the present, the “daily grind.”
He asserts that we have all failed. “You and I are quits. Why bother then/To balance mutual sorrows, pains, and hurts.” This statement is greatly contrary to his message that it is up to the people to support each other as comrades in order to revolt. He is suggesting that mutual empathy and sympathy for a cause is an exercise of futility.
All of Mayakovsky’s war cries are lost in this quiet of his final speech. Nature has consumed his battlefield: “Night wraps the sky in tribute from the stars.” In the last two lines, Mayakovsky reflects on the time again, the late night, which may have been the hour at which he wrote most of his works. His final words are ominous and powerful: “In hours like these, one rises, to address/The ages, history, and all creation.”