Miroslav Válek - The gloom

Miroslav Válek - The gloom
(Skľúčenosť)

I would like to be the pharaoh with an achate eye
I would like to retain in supply
my lead, my distance from the affairs
After all that play is still too complicated
and you never know if you are the one who seeks or is sought for.
The ingenuity of a hideaway, distances, even the time mean so little that only coincidence or a momentary distraction of fate
allow the things to disappear from memory,
but what has happened, lasts, it remains within us,
we are in a way involved in the flood of the world,
even the improbable becomes sometimes obvious.
Do you remember ?
In the burning air, in the fire of lilies,
when, hidden from all
we saw the souls of things dazzlingly shine,
you stretched your hand saying :
"I feel the sunspots"

(I)

Run, Gaius Iulius Ceasar
I will count to thousand and find you.
I see you, sweet Cleopatra.
To your hair the raven was sinking and until now
his wings remain in the sky - severity of eyebrows
and beneath it quietness so dark
that you must believe in blue eyes of thunder
and ask the height, albeit kneeling,
to let it happen.
The planet ?
Some joke
of some god !
Go, seek !
There is always something hidden
behind the back of something.
Dig under the poplar in which swears
the lame demon of the tree,
where groundwaters falls asleep on the sand's forearm,
where the clavicles guard their secrets
and shy naked worms tie hands of corpses.
It thundered in the boulders
where the herds are worried,
as if the air listened heavy headed by the rain,
as if the grass dodged before some voice :
Enter the things and tell what you have seen !
You saw the love contradict its cause,
denying connection between sex and fetus,
preparing its green beds,
her ceremonial riding corps entering the purple,
covering itself,
with its dog tongue licking the Moon down from the sky
- dynamite -
her bloody beds hanging on every shrub !
Drink from the footprints of bees, learn from the wisdom of insects,
which flying browses the eternity
so incredibly fast that it forgets
even before he gets the knowledge.
Oh, you already know,
where water becomes tear,
why the axe enters the memory of seed
and how the glory of body
is locked behind !
And where is the skull of Minotaur ?
Where is that tender lover
Where are the children of Herod ?
Where are the men who entered the fire as men
and left it as a wave ?
Maybe in the future. I don't know.
What is past and what is future ?
I can not distinct
the sound of falling water from the falling water.
I am the cause as well as the consequence
just as the butterfly is the future of the caterpillar
and the caterpillar is the future of the butterfly.
And love ? And hatred ?
Ugliness and beauty ?
The are too similar, much too similar
and conspired
up to the sweat of the mirror,
they show to our eyes every our mistake.
Do not regret.
The life is only carrying a lamp from place to place
in a dark room :
Always a bit of light from slightly other side,
but it is still the same face which we see.
Do not say what you suspect.
I believe,
that a spoken word may still list the universe.
I emphasize
the infinity of sex
as well as sexlessness of death.
Death speaks to us in soprano,
sleeps in the ear of the music,
listens to our hoarse bass and suffers
with feeling of inferiority.
And yet every day it comes down and asks
to be allowed to create the total compliance,
something between yes and no,
some sort of strong relationship between what was and what is.
Death, which likes the absence of wind so much
that every our breath causes ache in its back,
death, which feels the movement of a future fetus
as a storm in its knee,
paints the hurricane to the corner of its eyes, comes,
death since the creation of the world comes in this way
and investigates :
What is the man ?
Oh, the man !
A sun shield for sunflower,
A shelter from storms for earthworms,
A crutch under the armpits of clay !
Nevertheless -
Is there but one death ? Is not there a thousand of deaths ?
Don't wonder about it. Don't worry.
Of course it is still possible that happens only
what has already been thought,
yet unspoken repeats, forgotten returns.

(II)

Before the Christmas in the year nineteen sixty four
the head of Holofernes travelled by a train
so lovely cut off,
that a small merry-go-round full of good people
revolved around it.
It was a bright day
and a razor blade lied between them,
which they were passing around from eyes to eyes
At the same time Ramses II lay
beneath the concrete pavement of the Poplar street,
because his wife loved a chaffeur,
who at first was not willing. Then he rang.
My lord ! How could it happen ?
She is innocent.
She only walked down the street
with black horns in her eyes.
Sometimes it seems to me that the Earth as well is a head
separated from a huge trunk and thrown
to something which is approximately known as the universe.
So the swords on the throat,
violence, blood
and all the assassinations
are only imitations
of that primordial gesture ?
And meanness and treachery
and wars
and plague,
and our embraces under the seal of the moon,
oaths whispered to the sleeve of night,
in the cat silver of stars,
yes, that love, that lie,
all that already have been ?
Is it only inertia what makes us
keep returning to ourselves, to begin
in the same way as before ?
Oh, before !
I recollect you in fire by which I remembered you in pink
and in which your hair were suffocating me like smoke !
And you kept your hands above it,
you were incantating it,
your fingers were counted by the fire,
you tamer of snakes !
In your hands also Pompeii as well as Hiroshima were burning,
your hands,
lit by the white rays of flour,
even in the hour of death were protecting the yeast.
You were the everyday bread of the world !
This happened,
it was written,
you already know it.
So why do you allow me to enter your shadow
with my naked leg ?
I am only a knife,
in your vicinity
crossed with lightning.
Choose the lightning !
My hands are to the elbows worn from your skin,
I touch you as an animal,
I open you by memory with my teeth,
you burn my tongue like a bad spirit.
You crazy lamb !
With hoofs pointing to the sky you will be sacrificed !
Save yourself ! Run away !
Oh, before !
How many thousands of years your blood has been dropping ?
From how many tiles you were secretly wiping it away ?
And it you wanted,
you could deny even the crack in the heaven's vault,
if you wanted,
you could keep even a hair between your thighs
you would deny even deer and trains.
You are the water
I am the thirst
The night is coming
The sky overgrows with black hair
and it dawns as if inside horse's teeth.
I can hear a tiny pin fall under your skin.

(III)

Close to the stop of trolley number 18
Bones were carried away from a cemetery.
It was July the thirteenth, the judgment day
and the sun was so orange
and so terribly beating to the heads,
that from a grave
incredible dancers ascended,
medics with skin of melted copper in a yellow pillar of fire
and students of the conservatory
with such a music in their calves
that even the wood has forgotten its perfect pitch
They sounded to the men in their eyes,
sowed seeds,
with a bare thumb
itched clay on its wrist,
they ate bread
and as if from a dream smiled.
Close to the stop of trolley number 18
behind the fence of the cemetery
an old woman was looking for bones
Close to the stop of trolley number 18
an old woman
into her black skirt heartrending was crying.
There was sun, it was orange
there was too much sun for such a day
She could not see
neither a little hole in the skull,
nor the little finger,
as if it even had not been buried
nor her own hand before her eyes
she could not see.
And the sun was so orange
and so terribly beating in the head !
An occasional gravedigger lay in the grass
drinking cheap rum and singing :
"And who has seen,
and who has seen,
the Jewish god,
in a red cap,
without his rod ?"
How many things are there we have not seen,
which we will never see
and before which we are blind,
confusingly rampaging in the driving lane ?
So the time passes, so will pass alongside
loves and chances,
opportunities and friendships.
Only occasionally
the good luck will strike us with a shiny fender
and falling we will see in it our sudden portrait,
a terrible face,
as if photographed through the pupil of the devil.
So the time elapses
the rain uncaringly counts its drops for insomnia of the nights,
we hurry home, put the life down like the pants,
which have traces of knees so clearly visible
as if we have been kneeling on the stairs
of some secret Calvaries,
we hurry up,
switch off the lights,
in the moonlight drink our bromine
and cheer up
by the obedient babble of gas.
So good bye.
You are falling to a blue corolla's glow
only your fingers still shine yellow
only the styles above the level of indigo scents.
That is where a tear in the eye of tear cries
that is where you white switches in your teeth crush,
that is where the darkness checkmate of your complexion unbuttons,
that is where the wood's clay aches because of hard stones,
that is where it with little tongues, stained with snake venom, blows from the emptiness of bones.
That is where, a little nowhere, a little in eternity
you will be alone.
Walled up in the walls kneeled
while the band returns from the funeral.
A horse in snow. People like soot, black and crass.
Night with dark face falls on the brass.
The air is like glass
Where did the robbed woman pass ?
The woman in black skirt, who walks
like a clear dew on the water's paths,
behind every coffin, in each procession,
already so transparent,
that she more resembles non-water,
already almost dew of dew, a mere nothing
carries inside her a whip crackling
and with steps short only like the hands of grass
even a bit shorter,
she walks the whole eternity.
The blind circle she revolves on her finger like a key,
she locks the world, opens for her the heaven,
in the loneliness of her life she tortures her god :
My God, you have not risen from the dead.
My God, you have already disappeared.
My God, have you never been ?
And again the sound of trumpet behind the window lights beats down.
Some crazy jazz. The drunken saints
lie on the pavements.
Silence.
Mother, don't you sleep ?
Darkness. Wind tunes in his palm the violin.
Tonight, naked and bloody
I lashed out of the fire and flew up.
I know : the certainty
I will hang on the nail my black hat black like tar.
(Not because you will not be, but because you now are)
Do not lift it.
Cover it with your hand.
Under the hat
darkness.
Love will subsist us from the pure water,
Be always with me
and more than yourself love me.
So to live on. To stand on your feet,
to resemble the sea,
not to count the ebbs.
I know : the fear.
The unpatient count to thousand.
You already feel strange contours within.
Run away ...

Jan Skácel - How calves come to this world

Jan Skácel - How calves come to this world
(Jak přicházejí na svět telátka)

From time to time the cow wistfully boos
and looks back
with her eyes on achate.
Streams of milk jangle on the pails
in the draft wave golden strings of manure,
Every time when the door opens,
the morning comes within.
The cow-house is full of sturry night.
We are waiting.
Suddenly tiny hoofs appear,
touch the light,
shake down the warm darkness,
all with tender force pull the rope,
until the wet calf
through our lap slips into the straw.
So we have, damn it, at least the common joy
and go hastily home to shave ourselves,
to furrow the stubble, the white grass for the night.
A little stick full of song flows in the sky.
(So come to this world calves
and everything lovely.)

Miroslav Válek - From the absolute diary 1

Miroslav Válek - From the absolute diary 1
(Z absolútneho denníka 1)

(2)

When you will hang on a thin wire
and your legs will dangle in the draft
you will understand,
that these are but next steps to emptiness,
So stop it, the fair is already over
and you sold yourself alive ...
You were always a tiny toy donkey, who runs in a little case,
you were always closed
it was possible to wind-up you with a key
and, carrying your load, you were carried,
but in other direction.
It is the very mechanic of motion,
it is the famous gig of a fool
who comes to make sure he is not here any more.
but, returning, he sees that he has not left yet
and so he sits there, wails on the stairs,
desperately crying against the roaring laughter of the audience :
"For my Lord's sake, who am I and where am I rushing ?"
The amount of time decreases like flour from a sack.
You could be a beautiful cadaver,
you could lie in the grass, look under the skirts of the world,
have a cricket in your ear,
become yellow by music,
you could be cited,
a confectionary could be named after you ...
And what are you ?
A null. A little bunch of bones. In the best case
a thing sometimes useful for lessons of anatomy.
You are already decaying
you and that old umbrella which is so often left behind,
nothing, mere skeletons in a dark cabinet ...
Below the basket of your thorax
let us play basketball with the Moon !
Nothing. Darkness, dust and chalk !
Only gradually
appear poplars and grasses, starfish,
the Earth tears apart, the continents separate and flow away from each other ...
Where were you at that time, homo sapiens ?
To try it again with you ?
Cover you with the silk shine ?
Oh, black umbrella,
the full stop after the life !
I want to be unbinding with you,
to play you from one ear to another like a banal music,
to decompose you in my head,
a meteor would become of you
you would excite the town !

(4)

We fall as if after run, we spit out bloody towns,
we leave them, suffocate them with our own hands
and in front of the mirror
we uncover the sex of underaged word,
ready to sleep with every better poem.
We envy each other, we hate each other.
We devour our narcotics like you your steaks
in order to see a butterfly going to the state of rose.
We worry women, we let ourselves to be worried by women,
we write, we write,
the last petticoat of the night is for a long time full with writing
and no one knows what the poetry is.
Some people define it as an accepted proposal to termination of virginity
and others as coitus interruptus of emotion with reason,
but it is a fatal error !
The poetry wears a motley shirt
and doesn't care about the good manners !
From this point of view
the comet in your head
and the moon behind your fingernail
can be quite suitable for a poem,
but the poetry is something else, dear friends !
It begins when you notice that the skeletoned man moved in your entrails,
that he reached your pocket from inside and inspects
the year, the month and the day when you were born,
the colour of your eyes,
your special signs ...
It is the time of a poem.
Shiver bacause it is coming
message in the form of seed,
pain and blood,
oil into fire.
So the white-hot nakedness hisses
everywhere around
merry-go-rounds of trees are revolving
and revolving ...
Every poem has its time,
but the time of the poem is shorter than you think.

(7)

Oh, aquamarines of the night are cold,
your eyes hurt me, orange flames !
Brown, the smell of burned leathers,
rope around the neck. White, skin
of lily-of-the-valley, knives and feathers !
Don't bother me, I know it,
you also used to wail
to the hair of a perfumery clerk.
At that time you were rich
and beloved !
Good morning, miss.
Honey shines in your premises,
madness of salvia,
purple, fire,
musks.
And where is the poem ?
Sorry, we haven't got it !
Oh, aquamarines are cold !

(9)

Poor poet who loots
the treasuries and the churches,
Faithful ox of plowing words,
with Andromeda in his muzzle !
Occasionally you will be booed out,
you will go to the fire,
all shames of the world in you will be counted
and their sum will add up to your debit.
Your humiliations will be categorized as the first and the second
And the first will enter the second,
to fulfil them while themselves fulfilled by them.
Oh, tender member !
Your name is loss of semen
and your pregnancies will never end by the cry of offsprings.
Anybody will spit on you
and women you loved will be present,
with their eyes so much narrowed,
that razor blades will shed tears under your feet ...
It is not like when you drunk
by various music of a casual body
to the necklines small moons vomitted !
Where is the woman who does not strip herself
in the iris of your eye ?
And anyway -
who, helpless before the mysteries of flower's stigmata,
prayed for patience ?
Who refused to eat lilies ?
Who even the naked dew did not lick ?
Who believed that all grains of pollen are counted ?
Who pitied the light dandelions ?
You swindler !
Nobody knows what you carried, but you carried it in such a way
so that all might believe you have a small carriage
into which you store
silver hoofs of lost happiness.
Gradually, you told your entire biography,
but you purposedly forgot some trifle thing,
that became the key point of the poem

(10)

The amount of time decreases - only look forward to the future.
You are the runner with a young fox under your shirt !

Jan Skácel - Where our mothers go

Jan Skácel - Where our mothers go
(Kam odcházejí maminky)

And I know where our mothers go,
in July they will begin to ramble
at first but a little and during the day,
so as not to darken.
Then they are absent for a long, long time,
they were far away.
They say that once upon a time
lived a blind blacksmith in their home.
And that everyone once threw a stone.
They are limping a little like wounded birds.
One day we must go and look for our mother
in the night grass. By the morning we reach
a small gate overgrown with weed.
There stands up dewed
in old man's beard a strange childhood.
We meet a girl who we know from somewhere.
I would like to ask, but I am not allowed.

Miroslav Válek - Drumming to the other side

Miroslav Válek - Drumming to the other side
(Bubnovanie na opačnú stranu)

Short before death I buy a chromed bike
ringing to all sides of the world that you are lovely.
Perhaps in March
when there are smokes above the earth like from crematories
the soil burns the dead body of the last year's weed,
perhaps in March, getting off a tram,
I fell in love with you in the time of germination.
At that time the submarine fleet of cereal grains
only hesitantly extended out its periscopes,
the spring was a cold fever
it shook the aspens all evening,
a silly rain was falling
already by heart and with no effort.
On that day you found a mirror and a drowned kitten
with a tie of silk
- oh, beautified death, more cruel
than the other ordinary killings -
You combed your hair kneeling
and against the riding train's direction
a small star rose on the top of your head.
*
I adore soldiers,
the smell of their belts and soured bread,
I like you,
generals of riding corps
and commanders of regiments' band,
all of you who have a star less,
I humbly love.
The pink nostrills of your horses excite women
and your drums, their laconic thundering
- like a woken-up gorilla running across the dark forest !
And then silence and then again and again
they drum on the old leather of the world :
Formation of mountain ranges and perishing of oceans,
move of nations and sudden slide of rocks !
At the end only a little meaningless rumble,
aldermen march hitting their bald heads with hands :
How could we ... How might we allow ...
But the progress of humankind started already a long time before them.
Drums passed through centuries,
Drums were predicting the future,
drums of rebellions and storms of drums beneath the sky,
boomerang of drums driving herds to the walls,
bulldogs of drums against the slaves,
dear baby of drums, I am swinging you,
orphan, I will put you like a frozen bird on album
of a senile retired general,
bubbles of drums,
what a shame,
a drum caught rust and went bust !
So it happened as I supposed :
We have forgotten the accidental love,
her name, her taste,
we have found others, so it goes
and maybe after seven hundred years
during deep plowing,
her canine tooth will shine on, yellow like a wasp in raspberries.
Excuse us, lovely Brunhilde.
And that is the opportunity to repeat it all again.
So once more,
I like you,
generals of riding corps,
oh, Marshal Ney,
Scipio Africanus,
Genghis Khan,
inventors of unpunishable death,
devourers of fire,
jugglers,
throwing their knives against history.
And the Earth spins more and more furiously,
the sun sets behind the horse manes,
hoofs on the glass
drumming on the other side of the world,
crazy charleston,
stamp of avalanches,
jungle !
Where is your whip, tamers of pardals and pumas ?
The death - a rusty mare - neighs so urgently,
cultivate that tender beast,
that clean flower,
until it becomes the absolute rose,
suitable for birthday but also for a deep sleep,
or for a sentence :
"Dear parents, I will be a little late, because ..."
The perfected death to every family !
The hygienic death for future mothers and their babies !
The death,
tiled, white, the final form of the flowing time
And everything in it is strictly divided :
FOR LADIES - FOR GENTLEMEN
But the gentlemen will not come here to perish,
they shave themselves with an exclusive shaver Philips
and drink gin.
An electric bee buzzes next to their ears but gives them no honey.
Why should it ? Their life is sweet enough anyway.
Oh, yes, lovely lady with the mouth like honey, tonight
for your breasts below the neckline
our Hiroshima perfume spray
and your happiness will persist,
tonight,
at the big moment of the 20th century
when the capitalism begins its unique striptease.
It alrady shakes its breasts,
all the California apples roll and ring loudly.
Oh, my beauty, your smile is a blinking neon,
a golden fish in the aquarium,
a rainbow cocktail in your eyes.
Lean back your head towards the stars, another veil falls
like a butterfly, jazz, jazz,
the mass crash of armored fleets.
Pink hips are appearing
Iron muscles of straddled legs,
Oh,
Y,
The known ball above the horns of a bull,
the earth globe in full blossom, happy and fat,
America
dancing like an elephant
on plantations of the world,
America in its nuclear hat,
a bit hysterical sobbing miss.
Uneasy because of that, the world frowns,
America,
do not play with that blouse !
One more button and you will become saint,
you will come alive to the heaven's door
America, burn at four !
Wailed the limousine, the sad moon of mandoline
shone on the land.
America, dance !
America, play !
Midnight.
Miss, we turn off the neon in hair.
Twilight plays it tight right behind the net,
placing all where you do not expect it,
saxophones stick out their tongues,
stretching their burning necks towards the Moon,
they howl their wolfish sorrow.
In the artificial night
artificial stars fall on us.
Sex and bells,
burning cinnabars,
On the fire blade dancing, white, alone,
only the mirrors from all sides
work nervously with passion,
they catch her in every position,
throwing away their sketches just to begin the new.
Everywhere is a plethora of her lips,
of her smiles,
of her hair
her fingers drop down pepper,
her breasts, her calves,
the naked, flexible air,
waves of Atlantic,
fishermen collecting the shells,
high tide, pearls.
And then bump like a gong
like a small, dim sun on the motionless sky,
we realized her belly
perfectly rounded,
the scale of a glittering fish,
the circle of Archimedes,
a disk above the pedestrians' heads.
She touched it with her hands, we saw from the short distance :
It is satiated.
Filled by the slaughterhouses of Chicago,
the slaughterhouses of Laos,
the slaughterhouses of Vietnam
and the slaughterhouses of Malaysia,
it is satiated.
And here the comb of the Moon has broken,
the sky is full with stars,
as if scythed, it foundered down upon the table.
Immediately stood up bank managers,
money forgers
and owners of steel trusts,
as well as archbishops
and automobile kings,
ran away to darkness of ink,
their chins shivered,
their heads burned like furnaces full of coke.
The belly of America was found,
they slap it with their red hands,
they beat it
like box champions,
it is the known rumble,
as if in the centre of the Earth the thunder was born.
And it is a drum,
the belts are jarring,
steel bullets already burrowed into the earth return
to their barrels,
the submarines shift beneath the ice,
riding regiments since the creation of the world saddle their horses,
archaeanic layers ascend to the Earth's surface,
a lightning on the bottom of the sea lifts the weight of the waters,
a snake sizzles like a bottle of fizzy water,
metals oxidize.
A horseshoe burns oils,
wanting to return to the hoof of its horse,
barrels rattle on the cobbled road
and they are drums,
here are their foreheads without a wrinkle,
here they go with their tremendous heads
against thw wall.
Their rhytm is what makes us sleepy,
and behind our head drums beat like a clock,
when we sleep :
Death, death, death.
Oh, drum, the cataract of the sky,
what do you see behind the horizon of blood ?
Oh, drum, the millstone of the world, do not turn so fast,
do not yet sprinkle the flour upon our mothers' heads.
Oh, drum, inside you we are sewn like kittens
and as well silly.
From your leather, drum, we must once cut free,
burn it, fly away
and feel the blow of thunder behind our heels.
*
Short before death I buy a chromed bike
ringing to all sides of the world that you are lovely.
Short before death, but nevertheless in the half of my travel,
like a man who knows he cannot make it to the top of a hill,
but he does not give up nor interrupts his ride
The last competitor is alrady out of his sight for a long time
he has no connection, receives no letters,
He did not fall in love with a brunette behind the window
nor drank from the others' wells.
He feels himself behind him and he escapes
to meet himself he has but himself,
his another form,
which he suspects only dimly,
like an appletree suspects an apple,
like the air suspects a bird.
And maybe it is just the sense of it all,
of that stubborn and hardheaded ride.
But maybe centuries have passed since then and
the world has changed.
We know that :
"The square above the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle ... etc"
We know that the Earth is round
and love is eternal.
We have discovered America and dynamite.
We have reconstructed the gramophone,
the prototype of the parrot,
the representative of diluvial artistic circles.
We have constructed metaphor and alcohol,
the fuels of the senses,
we have manufactured porcelain
we know how to crush the atomic nuclei.
Stop the rider behind his own shadow !
He is ridiculous to everyone, that blind polisher of the stars,
He is ridiculous to everyone,
with that rainbow above his head
wearing that ancient jersey.
Dogs from the entire planet are biting his calves,
already two thousand years he has been racing in his own blood.
Stop the man,
he lives but
a thousand,
two thousand
a hundred thousand,
it does not matter how many thousands of eye winks.
It is but a gesture,
a snapping of fingers,
a helpless movement of a shoulder.
And all that suffices is pneumonia,
all that suffices is fall down from stairs,
a crazy white horse
and a beat on a drum
- the sun will tear off,
the hot sky will get under your nails,
it will be all.
The man has anyway always a short time before his death,
the man is mortal,
the man lives anyway always with one leg in his grave.
I liked your hair, beautiful Brunhilda,
I wondered about the little star
that was rising among them,
although several centuries have passed since then
and everything is different.
We recognize ourselves in the stretch-faced rider during his turn,
we feel in our legs the steep ascending sharp as a storm,
the hum of bells in our head.
That is the travel which must everyone do in himself
and all in common, on their trajectory.
That is the wonderful perpetuum mobile,
conversion of energy, division of the cells,
infinity of the man,
his blood, his glory.
We have discovered the immortality of life,
we know how to tune the thunder,
we put our hand on the drums' leather
to let it grow over with grass.
In the name of life we call on the dead,
who, even at death, are in their proper place, by their names :
Comrades, listen to the last music,
see how burns the bow on the only string.
It is not tooth-grinding :
"The imperialists are cutting off the branch on which they are sitting. There is no force in the world to stop the progress of mankind ..."
The man is eternal !

Jan Skácel - The ashes

Jan Skácel - The ashes
(Popely)

He wrote with finger to the dust and has not left it
and the wind sings something recently long ago
and at the oil derrick the herd of deer
stood motionless
and fairly listened

What of it is and will not be
that was once written
why speak out loudly that the grass was squeezed
and it raises up
when falls the rain and something else

Who is at least a bit like us
will wait
no really nobody can
lift blades so heavy
And the hand oh lord what another hand

He wrote with finger to the dust and has not left it
and the wind sings something
recently long ago
Such a hand oh lord what another hand
will lift a town and perish in ashes

Miroslav Válek - The autumn

Miroslav Válek - The autumn
(Jeseň)

Go crazy
or drink yourself to death.
Autumn puts her empty hands on your shoulder
and asks for fire,
on the autumn's sleeve sits a mouse
and the autumn prays :
"Don't go away, buy some rubies from me."
You deny, so she will buy you.
And you will not get rid
of those stealthy steps behind you
and of those leavings with no reason - and, by the way, where ?
Even sleeping
you can hear the autumn wind its clock up,
angrily smoothen its velvet,
how it fears to be late ...
The train is whistling,
over the courts
flies the last square root of a bird.
Write it down everything, you silly little calculator :
that you were too lucky,
very afraid
- and all that gold
in your pockets !
Write it all down,
The autumn will count it before it is sold.
The vine-taverns switched off the lights.
Darkness for a half of year.
The spendthrifts
come home with rubies.
Everything is clear :
The trees have anchored,
deep in the clay chains are clashing
the bridge over waters is dry like a wooden chip.
So much weights the unspoken word,
that you begin to fear.
Someone here claps his hands.
From palm to palm
the autumn strews its coins.
The sold children are going to sleep.

Jan Skácel - The teacher of the second death

Jan Skácel - The teacher of the second death
(Učitel druhé smrti)

On a long bench along four whitewashed walls
were sitting the children who had died
only recently
Now they were waiting
for their second death.

They were sitting in well-mannered way and with their little hands in their laps
Totally motionless and so quiet
that behind the open window the chains
of autumn merry-go-rounds were heard

With their little necks they were touching the wall
and were waiting until the teacher came
and were waiting patiently
like never before in their lives

Then steps on the corridor were heard
the teacher entered he came in with no face
as if there was no threshold
and the children greeted him without a word
And because all of them were already after death

no one of them was trembling with fear
They all knew
that once was not enough

Then when he started to call them out by alphabet
they stood up one after another
and after a slight bow
of their hardly fluffed head
with little steps left the classroom

Tiny they were All from the first grade

Miroslav Válek - The wings

Miroslav Válek - The wings
(Krídla)

So it is summer. The blind men in Bahon
are lifting their heads above the wall,
above the barbed wire,
they are watching the trains, long and slim like whistling,
they are ripping the weeds, coughing.
Near Cifer a girl is sunbathing
with her hands above her head,
the heavy derricks of oil industry
are crawling to the railway, all are waving
thinking the same.
According to calendar it is August 15th, Mary,
4 o'clock in the afternoon,
The sun is in beer, the thunderstorm is in the air,
the park is full of lush green, and you are nowhere.
I have been saying you all the time :
Come in the right time,
come when the drums are rumbling,
at high noon,
when the swallows in the air give away their autographs
and the things are silent,
come full of anger,
when you are sad as well as when you would rather laugh.
The heads will be again in the windows, the things in order,
everything will be in its proper place again,
we will make an evening party in your family garden,
I will snap my fingers, the apricots will ignite,
their yellow fires will bend over us :
Then as well the grass was bluish and cold like a well,
the rain, punctuated like a tie, hang obliquely from the clouds,
the lightning started in the sky
and extended as far as our kiss.
When the thunderstorm lasted for too long
and too loudly the metal of thunder was beaten,
you said that they would look for you ...
I saw you fly above the yard in darkness.
During that night the earth moved in its bearings,
all stars were created,
the universe trembled like a lamb
and looked for its centre.
The second day after the world's creation the radio played,
they were walking in the rooms,
they were walking, they were talking,
they were breaking bread,
they were ringing with spoons,
ringing,
but nobody noticed your wings, transparent and light.
We caught you, the blindness of mature age,
we were fine,
and what has happened :
On Saturday after fifteen years
an Abel with whom I used to buy the football tickets
said me that we had lost it all long ago,
we had no wings
and it was a sad thing.
So I am at home,
grasping the land,
the land goes with me everywhere,
my land,
the plain of small people,
workers at Kovosmalt and at the atomic power station,
who represent the god six days a week
on the world's construction so sinfully behind the schedule,
beacause all the saints,
responsible for order, took bribes,
and the god's mills worked only for the rich.
I am at home. Eyes full of land and hands full of hands,
I rise inward myself.
Summer in the air. Summer everywhere.
Summer yellow as a wasp chasing us.
Behind the blood-coloured line of the horizon,
in the god's gardens,
where according to theologians should be the paradise,
where the devil's anger hisses, pomegranates explode
and the angels in gas masks,
burning swords in their hands, close their blind circle,
the destiny of man is written.
But we, since we learned that matter is
only a form of energy,
spread our wings easier,
move as well in space as we do in time
and know that this particular place is here with us,
on the ground.
We have a message for you,
you sweet, supposed, coming from our blood :
Think of us,
we were your destiny,
exactly as you are the destiny of those,
who will come after you to cross
the border line line of life.

And who think the same.

Jan Skácel - The last thirst

Jan Skácel - The last thirst
(Poslední žízeň)

So long ago did we pass away
and so much of thirst
so much of lovely thirst
we did leave at home
It is so long ago
and so many years elapsed since then
It is unbelievable
and all the same after quartzite does taste
and after sulphur
that thirst forever that thirst for the last time

Miroslav Válek - The sensitive

Miroslav Válek - The sensitive
(Citliví)

The mirror should be behind your back,
your hand in a glove,
your leg under the table.
Do not look.
They are hunchbacks,
with one leg shorter,
with one arm ending at the wrist.
They sit, they listen.
From the conversations that do not concern them,
from the words that do not belong to them,
each of them choses a thing for himself,
for instance :
... one should rather have his eyes back ...
... he lives on a high leg ...
... count it on your fingers ...
Oh, why does all the world touch the things that molest us ?
Why must we carry our visible marks,
while the same or even worse deformation of soul
is hidden from everyone ?
After death all of us will have a lovely hunch.

Jan Skácel - Daughters of song

Jan Skácel - Daughters of song
(Dcery písně)

My night is the darkest
where morning begins
and the little birds' horror beneath the windows
starts in full wolume.

Then I get up
And deprived of the previous day
I go to the bathroom.
Going there I am ashamed among my furniture.

Once again I am only myself
robbed to such extent
that to eternity I hang on a thread.
Everything embarrassingly reminds me
that yesterday I was verbatim perpendicular.

Water sets me free for a moment
From the white porcelain with my nail
I scratch out a hair
Too much yours.
It is again bad, even worse.

But then I remember again
and drinking my coffee I recite the verses,
slowly, hardly, to make them sustain :

"On bird-twitter he gets up
and all doughters of song cry."

Miroslav Válek - The touches

Miroslav Válek - The touches
(Dotyky)

Since the morning the telegrams keep coming to your home,
the sea of letters floods the house,
telephones began to ring all at once.
It is nothing to worry about, it is nothing to worry about,
it is only that I am calling you incessantly,
re-establishing the broken connection.
I am so lucky they have believed me
at the post office and at the phone switchboard,
that I had a million greetings for you,
that I had a million requests on you :
Do not be angry and,
it is horribly important,
I am almost crazy because of that,
I am horribly in love with you,
leave everything as it it is,
let the water burn in the bathroom,
let the gas flow in the kitchen,
let the foolish mirrors in your room turning,
and come to me by the first train,
come here to the vast plain !
Seven black horses will wait for you at the station,
all of them with a star on its forehead,
the jasmine will blossom,
the pollen will fall from the apricots
softer than your powder Soir de Paris.
Hurry up, on the corner
the evening is already hooting,
blue painted like a vintage car,
the town sun, a screechy worn out vinyl record
shifts down bellow the horizon,
but the one of ours,
the shiny casserole of copper,
sets down delightfully,
and when it touches the earth, it is all heard.
The black bull in the coopertative-farm stable
in a velvet voice finished its lyrical intermezzo,
the plain falls on its knees and prepares to sleep.
The time of shaking off the boots has come,
stamp like some festive parade,
because here in every house the men are like iron
and the sound has space enough for start,
thus everyone's dreams are heard ...
Dreams about :
glass,
stones,
metals,
caresses of hands,
bent index finger knocking on a window,
the fleeting smile you were waiting for
Dreamt are things unspeakable,
things wonderful and simple like a snowdrop
and my eyes on the bottom of your eyes,
we dream dreams
and everything is like a content of the magician's hat.
The night, the black hat with a wide brim,
overturns inside out into the morning.
Only now you can see how palpable the dreams are
The nervous fingers of TV antennas puncture the darkness,
double rows of new houses trot to the villages,
the morning is stuffy like an after-ball ballroom,
the single sad rook in the sky revolves like a fan,
the fat wheat-ears faint with astonishment,
when the local village radio calls in harsh voice :
Come to harvest, come to harvest !
In a moment the village is empty like a blown out egg
Only the grandma sits at the door and silently sings for herself :
"She was sieving the flour
Straight to the wooden floor ... "
Grandma, the poor blind thing !
She used to milk the cows in Herz's farmstead.
She used to pray for long life and lucky death.
Her life has elapsed like the stroke of a whip - it was exactly so painful.
And now she does not know this world at all.
She does not remember the names of her grandchildren, she starts with fear when there is a laugh in the house,
the evening brings her a strange smell of the burnt diesel,
but the earth she takes to her fingers is still good.
It is the same soil as then ...
The dress of silk, sixteen years of age and the long braid
are already gone,
but the plain is still here to stay, the plain is eternal
it only breathes faster and louder.
At the time of feast roast geese fly here,
a sparrowhawk starts to the sky vertically like a rocket,
in autumn the violet rains rain to the gardens,
heavy drops of plums knock on the tired soil.
The plain has given away its frut, it has no more to say and it is silent.
Sleepy, blinded by syrup and sugar, it puts on a quilted coat.
On St.Martin's day comes the first snow.

Jan Skácel - The night travellers

Jan Skácel - The night travellers
(Cestující v noci)

The thefts of gods' property woke us around midnight
We blindly touch around us
and sleepy request the news
how much cool is the night
The dream persists
like an unbroken egg on a rock
And it is the moment when we dream about ourselves
And the centaur has the turtledove's head
With what autumns will we share
the meals of deer
we
who travel at night
and ask in such sleepy voices

Miroslav Válek - A minute before falling asleep

Miroslav Válek - A minute before falling asleep
(Minútu pred usnutím)

I saw a purple-fledged bird
My eyes are full of beautiful dissonancies
In the night ignited by its wings
I am always alone
I am worried
I am crying
I am making up
a while with you among roses
there I am learning you by heart
there I am breathing you
until you say 'stop'
I know that it is prohibited
But wherever you touch my body
it turns into a distinctly vibrating tone
So stop Stop at last
I am your music
the melody that will not leave your mind
you can whistle me
thinking of something else
You are whistling me
You are thinking of something else
it will not leave my mind
Allow me to fall asleep
allow me to fall asleep
fantasy the purple-fledged bird

Jan Skácel - Always

Jan Skácel - Always
(Pořád)

Tirelessly the snow falls all day
as if some hooligans beat to death
with beer bottles
a swan in the sky
and its sad feathers were falling down.

I am so afraid of deadly silence,
of the weight on trees and eternity,
that in the humans ceased.
And I am not a bit ashamed
for my anxiety, lord, you know it.

It falls on me silently, without a word,
as regret in vain,
at least of that we are capable,
waiting for a kind word.
While out behind the window it falls.

And all the time more and worse.

Miroslav Válek - An apple

Miroslav Válek - An apple
(Jablko)

An apple rolled down from the closet to the floor.
So pack your things and you can go.
She leaned with her back to the door
and cried with her eyes :
For god's sake I beseech you, no !
But I knew for good that I had enough;
I stood up,
picked up the apple,
dusty and still green,
and I laid it on the table.
She kept beseeching, she came to the table,
crying.
She looked at me, wiped the apple,
crying.
I told her at last : Put that apple down and go !
The events happened as I supposed.
No matter, that in different sequence !
She opened the door,
I ran down and said : Stay !
But she packed her things and left.
An apple rolled down from the closet to the floor.

Jan Skácel - Seeking cobwebs

Jan Skácel - Seeking cobwebs
(Vyhledávání pavučin)


Decaying tiny spooks live in their stumps
they enjoy living there
as if the time was still made of wood
And all soup spoons
all bridges
and all oak ridges

Behind the wasp nest if you don't ask
you may find that squelched place
where on the lea dances
the god of ants
It's him who with his dance destroys the world

On his six legs he dances from time immemorial
and for the dance that he performs
he threw away his hands
He has nobody
who would wipe sweat from his forehead

He is alone and he alone thumps himself down
to the bottom of creation
and little snails
on the borders of the lea are inching
to their slimy distances

Already millions of years the god of ants
all covered with sweat
and with worried face
does that hard work
On his six legs with his dance he destroys the world

And all soup spoons
all bridges
and all oak ridges

Miroslav Válek - A tree

Miroslav Válek - A tree
(Strom)

A black ghost rambles in the woods
Alone like a finger
he tramples the ground
He shakes his head
having no peace
He finds a bridge
crosses it gets to the town
tramples on the lawns
slams into the walls
destroys the houses
covers his eyes
cries for help
Hair up with scurry
you say :
Has he gone crazy ?
Such a good tree !
You say ! You say !
There are also other things,
you simple-minded good guys !
What does a man
uprooted from the soil in which he lived
deprived of roots
alone like a finger
desperate ?
Looks for his pleace on earth ?
Looks for piece
Looks for a nice branch that will not break down
looks for a tree ?
A black oak rambles in the woods
Avoid him !

Jan Skácel - Proverbs

Jan Skácel - Proverbs
(Přísloví)

I worried about the world so much
that I began to make up proverbs.
There are long truths as well as the short ones.
And if the punishment doesn't come immediately,
you have to serve a term of your own life for your guilt.
And no one can ever undo what has been done.
And no one can write a song
for a blind girl and for a wingless bird.

Miroslav Válek - The parade

Miroslav Válek - The parade
(Prehliadka)

It's eight o'clock in the morning,
the apple trees blossom, the dogs guard next to the doors
and the winds sleep.
I don't feel like thinking of rhymes,
I inspect my conscience,
like the old album with your photos,
which you no longer resemble
and which you forgot long ago.
Don't worry, I'm not going to disturb you long.
Everything is in order,
lay down your arms !

Jan Skácel - A Moment

Jan Skácel - A Moment (Chvíle)

For no truth of the world
But if you like,
for a little dime of silence.
There is a moment that halves the land.
A while of humility,
when someone breaths on us.

Miroslav Válek - A Story with a Wasp

Miroslav Válek - A Story with a Wasp
(Poviedka s osou)

He was turned face to the wall so as he could think
Exactly ten minutes for answer as if taking a final exam.
A wasp in the air
kept bumping into the air,
buzzing like an old monoplane,
bumping, falling,
it sounded like knocking on the windows pane with a nail,
as if by every knock someone was called out of the room
for a drink or for a chat,
which always began in the same way :
"But this joke you can't know, my dear colleague ..."
And ended with a sneeze or laughter,
from which the whole house rang
as from the chains cleaning.
The summer was hot ad humid,
the time progressed incredibly slowly,
the wasp kept bumping and falling into the glass,
with every fall one of its crew left,
the ambulance shrieked hysterically behind the window
the dandelions faded away faster
and on the floor one parachute next to the other.
The day of tobacco ripening and waters retreating has begun,
the air was getting yellow and the wasp was dark-yellowishly stupid.
But who of us thinks of glass transparency
and at the same time its adamancy
Who, lifting his leg, considers at the same time its reverse movement ?
It would be unexpected,
as if we met the house crossing the street.
But, all the same - who knows ...
"Dear friends", said he, lifting the glass,
"because the war is the poetry of life and all of us are but servants of the Muse, I'm going to tell you a delightful poem. You'll laugh a lot. Listen :
Don't tell it to anybody.
I've discovered the secrets
guarded by seven wives of Bluebeard.
I can make the sun from the orange thrown to the air,
by the wind's scent I know the taste of women's kisses in the countries it comes from.
Don't tell it to anybody.
The best are the kisses of Vanessa,
they all smell with vanilla.
Vanessa is a poor seamstress from our town.
Poor but honest, she sews with everybody,
but it must be love ringing with pure gold.
The love that doesn't ring is severely punished !
This little rhyme we found in the pocket of a student before ...
And because - not at all by chance - our names were identical,
I sent it immediately to her."
Then, because there was in a way a bit of philosopher in him, he added :
"But I'm telling you quite confidently - as soon as I explored her soul deeper, I began to call her Wasp. That Little Wasp has not only a slim waist, but also a well-sharpened tongue, except the other more attractive qualities, for instance - came a little closer
- and except
- and except
- and except,
that's probably the most important of it. As you can see, the life is complicated and exact as a clock, but does not exclude the possibility of unexpected accidents and encounters. That's all, have a good time ! Let's drink on ! Let's drink again !"
In certain situations we can believe in ability of water to speak Hebrew,
as well as in other, more strange things.
But who has never seen a weeping willow weep to her handkerchief,
would not believe in the ability of trees to fly at nights.
Why should he believe if he hasn't seen ?
And who has ever seen a chromatic harmonica of autumn winds ?
Who has ever seen a shining root in the grave of an electrician
of the darkness in his own grave ?
Who ? Who ? Who ?
He, facing the wall to be punished, has seen it :
The wasp when he was left alone,
the wasp who finally has flown through the commiserative glass,
leaving in it as a reward her rings like circles on the water,
vanishing and made of false gold.
And what next ? He could talk.
He could say everything. But no.
He was turned face to the wall so as he could think
Exactly ten minutes for answer as if taking a final exam.
So he was silent to finally realize : "I have bad luck !,
to turn around and shout :
"Please, I have bad luck, Please let me draw another question. "
But there was no other question.
There was only silence so complete he could hear it,
when he by blink of an eye swang a bell in his head.
He had bad luck !
He had bad luck !
He had bad luck !
There was no other question, but the one he got.
And the first four minutes have already elapsed.
He was turned face to the wall like a thing.
At that moment azaleas at the park began to scent,
the big moon rose somehow too early,
women walked from the green gates,
with pink fingers fastened their shirts,
the street sounded like a big xylophone
it smelled with some cleaning stuff and milk,
a large-buget big movie was on in the cinemas,
in which the fabulous Theo Lingen as a valet
was seducing a boutiful baroness ...
What a chance that during the entracte he spotted the acquainted blonde
for whom he had been longing so long ! She sagged at her waist like a wasp,
laughed and cried :
"Oh, I can't stand it !"
"Oh, I'll get mad !"
"Oh, I'll die !"
Inspired by the film, he told her :
"I'm going to die with you, my beauty, whatever may happen !"
"What ?" - shouted she. "You better look in your mirror at home, sir !"
He was turned face to the wall like a mirror,
like a mirror turned to the wall in a bad moment,
when you don't feel like looking at your own face,
when seeing one's face is almost the same as ringing at the door of your own flat, asking :
"Excuse me, please, is Mr. Walter Krist at home ?"
and hearing Mr. Walter Krist answer :
"It must be a mistake, I don't know him. Mr. Walter Krist never lived in this house."
So it is better to look at your back,
to stand behind yourself, have a distance,
walk in the crowd headed by a boy with an apple and ended with a man
- he still has the taste of that apple on his tongue -
waiting for the death to lean toward him from above his arms :
"Lieutenant Walter Krist ! Only one minute left !"
But his moment has not yet come, although he heard those words quite clearly. And he indeed pities the other guy. He isn't a murderer and doesn't want to kill him.
After all, every death is in a way absurd. Anyway, he got enough beating from them, they cornered him, he can't even follow his crowd anymore. All his faces fled away and now turn to him with silent reproach. So let him speak. Let them make him speak. What a wonderful evening. The air full of honey. Only one minute left.
He was turned face to the wall so as he could think.
He was turned face to the wall like a soulless thing
He was turned face to the wall like a mirror.
Oh, the sad twilight of the averted things with a one dimensional soul,
that need the human eyes !
He was watching into himself, he was reflecting himself.
The lights of summer in distance vanishing,
the trembling breath of candles,
but also the laughter of this mad town,
which crushed him like a china cup,
the well known soprano of the woman, maybe embarrassing at the same time :
"Oh, I can't stand it !"
"Oh, I'll get mad !"
"Oh, I'll die !"
He remembers : A nasty evening. The night kept swelling like a toad.
They laughed. She as well. But he could not recognize himself. His palm itched. She was entirely different. A black Opel-Captain was waiting for them. "Look, he has higher rank than you but he's obedient". She said "Darling" and pulled the curtains down. "I didn't want you to spot it. Do whatever you like ! I've been loving him for so long ! And maybe he slept here million times. And maybe he still will, who can know it. It's boring. Let's sleep. I'm falling off my legs."
He closed his eyes as if he was falling asleep. It seemed to him he said "Burn the order, as if you only dreamed about it."
He smiled and threatened him with his finger :
"Walter, Walter, be strict treating him !"
He was. But he gave him a possibility to decide for himself. He hesitated only a second when he stood there before him. Then he lifted his eyes to the skies :
"Aye, aye, I understand, Herr General."

Yes, death.
Pronounced by single breath like the proverbs.
Yes, death - good for what ?
Similar to what ?
Death good for breaking the bread,
for sharpening knives,
for a bad dream
and memory howling during the endless nights.
Death, similar to itself,
Death inevitable
like the sunset
and death needless
like a swimmer beneath the water and his beautiful profile !
"A wonderful evening ! And the air like honey !"
"So let him answer, truly and at once !"
"Dear colleague, this joke you certainly haven't heard ..."
"Oh, what a chance, what a chance !"
Stand up facing the wall !
Don't be bad to me !
Oh, you are so pale !
As if in you a chalk fell and raged a snowy gale.
Pain ? No, no such things !
Only a wasp and its rings !
One of them they put on my heart !
The air like honey !
Fire !
Wasp !
You were all my world -
dances, rings -
of false gold.
His death resembled a skein of thread,
patiently unwound by somebody.
But who is on the other side ?
Mother, mother, is it you ?
Your needle beneath my nails,
mother, a tree burns in my entrails !
It rains. The sky tearful like an ophan's eyes.
His death resembled a skein of thread.
The lights of summer in distance vanishing,
A ring on the heart flourishing.
He hurries as if he still lived.
But the sky everywhere empty like the lunatic's eyes.
He sat down.
Took off his legs to the black nothingness,
tangled the end of the thread
to the end of the world !
The lights of summer
in distance vanishing.

Oldřich Mikulášek - Spring drumming

Oldřich Mikulášek - Spring drumming
(Jarní bubnování)

The weather was so lovely
The sun played
Even for old men
in their tie-knots on pin.
The women's apples around
hit their skirts
and the skirts - nothing but invitation -
so the men, even the most sad
let melt the snow
in the shadows of collapsed cheek
when this drumming
was passing by
and the spring was walking nearby.

Even the trams looked more red !
And from the holes
from the holes in the houses' walls
like from little hangars
after the war cruise
the sparrows started
for their love raids.

The weather was so lovely
in the Brno town
and everything came out
somehow evenly,
that an old wizard
scratched his beard
wanting to mend the old injustice -
said, my buddy,
do wish at least something,
to be like a tram
a little more red.

And I did wish !
The only wish :
let the sound of that drumming
never perish
and the spring never leaves me !

Oldřich Mikulášek - The finale

Oldřich Mikulášek - The finale
(Finále)

When in the evening I was making my bed,
I found a hair of yours -
everything, left to me of your head.

And scent of your body in the feather blankets -
everything, left to me of your love.

Since then, my head is getting heavy.
And my heart bends me when I walk,
because you are still in it.

Miroslav Válek - A History of Grass

Miroslav Válek - A History of Grass - to Oldřich Mikulášek
(Dejiny trávy - Oldřichovi Mikuláškovi)

You would like to see the phosphorus !
The meadow glowing like a watch,
when it shows the spring !
Her calves are still soft,
her muscles will ache
but already on the slope you can see its green cabriolet,
Oh, grass acceleration !
And chlorophyle !
And spring sprouting !
And twenty hundred thousand of other nonsenses !
From this you cannot catch a headache
and the grass already enters the next round.
Sing something joyful,
sing, but fast !
Headless like deer,
We grow older before the grass eyes.
And it is no longer a racing car,
roaring of spring engines,
the madness of tribunes !
It is only a sad truck with beer,
from which a green bottle with neck full of foam throw
foals, grasshoppers,
imitating the gallop.
One, two,
lift high your knees,
sing !
And so the man lived a thouseand years.
He had only to run,
outrun with foam in his neck,
nobody asked him "Why ?" and "Where ?".
And who has ever asked the grass where she grows and why ?
Who has asked about her inner life ?
Who has ever translated but a blade of grass
to the human language ?
Nothing, only fire and rain.
And the grass works :
above moles' corridors,
above the grave,
above the grave,
it listens to sea's lament,
to the murmur over the aorta,
it converts
sun's fire,
water's delirium,
it converts
the dead things to living,
it worries in her inside,
seeking the right shape for them :
We have written :
Histories of wars,
histories of philately and football.
No one has ever writen a history of grass.
From the grass' point of view it is meaningless.
Its history is long and continuous.
Express trains traffic in it
and raiders bite manes of their horses.
A gold-haired head sinks to it
and more than one young cock lost his crest in it,
oh, she knows the wandering stars !
The grass knows what may cause bleeding.
She holds in memory all the summer loves,
adulteries
and bestial murders.
But the grass is patient
and sensitive.
Grass covers everything.
Silently.
Don't overlook it.
The grass knows why the teeth of the dead ache,
the grass knows everything about life and death.
The grass owns the exact list of hopes and tears.
It has calculated your definitive appearance,
it has underlined you with its green pen and now it waits.
One day when I understand everything
I will reveal you the hidden connections of things.
Come,
let's go to the darkness and listen
to the birth pains of grass,
the ruthless riot of roots,
the cracking of cells,
the boiling of juices.
Now I understand everything
As if I myself were the grass.
Put your hand on the nights' back,
listen well to me :
Nothing, but fire and rain !

The balance

Jan Skácel - Forbidden Man

Jan Skácel - Forbidden Man
(Zakázaný člověk)

All I have is turned inside
And it is from the other side as the neckties
On the back wall of the wardrobe

Slowly I get used to silence and smells

I can lift a feather from the mud
without throwing it away

Sometimes I tell myself a story
And the other time I sing a little song
About my legs good only for pain
And my soul for sustain

And again I am unhearable like light

So meticuously I am engaged with silence
I cut by touch the fear's throat

Of others and of myself


And so when the blind look back
It's as if I belonged to them

We push themselves together in the needle's eye

Miroslav Válek - Quadripedes

Miroslav Válek - Quadripedes
(Štvronožci)

We were but two. We looked for a pair.
On Thursday night god suddenly died in despair.
In his 4-D eye trembled
four violet angels.
Something is on
Some terrible things lurk above the road.
Please excuse the overload.
Someone is calling someone
In some town a bell started ringing
A deaf man
A deaf phone keeps clinging.
Sorry !
It has not happened.
Everything's so quiet like death.
As if in the night air
someone walked holding his breath.
Some invisible naked leg
made the house swing.
Somewhere some intelligent myopic bug makes a whizz
Under the TV-god supervision
I'm solving the millionth quiz.
And in the god's eye the sun sets
In his eye of glass the univeral fatigue like a lead
Century,
your absolutely wise head
is getting mad !
Your empty sleeve over the crowds,
your flag, oh, your invisible and secret hand,
is terrible, it squeezes like some presses
In my inner premises
make havoc the incredible horses
of your psychoanalyses.
I'm breeding myself. Alas, it's heard !
I neigh you my love but you do not understand.
I am but herd.
And I am also a lonely voice in silent night,
lamenting for the killed.
I am the pain of grass under the hoof filled
Eternity in the god's eye
is already getting narrow
Some crowd in me is walking
Some crowd crosses the river under the sun.
Strange men.
Some improbable and strange men on the run.
It's me -
and something within me,
something with a fledged soul of police informer,
he shams,
he wails from great distance,
and opens his chequered notebook.
Aleaia, aleaia, aleaia,
alas, alas,
aleaiactaaest!
But the universe
keeps throwing the seeds,
the universe
makes love while its prostheses jar.
Walk on, beutiful bride
in burning air, in the asbestos gown.
Some phantoms raised above each town
and flowers of sulfur disperse !
Lift your arm,
make your leg overcome its pride,
run to the window
and press all your four faces to the glass,
press, so that they could burn
like four candles in the house of suicide.
O, lord, the heaven !
Trembles the circus tent
Above the head of merry buffoon
(Twist, twist ...)
The night, with teeth of an alligator
Is charmingly bleeding spoon by spoon
Four times I have begun myself
Four pianos barked at me.
I spit you, eternity !
You choke me like blood !
Harmony of spheres, my mouth if full of your stems
I lean back my head :
Four millions of solar systems
and four stars
falling at quarter to four.
Something I miss. Something I regret.
All is in order. Everything counted up :
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday ...
On Thursday evening I fear :
Indigo of night behind the window
Behind it four skies.
And four sunsets !
I hear you howl in four voices.
The world has four legs !
You,
ballerinas,
rope walkers,
roofers
- lay hands down !
The time has come to lay upon your own legs.
Hands down !
Surrender !
(Night shoed by the moon.
Full moon. The devil's hoof, nasty and rough
rakes in the high trough.
Fall of a shot-down star
Fall of a star.
Fall.
Our Father in heaven,
let's have a drink at seven !
Twist. Hallelujah. Twist.
Fallen angels and nuns who took it light.
Sweet chant from the height :
Give away rags and booooones !
The town full of statues and turpentine
Is cleaned of someone's guilty line.
So much blood from the sun's spots
And so much sun from kisses
that it goes to the trees' canopy slots,
In the air where the statues gamble
for the tiny beast of your hips,
my electronic eye blips.
Insert the right coin, smile and push,
and my orange wail springs from the bush.
Oh no, the tree no more tears its amber fury,
it is depressed
and for the yellow bees yellow tears makes pressed.
Oh no, you are already different
The time flies and from the summer nips.
On the pavements
The autumn already gnashes with its gold
Oh, Julia
the eternal passion to the automaton sold !
Universal lovers on the streets junction
propose to you every morning
the forty-forth position
of universal love with an occasional tulip of mourning.
Under the metal your skin blinked.
I can neither understand nor comprehend
Your men in absolute pubs,
drank the beer, were drowsy
All my life will I remember the fire
whose flames licked you - so lousy !
What is that machine doing to you !
Oh, fires,
oh, burning columns of Sodom
now only the pure pleasure
in his exact wisdom.
I am at home alone, waiting for you and it rains.
Horizontally. Like from the sleep
So furtively. So anxiously.
As if somewhere grew
elephant ears of fears
As if all the world at this moment
kneeled on the peas.
It keeps raining.
Horizontally - as if on the hair of the dead.
Where are you so long ?
And what are you like ?
We were but two. We looked for a pair
On Thursday night god suddenly died in despair.
In his 4-D eye trembled
four violet angels.
Something is on
Some terrible things lurk above the road
Please excuse the toad.
Somehow silently.
Somehow too silently. As if after the creation of
nothing.
As if someone was choking.
As if someone all his life inhaled the gas.
(Even the sky that summer was too blue ...)
Where to go tonight ? Where to go tonight ?
I look into the newspaper :
End of the world, nothing is on !
Someone is ringing ? No one is seen.
No, no, no !
I fall, face in my hands.
Silence translucent like polythene.
Who is ringing without being seen ?
I am silent as if from some other lands.
Oh, deadly choking !
Oh, to four pieces chopping !
And beneath the mountains of ashes,
Oh, beneath the mountains of ashes,
Beneath the hooves of tiny kids,
Beneath the sweet smell of lamb skin,
Beneath the fire, beneath the fire,
beneath the burnt hairs
- my fingerprints in two pairs !
And quadripedes,
and quadruplets,
quadruples of lovers yell : "Kill !"
Whom ?
Four times conceived
love already rakes
with its chicken leg.
And tin weathercock
to four sides spreads its breath.
Oh, invisible wings
of footless death !

Jan Skácel - The Day Suitable for Dying

Jan Skácel - The Day Suitable for Dying
(Den vhodný k umírání)

In the hour of our death
When the day suitable for dying
Comes
We will pluck the cockle weed
From the spring of childhood
We will lift a holy picture
And hardly touch the water
From the spring of childhood
In the hour of our death
When the day comes
The day suitable for dying
The humble leprous king will smile

Miroslav Válek - Killing rabbits

Miroslav Válek - Killing rabbits
(Zabíjanie králikov

On Sunday after the breakfast
When the air is about half-way to the ice,
The thin flutes of mice whistle in the chimney,
On Sunday after the breakfast
To walk on the fresh snow
Towards the cages.
To put down the gloves for the pink feast,
To spike them on the fence
Like palms freshly chopped off
And to smoke through the door.
Then only to insert the seeking hand
And with the smoke in teeth say sweet things,
Flatteries and sweet words,
To commiserate a little.
Grasp firmly by the skin
And lift off the warm straw.
On Sunday afternoon
Smell the ammonium.
For a while hold by the left hand, head down,
Watch the ears go purple,
To stroke tenderly behind the neck,
Blow on it, carry away
And suddenly with the right hand hit to the rear.
Once more feel the bounce
for the needless jump,
Feel heaviness in the palate,
hear how opens heavens of the hares
and how fall of them
handfuls of hairs.
Viennese blue,
Belgian giant
French ram,
Czech spot,
but as well the bastard of whatever breed,
all of them die with the same speed
and without single word.
On Monday have blue under the eyes, be silent,
On Tuesday reflect on the world's fate,
On Wednesday and Thursday invent the steam engine
and discover stars,
On Friday think of something else,
but first of all about the blue eyes,
all the week round pity the orphans
and be among the flowers fans,
On Saturday on her mouth
On Sunday after the breakfast
kill a rabbit.

Jan Skácel - A brief description of summer

Jan Skácel - A brief description of summer
(Krátký popis léta)

Wild fires
From the four sides the summer burns

Soporificallly bloom acacia groves
Green soul of wine smoulders in the vineyards
Poppy flowers in the wheat bleed

The darkness comes
and the moon walks on the silver bridge

The world is like bread withdrawn from the oven
that the night is eating away

Jan Skácel - The dead

Our dead are all the time along
Thus we can never be alone
And they come here like shadows
In their hair ash and clay of meadows
Their faces are like erased
But we're by mutual knowledge graced
After the cornflowers of last summer's spell
Their hands very faintly smell
They greet me quietly like their own
A hunchback whom the presence has shown

Miroslav Válek - The land beneath your feet

Miroslav Válek - The land beneath your feet
(Zem pod nohami)

Deep oceans of mud. Roaring rain. The skies of lead
fell on the plain. My lonely rook, where do you want to land ? Where is the firm ground, where is the land ? Your land is what you must not lose. The taciturn man are absorbed in booze. They drink for courage, they drink for they fear. Until the pub becomes a smear. The heads are light and empty, but the liquor purges. The yellow sad candles burn in churches. The deaf heavy water falls since the morning. And land only sleeps replete with graves and mourning. The faces are hid, from the tears rid, but the bitter wails last. As at the beginning, the same at final blast.

*

A minute before sleep, in the total immobility of time, facing you, I retreat.
That is where the green sun from my childhood drawings sleeps,
A three-legged dog speaks in the clear human voice,
A blackbird of ink quietly whistles on the blotting paper.
The genuine aspect and meaning of things appears.
Far away, but all the same it used to be,
Untouched and clean, because everyone's childhood is locked with a key lost forever.
When we feel hard, we come here,
Bang on the gate and request : Open !
But the house on magpie's leg would not stop,
Only the mute blacbird foolishly flies right to the sun.
Locked. Locked for million years, forever.
That is why when we talk about the past,
our children weep and ask us : Stop !
Stop the terrible story where everything is so sad.
Sad dreams, sad sunrise, sad sinking stars,
torn from the night sky.
Thus the death kept coming, lighting the blue fires of liquor in fathers' heads.
The black slice of bread, hanging over the mouth like a fantastic moon,
But waning a hundred times faster,
And the desperate planets of children's eyes, clinging to it until total destruction.
The sweet mother tongue and the bitterness of two
quite innocent words : Mom, give.
What is the sound of a tear falling
in the absolute darkness, clear, transpatent ?
Head in palms, I wonder if it might be true.
Where are you, the plain of landowners' buggies
Marking your face like the pox ?
Where are you, the plain of seasonal workers,
full of mud, tired,
the plain of hoboes and local fools,
humiliated and naked,
trembling under the poor cloth of its poverty,
before the eyes of the just god
bought for three sacks of valid indulgences
We have forgotten you,
we have forgotten the hands buried alive,
the jobless hands, without any concrete meaning, unnecessary.
In the wonderful darkness of a night in July,
in the strained quiet before the fruits ripen,
while putting the last tile on the roof of your house,
while closing your eyes before sleep,
you all, who praise your day,
call for the waters.
Call for the waters that have flown away,
speak to them in every form :
Come back, ancient rivers,
flow again in your old troughs.
Circles on the water, get more narrow until
the fatal fall of suicide's body.
Green up, blind eyes of wells,
wipe your mirrors containing the words :
diseases, poverty and famine.
Bloody sweat, raise from the Earth depths,
praising the hands that sowed you in.
Have mercy, oceans,
return your salt to the tears of women and mothers,
who were sinking under the life's gravity.
Join together, waters of recent and ancient past,
render the testimony for the alive,
who, touching the sun,
need the certainty of knowledge,
the solid point,
land beneath their feet.

Miroslav Válek - By Letters

Miroslav Válek - By Letters
(Po písmenku)

I'd weep, but I am not much frustrated
I'd care, but no baby is really mine
By letters this new song is created
It makes me drunk like a bottle of strong wine
The letters pour in massive quantity
But much more than contains the alphabet
Is amount of treason and perfidity
Oh well, there is no reason to look back
Everything is now so clear between us
Two many desertions, but too little love
Similar to a stone, our life is tough.

Miroslav Válek - A sad streetcar in the morning

Miroslav Válek  - A sad streetcar in the morning
(Smutná ranná električka)

A sad streetcar in the morning
I'm within I'm within
Fully imprisoned
In its glass coffin

The mournful bells ring before us
The mournful bells ring also behind
The mournful bells in sad session
A mournful funeral procession

Whenev'r I come to you
Whenev'r I come before your jury
I weep as if I was on funeral
I regret my life one day elapses
Something in me always collapses
I have always something to bury

All town today is sad
Sad parks, the mournful mall
And I am mourning as if mad

I come to you in case you call
I do the same if you don't call

Jan Skácel - A song about the closest guilt

Jan Skácel -  A song about the closest guilt
(Píseň o nejbližší vině)

There is a spring replete with blood
And everyone has drunk of it
And someone killed only a sparrow
And someone horribly offended

And afterwards he repented
And let the water his palms stain
And watched it against the sunlight
And his fear he couldn't sustain

And held but not long upheld
The water in his fingers, oh my Lord
And crushed the rock in empty quarry
And prayed : stone me or use Thy sword

And held but not long upheld
And his fear he couldn't sustain
And the spring is replete with blood
And all of us now have its stain